So where was I? I believe I had landed in Fort St. John in the northern half of British Colombia for my first stop in Canada after months of traveling Latin America. I was met by my dad, sister Mariah, cousin Jonathan, and Uncle George who were all up from Saskatoon for my cousin Dean's wedding. Ringing any bells yet? We were seated with my uncle/godfather Bill, aunt/godmother Helen, and several others at the only Greek restaurant in town for dinner of lamb chops and Greek salad not to mention tiny fish and plenty more. It was, to put it mildly, nice to see everybody again. After dinner (thanks, Uncle George!) we went back to the hotel and met up with some more cousins including the groom-to-be and his brother Theo. I was fresh off my 23 hour trip from Rio that very day so I wasn't ready yet to have a big night out but that made no difference. We had some drinks (including Cpt. Morgan and Dr. Pepper, a winning combination) and met Dean's friends and the males of Jen's family before heading out into Fort St. John for a night that didn't quite rival Rio in splendour but definitely did so in company. Eventually, Jonathan and I could take no more and walked back the "three blocks" to the hotel. When I got back into the room I'd had enough to wonder who else was sleeping in the dorm before crashing like a brick on the very non-bricklike mattress.
Morning came as it always does, a couple hours before you'd like it to. We were downstairs for breakfast by 9 AM which included delicious Belgian Waffles in thick Canadian maple syrup, sausages, orange juice, and all the usual fixings that were especially delicious after two weeks straight of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with scrambled eggs. There was a nap involved before the wedding for Jonathan, Mariah, and myself and then we headed out to the acreage where Dean and Jen were to be wed. Arriving home after a long trip is a combination of traveller's anxiety and the terminally ill's miraculous recovery. When you're traveling (or when I am) I want to see everywhere I am thoroughly because who knows when I will see it again? Take it all in, see it properly, you're rushing! It feels like a second chance and you see the world in a new way but you only feel this at home where you don't generally look at the surroundings with new eyes. You want to do it right this time, soak in every great experience there is to have and really LIVE. Forget the old routine, work 5 days, drinks on Friday night, a day of activity on Saturday, and rest on Sunday. You're going to make the most of it and that sounds to me like the recovery of someone who thought their time was up. So I was taking in the surroundings with wide eyes and thinking that it was not at all bad to be here at home and loving the countryside while finally having my family at my side too.
It helped that the place they chose for their wedding was stunning. On a high bluff overlooking an ancient river valley sat a table on a white blanket surrounded by green grass and standing with far away cliffs at its back. This was where the ceremony was to take place. I greeted more family that I hadn't yet seen and met a few new people and decided that while all the groomsmen were just standing around I'd get the hang of my camera in the northern hemisphere. We had our little photo shoot until the photographer came up to Dean and, looking at me, told him that everyone was to remain seated during the reception. Fair enough, I know how to stay out of the way of her photos but she doesn't know that and of course once one person is up and roaming more will follow. But it didn't bode well for my efforts to get some nice photos for them. Still, I tried my best from the seat and they came out alright. The minister was almost always in my way (to quote him, repeatedly, "Come on!") when the photographer wasn't and my angle meant I rarely got a look at Dean's face. But Jen's was there looking very beautiful in the afternoon sun and as they finished their hybrid Greek-Ukrainian ceremony and walked back down the aisle I was able to stand and get a photo or two as well.
Afterwards, when Dean and Jen drove off in their very nice wedding-day car, I was finally able to get a few photos that their photographer somehow neglected/ignored/forgot about of Dean helping her into it. Then we went back to the hotel as there was nothing to do in Fort St John but admire the scenery, gas up the car, and then wash it, and waited for the reception. It was set up and organized quite nicely with each table having the name of a Greek island and decorated in blue and white. I was shocked in the end to see that Dean only had two tables to Jen's many more but it was far away for most of our family to get to. I knew that would make our plans to really get the Greek music going difficult but it turned out that would not be the only factor. Dinner was incredible and I had two helpings not to mention a few Caesars (mmm, Clamato!) and wine while Dean, Jen, and others had some nice speeches and I wracked my brain for a funny anecdote. After a disorganized start and one of the worst-equipped DJs known to the industry there was a zambekiko that nobody was drunk enough for and then a Zorba remix that was faster than light. We danced so fast by the end and so soon after dinner that I had to disappear to the room after to throw up.
