N.B. school bus driver gets hero's welcome after returning from Everest base camp
CBC
Luc LeBlanc came home to a hero's welcome this week after fulfilling a life-long dream.
The 56-year-old from Atholville, a small community that's now part of Campbellton, reached base camp on Mount Everest, the Earth's highest peak above sea level.
He travelled half way around the world and then spent nine days of strenuous hiking just to reach the camp, an elevation of 5,364 metres or 17,598 feet.
But as exhilarating as that experience was, it's the welcome he received upon his return, from the children of Le Galion des Appalaches school, that really moved him.
On Monday morning, the school bus driver was met by the students of the francophone K-8 school in Campbellton.
"The entire school is outside and waiting for me with all kinds of big cards and billboards, welcoming me back and congratulating me on my trek," recalled LeBlanc.
The students waved handmade signs and cheered for Monsieur Luc, as they call him.
"It was just overwhelming," said LeBlanc by phone on Tuesday morning.
And it wasn't just because he was still exhausted and jet-lagged after getting home on Sunday evening.
"I'm pretty sure if I would have been in really good shape and everything, it still would have been overwhelming."
"It's been like a wild ride," LeBlanc said.
The trek was both a lifetime in the making and last minute.
Since he was a "little kid" he's wanted to climb Mount Everest in the Himalaya mountain range, and has been drawn to hiking and climbing his whole life. Ten years ago, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.
In January, when he talked about Everest's base camp, his girlfriend told him not to put it off any longer.
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