Trekking with Walter (Doyle): Down and Up Again

Today we joined Walter Doyle's trekking activity for a hike down from the Sport Centre to the river (creek??) valley below, to a bridge dating from Roman times.
Then back up a bit to the railroad track on the other side of the river, and then down the railway path to Le Sepey, a village along the way down/up the mountain from the valley.

Lots of steep downhill to challenge the ankles and legs, plus a decent dose of steep uphill to challenge the will. Nice warm day, great hike, great views.

4th Excursion: Aosta, Italy

On Saturday, we were on the bus to Italy at 7am. We arrived around 9:30, got oriented (a little) to where things were located in Aosta, and then we were free to find our way to the ruins, to the market, to the shops, to the restaurants as we chose.

Great sights, great food, and most important great gelato!!

P.S. Shae-lynn bought things!! Yeah!

Trekking with Terri Round 3: Les Fers

Thursday's trek was back to Les Fers, but this time it was from the top of the telecabine (La Berneuse). Made for a lot less walking up, and more walking across the slopes.

Again, great views, and some fun climbing down the crevasse, using the chains.

The week of July 22nd to 28th

Char's sister Rachel came to visit for the week. It was good for us to see her, and Aidan was happy to see her too. On Monday we started at Chateau Chillon and walked into Montreux.

Great sunset over the mtns.

On Wednesday we visited the Chateau in Gruyere and took the tour of the Caillier chocolate factory. Yum!

3rd Excursion: Chamonix (Mont Blanc, France)

5 of our students chose Chamonix for their excursion on Saturday. One chose Zermatt (The Matterhorn). We went along on the trip to Chamonix, so that's what I'll report on. Shae-lynn can fill us all in later on Zermatt.

Its about a 2 hr bus ride from KLAS to Chamonix. Some nice views along the way, although most of the KLAS students take the opportunity to sleep.

The students had some free time in the morning to walk about Chamonix, see the sights, do some shopping, etc.

Then we took the cog train up to the glacier, rode the tele-cabine down to the start of the 380 stairs, and walked down to the ice cave in the glacier.

Was shocking to see how far the glacier as receded in recent years.

The walk inside the glacier was cool (groan...) We spent 30+ minutes in there... coloured lighting, some carvings and stuff to look at. Great experience.

Back up the 380 steps, up the tele-cabine, back on the train back down to Chamonix. Some more free time before we headed back to the bus for the trip back to school.

Good day was had by all.

Friday: Assembly

Every Friday KLAS has an all-student, all-staff assembly to go over announcements for the weekend, review the events of the week, handle discipline issues, and get everyone on the same page.

We are always pleasantly surprised at the attention and silence of the students during the assembly.

After assembly the students have free time, but many of the clubs have their events at that point. Running club was my choice today, but I walked instead of ran up to Prafandaz and back to school.

Trekking with Terri: Round 2: Les Fers

Last time we took the tele-cabine up, and then walked down to the village again. This time we hiked up and back. Our trek was to Les Fers, over 10km round trip, with around 300m of vertical. Good solid workout completing this hike.

Great reward, tho, as Les Fers has a fantastic restaurant.
Some of us enjoyed the chocolate fondant, other just some ice cream.

We were home to KLAS well in time for supper.

Aquaparc!!

Today, Wednesday, the students had the chance to spend the afternoon at Aquaparc. This par(?k?)c offers waterslides, a wave pool, swimming pool, and a beach on Lake Geneva. Lots to do. Great way to spend the afternoon on a 30C day. They wished they had more time there. (No pictures...)

In the morning, Rick and Janelle (from MMC) made a trip to Geneva to visit CERN, and the LHC (large hadron collider). This facility is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world (and the place where they discovered a new kind of particle 2 weeks ago... a boson, probably a Higgs boson.) The tour was great, and we learned a bit more of the work they are doing.