In the end though, we did a Tsamiko (Jonathan did not return from the room as he had been feeling as bad as me), kalamatiano, and other Greek dances which some of the largely-Ukrainian group joined in on while the others formed a circle and clapped or snapped photos. I was out of there with Mariah around midnight and probably asleep around 1. We were up again at 5 AM to get breakfast and head out of town towards Saskatoon. Little did I know, we were stopping at West Edmonton Mall en route (hence the REALLY early wake up) for some waterpark mayhem. We took Jonathan on some of the water slides for the first time in his life and it was hilarious - you should have heard him screaming coming down the Thunderbolt! In his terror, he was also leaning all the way back on the sled-skid so when it jumped off the slide and into the water all his weight resulted in a backflip which had everybody in sight roaring. I should confess that his idea of later playing in the kiddie area and using the various devices to soak people was much more fun than I gave him credit for initially.
Then, after a nice bowl of Pho, we were off again for Saskatoon. Everything is really green and colourful as though it's spring and I was loving our prairie landscapes not to mention the skies and sunset. It's something you either get or you don't but the more I'm away the more I appreciate the simple beauty of this province. The funny thing is that I still feel as though I'm on the road, traveling. Maybe I needed a plane ride into Saskatoon for closure or maybe as much as things are the same you can never go home. Certainly I'm happy to be here but as we drove up to our driveway I felt no sense of anything either positive or negative. It's as though I was away in Calgary for a week or something rather than almost a year. On the plus side I am - so far - very interested in continuing to explore the options here at home and make life a bit more interesting here in Saskatchewan while I save for the next big trip, house, move, or whatever is coming next. It will be hard when I'm going to be so busy for my first month back and on that note, I should go and plan my best friend's bachelor party coming up this weekend!
It’s easy to get into a routine of waking up early when your days are spent doing physically demanding activities and you live in a tent where the light is gone by 9 and the sun is up by 5. So contrary to my normal modus operandi, waking up at 5:30 was not a problem. After the ritual morning coffee for Dan and tea for me, followed by breakfast, we packed up and made our way to Mt Robson, the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies and home to some excellent hikes. Or so we’d heard. Of course, you can only see the top of this mountain – which is so big that it creates its own weather system – maybe 14 days of te year. The rest, it is shrouded in cloud. This was one of those 14 days and we were both awed and grateful to see this massive mountain in its entirety. We were less excited to discover that the campground we wanted was booked up so we wouldn’t make it too far that day. We did however get a camp spot 11 km in at Whitehorn, which was definitely a step or several thousand in the right direction.
While we were packing up our gear for the hike, any number of German and Japanese tourists came to have their photo with the bike. By the time we did set off, after a quick lunch at the car, it was 1:30. You start by crossing a river, hiking for some time in the forest and then eventually coming to a lake which you follow along to a river that winds around the mountain. Our trek to Whitehorn was pretty relaxed as we didn’t have a lot of distance but we did have plenty of time. We stopped and de-swelled our feet in the glacial river before getting to camp. These camps were supposed to have bear poles to hang your food out of reach of the bears, but it did not – simply bear boxes that were, you hoped, impenetrable. We ate and got some rest, for tomorrow was going to be a bigger day than either of us had planned and we’d need all the energy we could muster.
We had booked a second night of camping in at Berg Lake, thinking we could easily cover the distance on our third day back out. However, we woke up to a beautiful day and after some discussion decided to leave our tent setup and hope nobody needed the spot. This bumped our 14km day up to a 30km day and we needed to get moving. As we went along the trail the weather started to get cloudy and we heard from others that there was a risk of thunderstorm for which we were not really prepared. Still we pressed on as things didn’t seem likely to go that way in the next while and we were coming up on some great waterfalls. Particularly, Emperor Falls was awesome. The first view you get from afar is the waterfall with the sun tinting the mists golden. It falls into a trough cut impossibly midway across a vertical cliff face, so that the river runs like an aqueduct far above the valley floor. It is surreal and difficult to capture in words or photograph.
From there you wind your way closer, near to the very base of the waterfall. Dan and I weren’t satisfied with near and made our way to the roaring base, As many views as we’d been afforded of the waterfall from afar, nothing could prepare us for the immensity and power of the waterfall. We took some silhouette photos slightly above the base of the falls, getting thoroughly drenched in the process and then proceeded up the steepest part of the entire trail. It was a relief to get to the top of that and finally meander our way to Berg Lake. Here again was another place that had it all. Waterfalls, glacial blue lakes, the tallest mountain in the Rockies, glaciers, snow, and sun.
