Spread my Ashes in the Mountains

A wave of boredom sweeps over me one afternoon as I am hanging around the campground in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park in the summer of 1976. It’s another beautiful day and I don’t want to waste it by sticking around camp visiting relatives with my parents. I need to think of something to do.

Yesterday when I hiked the trail around Upper Kananaskis Lake, I saw a sign marking the start of the Mount Indefatigable hike; I could do that today. Hiking around the lake was okay, but it became monotonous. Hiking up a mountain may be more exciting.

I hike up the road to Upper Kananaskis Lake and cross the dam to where the trail starts. It starts off flat in the shade of the pine forest, but it doesn’t take long before I reach switch backs and the trail slopes up the side of the mountain. Soon I find myself at the bottom of an exposed rocky ridge that rises alongside Lower Kananaskis Lake, and I can see our campground below. I am surprised to see how much smaller everything looks from my vantage point. I feel excited and want to climb the ridge and find out where it leads.

Hiking along the ridge, I am in awe because I can see the entire Kananaskis valley and the Opel mountain range. I should have brought a water bottle because its hot and the hike is more strenuous than I expected. I also wish I had hiking boots to feel safer because there is a steep drop off to the lake below and my runners don’t have much grip.

When I reach the top of the ridge, I see a mountain meadow for the first time in my life. I feel like I fell down a rabbit hole into another world because I’ve never seen so many wild flowers. It’s getting late, but I want to continue hiking up the mountain side through the meadow to the summit; I’ve come this far, it would be disappointing to turn around now and head back to the campground.

As I exit the meadow, the trail becomes steeper, with large rocks and snow. Feeling the cold, I realize wearing shorts and a T-shirt was not a good idea at this altitude. My heart feels like it is going to explode from the exertion as I make my last push to the summit.

I am thrilled as I stand on the peak of Mount Indefatigable and gaze at the surrounding mountains. Looking down, and seeing how high I climbed, I am amazed by the feat I accomplished. I don’t want to leave, so sit for awhile and soak in the experience. Damn, I enjoy climbing mountains!

That hike up Mount Indefatigable was the first time I climbed a mountain, and that climb became a life-changing experience as I fell in love with the mountains. Later, while attending the University of Calgary, I went on my first overnight backpack trip, and thus began my passion for hiking. Since then, I have hiked over 100 times.

As much as I love hiking, and want to share the experience with those who have never backpacked before, I have difficulty finding people to accompany me. They don’t understand the appeal of carrying a 40 lb backpack and spending days doing without luxuries to experience the beauty of an alpine meadow. Bears are also another deterrent. I tell them there are signs of bears whenever I go hiking like scat, tracks and digs, but I’ve only have had one encounter with a bear. Joel and I were hiking up to Allstones Lake when I heard a Black bear 50 m away, crashing down through the underbrush towards us. I had my bear spray ready and told Joel to yell so the bear could hear us. As soon as the bear heard us, it stood and started sniffing the air. When it caught a whiff of us, it turned and ran as fast as it could. That is the thing with bears: they are afraid of humans, so if you make your presence known, they will avoid you. Just don’t do dumb stuff like cook food around your tent, or neglect to use bear lockers to store your food.

There have been three times I feared for my life on a hiking trip. On one occasion, I was hiking by myself in the early morning and got a prickly feeling that I was being stalked by a cougar. Cougars scare me more than bears because you will never see them attack until it is too late. The second time was when I heard noises outside the tent and thought it was a bear snooping around, but was only a deer grazing on grass around the tent. (Yes, I feel silly now). The third time occurred when I had to cross a prominent ridge with steep slopes on both sides. It was like walking across a tightrope, and I could fall to my death on either side, so I turned back and waited for my companions to return from a day hike. It did not help to know someone had actually fallen to their death on the ridge when they walked out onto the snowdrift and it gave way.

The weather is what I worry about the most when planning a hiking trip. Weather in the mountains can change instantly and vary from one extreme to another. I have hiked on beautiful summer days when the sky is clear and I can see for miles, to cold windy wet days that have forced us to hike out early. I have also woken up to snow on the ground several times.

The most miserable weather I experienced was a three-day hiking trip along the Palliser River. It started showering on the first day and never stopped. I didn’t own rain pants or a proper rain jacket; as a result, I got soaked to the bone. After two days, I didn’t have a single piece of dry clothing. Fortunately, I did not get hypothermia. On the second day, we called it quits and hiked close to 20 kilometers in rainy weather to get to our vehicles. It was this trip that made me to decide to invest in better quality rain gear and hiking clothing.

The other way of ruining a hiking trip is getting blisters. Hiking in blisters is painful, especially when you are climbing, and it also slows you down. Once I wore new boots on a hiking trip to Jonas Shoulder without first breaking them in and developed blisters on the back of both my heels. They broke, and I had raw flesh rubbing against my sock. On that trip, I learned you can never have too much moleskin or duct tape in your backpack.

I rarely hike alone, but not just for safety reasons. I enjoy hiking when I can share the experience of being in the mountains with someone else. I also enjoy the conversations and the time spent together hiking. The beauty of the mountains and the companionship during the hike will keep me wanting to continue hiking as long as my body will allow it.

The special trips are the ones I have shared with Michelle and my sons. My Dad joked at our wedding when he welcomed Michelle into the family that I tested her by taking her on a hiking trip. I was so naïve back then that I took her on a 15 km hike with a 500 m gain in altitude to Turbine Canyon. That’s a tough hike for someone who has never hiked before. If it were a test, she passed with flying colors. Later, when we had children, we started taking them on short hiking trips. I remember the first trip when we hiked up to Sunset pass with Brett. I had to carry Brett on my shoulders and when it was time to go to sleep he kept Michelle and me awake because he was having fun and wanted to play some more in the tent.

Although Michelle and my sons don’t share the same passion for hiking as I do, they have never refused when I asked to them go on trips. Recently, Michelle hiked the Skyline Trail with me, and I have informed Joel it is his turn next year to go. I have told my sons that when I die; I want them to go on a hike together and spread my ashes in the mountains. As much as I would like to have my ashes spread at the top of Mount Indefatigable, it is not possible because Alberta Parks has decommissioned it because it is a prime habitat for both Black bears and Grizzly bears. I still give my head a shake, remembering that I left to hike Mount Indefatigable without water, proper footwear and clothing, and bear spray.