Hiking Mount Frosty

I wake up this morning with my toque over my eyes, my nose numb with cold. We're in Manning Park, camping at 4000 feet. But, the day is clear, not a cloud in sight and John is up and gone to the lake. I hear him coming up the gravel path and wrestle from the sleeping bag. He has been shooting photos and says the lake is special this morning. As in so many other parts of our life together, he shows me the path and leads me down to the light. In full sun, plumes of steam ride across the water. Water skeeters row in and out of the skinny reeds, the sun casting shadows on the stones beneath their small bodies. The light moves with purpose. There is no sound.


Today we will climb Mount Frosty, an 18 km, 3,000 foot hike from our campsite. We start the hike in true Sue and John style – circling round the campsite and back again – Have we got everything? Enough food? Water? Who has the first aid kit? What time is it? 11:00? Good God.

Yes, it’s painful. But eventually, off we go.

The trail is a gradual climb through a ragged spruce forest, and then out across an alpine meadow. The flowers are spent, all their color blasted out through August. We pick handfuls of wild blueberries, laugh about bears and keep walking. Four hours later we’re at the base of Mt. Frosty, pooped and looking up a scree slope with 20 minutes more ahead of us to the summit. All around -  far blue peaks of mountains I cannot name. The clouds wisp into long circles over our heads. A wind rises and we realize the day is closing down and we’re still hours from our campsite. We pass on the summit and start the slog home.

We’ve been out all day and have seen no one. Just the downy woodpeckers that skitter up spruce bark, or the whisky jacks flitting down the trail beside us looking for food and attention. We have spent long periods of the day in happy silence: John has been shooting photos, and I am still thinking about the lake alive with  light and the world of water skeeters; each of us storing small pictures, single moments of peace, that have arrived like a gentle season…

…from Don Domanski’s poem Childhood

every insect is a harbinger

          of what has just begun

the universe is kept in small things

          for safekeeping

keeping safe the stillness

every silence is a lingering of absolutes

it’s all the same god



Check out John's photos of Manning here:
http://picasaweb.google.ca/lh/sredir?uname=johnsampsonphoto&target=ALBUM&id=5513258670353698241&authkey=Gv1sRgCIzjhb7FoIOGfQ&feat=email


….Next post from Christina Lake, and the Columbia Western Railway bike trail.



All the best everyone – Sue 