Wot! Climb Everest?
Not quite, but alpine camping nonetheless. I'd been in the car with our younger son, Jordan, his father driving our car behind, pulling the trailer with the old yellow whitewater canoe in Tennessee, driving up a fairly narrow, steep grade, when suddenly over the top of the hill, careering toward us, some madman, headed directly for Jody's Subaru stationwagon. Jordan took evasive action, so we weren't hit head on, just grazed and dazed. His father's response? To immediately turn our car to pursue the idiot, forgetting all about the trailer, which handily jack-knifed. That was then; now, years later, same car, some older, chugging along a steep, rocky logging road in British Columbia. Chugging slowly along - until the courageous old car could go no further. We hoisted all our gear and began backpacking it up the narrow road, the sun beating relentlessly down on our hatted heads. What a combination; heat, weight and ascending height.Sure enough, we'd done our share of mountain climbing (not the cleat-and-rope type) when the children were younger. We'd take regular climbing holidays in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and we all loved the Presidential Range, determined to get in as many climbs as possible year after year. This was somewhat different. This was, after all, British Columbia where climbing in the vast wilderness took on a different aspect altogether. After driving out from Vancouver we pitched a tent that night at Lizzie Lake, and left early for our continued drive, then our initial ascent. Pearl-everlasting sided the logging road, and shrill little picas scampered into the brush siding the road as we clambered, bushed even before reaching the trailhead.
Once into the dense forested area we speedily reached the trailhead and began our ascent in earnest. I marvelled at times that Jody was able to discern where the hell the trail was, truth to tell. Narrow, socked in on either side by lodgepole pine and rocks we scrambled, did we ever, all the more so when the trail became steeper and steeper yet. I wondered how the hell we'd ever manage to get back down again. The trail seemed so elusive and eroded at times, stones and dirt shifting, falling under our feet it seemed to me that it might somehow disappear entirely before we descended. At times the trail wound steeply around the mountain side, necessitating that we hug any available trees or rocks to keep from propelling off the mountain, yet at times the height of the back-pack threatened to push off on its own, taking us with it. Or so I imagined. That close-to-the-edge feeling reminded me of a climb we'd taken with the Friends of the Earth Club in Japan many years previously, on one of our many climbs when I thought then too that one false step and it would be game over.
Jordan had been on this trail with friends on an earlier occasion and knew what to expect, telling us the landmarks we'd come across, and encouraging us to persevere. His father needed no such encouragement, his mother certainly did.
When we finally reached the Gates of Shangri-la (a rockfall of tremendous proportions, creating a valley of huge, tumbled rocks over which we had to edge and manoeuvre ourselves) I was reminded of one of the most miserable trails we'd even taken in New Hampshire, called the Ice Gulch, where we also clambered over piles of rocks, although they were not as large and we were in a gulch, clambering horizontally, not perpendicularly. We persevered there too, and finally came out on a sloping mountain meadow, climbing steadily through tall grasses until we reached a fair-sized hut. Inside was an iron stove and chairs; upstairs bunks. A visitors' diary revealed the most-noted aspect of their stay-overs for visitors to have been a persistent pack-rat who was here, there and everywhere, accused of purloining many small, bright, indispensible items, their loss mourned by previous owners.
After a short rest we continued up the mountain side and soon left the 'meadow' far behind, beneath us. I was experiencing real difficulties by then, finding my legs feeling like lead, my breath hard to gasp and my chest tight with the effort. But we climbed, and we climbed. Jordan kept up his encouraging patter, telling us it wasn't too far to the place where we would set up camp. Finally, we pulled ourselves up over a kind of ledge, fording what appeared to be a creek dumping into a waterfall to the side. I looked sideways and yelped: "eek! a bear!" at the furry creature peering curiously at these silly ascending beings. "Oops, Ma, relax, it's a marmot" said my young son, the doctoral candidate in biology.
As we rose we'd reached an alpine lake, its wonderfully blue, clear and cool water spread out in the rock declivity, and at the far end, a large white, roaring icefall, dripping endlessly in the day-time August heat. I felt I could go no further. It's wonderful, though, what a little rest and encouragement can do to get one going, and on we climbed to an area on the mountainside which Jordan deemed sufficiently 'shelf'-like to pitch tent. And so we did. Ever rest in a sleeping bag on an incline? It's a challenge. Bigger challenge for me was to scamble down the mountain side to scoop up water to cook and wash in, and hauling it back up to the camp. Good thing I didn't have to do it too often, since Jody usually obliged. And Dad was the cook. After all, he'd been taking it upon himself to be the chief cook and bottle washer during each and every canoe camping trip we'd ever taken; this time was no different. I was freed from all domestic-type chores. And I appreciated it no end. From where we were camped we were able to see the mountain tops directly across and Jordan told us that we were looking at mountains in the Stein Valley and he planned to do trips there eventually. After all, he was living in Vancouver and all this vast, frightening beauty was his to experience at leisure.
Good weather the following days, and I wore shorts and sleeveless tops, as we did a few day-trips up Long Peak. We'd come across small alpine lakes, as blue and beautiful as the large one below our camp. We picked our way up one trail after another, clambering over huge rocks, seeing vast panoramas spread out before us. We came alongside another large glacier, this one pink in the distance, and close up we recognized pink lichens growing on top of the slowly rotting, dripping ice. There were alpine plants, and stunted trees, and everywhere we looked it seemed as though we'd been dropped into an unfamiliar, fascinating world, a world we had the greatest respect for, as alien visitors. At one juncture we sat atop a slender summit, a rather worrisome seating arrangement for a 58-year-old, moderately adventuresome female who couldn't help cautioning her husband and son on the precariousness of our position. As Jordan sat on his aerie, cheerily biting into an apple (his father snapped that shot and it sits on a desk in our family room) we looked skyward at thunderheads in the distance, and could soon hear them advertising their intent. And so began our descent as we attempted to short-distance ourselves down to our camp, making it just before the heaviest of the rain dumped. And dumped, and dumped. Hey, just another experience atop a mountain. The tent maintained its integrity, although the thunderclaps had me worrying whether the giant claps themselves might deflate the tent and haul it off the mountainside.
Who needs Everest?
Hey, today is our 50th wedding anniversary. But that's fodder for another time, right?
posted by Pieface @ Monday, June 06, 2005
<< Home