A Day in the Alpine Starts Early

A day in the alpine starts early. With routines. Coffee on. Oatmeal. First layers of clothing. A little extra time adjusting socks. (Socks are important.) Running the checklist. Lunch. Water. Map. Compass. Essentials. Why is this pack so heavy?

And then the effort begins. To get there.

Moving from valley bottom to alpine takes extraordinary energy. Not just time. Coordinating schedules. Figuring out how to get to the trailhead. But the getting to the trailhead. So much energy. A little better when carpooled. The drive takes energy. Stored and released. Modern motors. Nagging question of ethics. Is this ambiguity or avoidance? This privilege we have made to feel like a right of access?

But then arrival and the first hints of a day immersed in the mountains, in sky and water and rock and leaves, or depending on the season, mostly snow. Green gray blue white. The air different. Thinner, rare, clear – various attempts to describe it. Are we romanticizing this? Engelmann spruce, alpine fir, junipers? The air is different.

Fussing with packs and boots and gear at the trailhead. Tightening straps, hip belts. Where are the truck keys? Don’t forget your water.

First steps. Pause at the trailhead. Intention. Gratitude. Offering.

Secwépemc elders have taught protocols to offer tobacco before entering the forest, the mountain, the berry patch. Give and take. Less so, it seems in my own settler traditions. At least the part that didn’t seem to make it across with our colonial baggage. The contemplative thread left behind, the pilgrimage, speaks of starting with a step of intention. Opening and offering ourselves to the world. Setting aside our expectations to the service of the other. Listening for the still, small voice. This simplest gesture opens the greatest joy. Gratitude. Where did we go so wrong?

Walking the approach. The deep drum of each footstep against the earth. A rhythm of different textures. Bounce in the hemlock and cedar. Resonant in the open rock and heather of alpine meadow. Deep echoing through the rock talus. And then there’s the slide alder and rhododendron.

Slide alder and rhododendron. The fortress armour to the alpine. Perimeter wall around the slopes above 1700 metres. Where there’s no trail, moving up through these woven masses of branches and leaves often suspends the walking into the air, reaching and bouncing on branches struggling forward. There is cursing. Thank goodness for the huckleberry breaks. I wonder about the carnage that follows when we insist on penetrating this brilliant alpine buffer with our trails and travel ways. Ask caribou.

Enter the alpine.

The old friends begin to appear. Sitka Valerian. Globe flower and Anemone. Exotic Monkey flower. Fringed Grass of Parnassus. Have you tasted the sweet nectar of the paintbrushes? Tuber of the avalanche lily or western spring beauties? Stay clear of the heady thick green of hellebore. Shiny allure of Bane Berry. Cow parsnip is fine – but get to know the difference. Mosses. Heather. And of course, the ancient lichens. Munching on a millennia of rock mineral and air. A perfect collaboration.

All within inches of the ground. A season of only weeks for some before snow covers it all again. Our footsteps a new point of contact in this fragile, fierce landscape. Do we dare voice the question: should we even be here?

But then I loose myself to the world around. Forget my thoughts. Loose track of time. Loose track of self. The day opens like a circle. Maybe there is a little weather. Map troubles. Even fear.

We follow caribou tracks visible only through the shallow tarns. Stop for water surrounded by sheep pellets. Wait while John pokes about with a stick in hot steaming grizzly scat. Huckleberries and lily tubers he announces after sniffing the stick. We have been seeing the diggings all morning.

Alpine walking is equal parts joy and fear and one mindful step after another. Grizzly, cougar, rock fall and weather. This is their domain. We are visitors. Was there ever an invitation?

Stop for lunch. That’s when the whine of the 10,000 wings makes its dominance known. Mosquito, black fly, no-see-um, and horse. There have been days when we wore our gortex parkas in the full sun of noon just to provide some protection. Some relief. Funny how we always forget this part in the telling later. Photoshop the horseflies out of our vista prints.

There’s pointing if the sky is clear. Peaks over there. Pointing at maps. Glimpse of the lake there – deep in the fjords. Tiny ribbon of highway. How crazy is it that we can still hear motors up here?

The day stretches. The light yellows. The descent beckons.

Phil McIntyre-Paul March 28, 2021