The sun, however, was fading and haze from nearby forest fires rolling in, which did not bode well for our photography. Still, we pressed on, taking the upper track to Mumm Basin which gave great views of yet another glacier in the distance, the mountainside, the valley, and of course Mt Robson though it was now clouded over. At that altitude, though, the wind was heavy and brisk and we got a bit of rain as well as we made our way to Toboggan Falls, a waterfall that runs like water on an immense slope rather than carving a drop as most falls do. This was our landmark to head down to the lower trail and lose the 1 km or so we’d gained in elevation. We stopped at Berg Lake where we were to have camped and had a lunch of rice, ichiban with canned turkey and a granola bar before setting out to return to our camp. We made it back exhausted, physically and mentally drained, reaching shelter less than a minute before it suddenly began to pour and the thunderstorm rolled up the valley. It was a great day to be alive.
The advantage of hiking all the way back to our starting point, aside from not having to haul alot of the equipment, was that we were only 11km from the exit. We hiked out and crossed the border in Alberta and specifically Jasper National Park where we set up an early camp and celebrated our heretofore hectic pace with beer and pizza at a little restaurant nearby. I’d never really spent any time in Jasper, I didn’t like the town itself as much as Banff right away, but I would discover that it offered far more outdoor adventure than Banff during the summer months. And, dare I say, my first encounter with a bear in the wild? Next time...
In Singapore, March 2008, I met a man known to many as Alabama Dan. We were both working on our photos and had just come from Indonesia, he from Sumatra and I from Java and inevitably began comparing notes. We went for beer later with a couple girls and further down the road met up again in Luang Prabang, Laos and stayed in touch as we both worked to get our Chinese visas. While I went home in August of the year, “Alabama” Dan Fritts kept on travelling, hiking in Nepal to Everest base camp, riding across Mongolia, heading to Egypt, Jordan, and then home. But coming home for him was simply a springboard to the next phase of his worldwide trip: The American Expedition. From afar he nagged me to join part of his journey. Photos of canyons in Zion, Utah; Volcano climbs and beach camps in Hawaii; Skiing the slopes in Colorado; A few weeks in Guatemala; I almost joined him on each of the latter two. Pictures would come my way, stories here and there, Facebook status updates, all means of persuasion. And finally, when he said he was coming up to Canada and heading to Alaska, I caved. Although we didn’t end up in Alaska due to the expense, a “Canadian Expedition” was planned from Vancouver to Calgary through the mountains hiking our way east and, for me, home.
The flight left Saskatoon August 17 at a bleary 6:10 AM and after finally falling asleep at 2 AM, I almost slept in. Thankfully, dad woke me up at 5:00 and I was packed and ready to go, so I simply had to get dressed, throw my backpack on my shoulders, and walk out the door. My dad had even gone to the trouble to make breakfast for me, cutting up some fruit and snacks for the plane ride. What can I say? I’m pretty lucky. On top of this, when I arrived in YVR and stepped outside and into Dan’s green pathfinder (with an awesome motorcycle on the trailer), he also had some breakfast waiting. We caught up on the drive through Vancouver north towards Whistler and more specifically towards Garibaldi Provincial Park. Three hours of sleep or not, we had a 9 kilometre hike ahead of us up and down a mountain to reach Garibaldi lake and the glacier that feeds it. Uphill was a bit rough on me, being both tired and somewhat out of shape, and I forgot my camera in the car which I thankfully discovered on our first kilometre and ran back to rectify. Not the smoothest start to two weeks of outdoor adventure.
Aside from that little snafu and the almost-sleeping-in however, everything went fine. After a seemingly interminable uphill slog we could glimpse that indescribable blue of the glacier lake through the trees below us. And then we began descending, finally reaching a clearing downstream on the Garibaldi River and giving us our first view up the river to the lake. The colour was nothing short of incredible and though in this age of cynicism everything beautiful has been photoshopped, I can tell you that I did not touch the colours or do much more than a little cropping here. Even had I wanted to, I don’t know what could be done to improve them, even if they fail to do justice to the spectacle in real life. We hiked the rest of the way to the lakeshore and set up camp and after looking around a bit and getting some photos we cooked up a sausage spaghetti primavera. Not bad for being in the wilderness, not bad at all.
The sun was beginning to set on Garibaldi which burned up our digital film with each minute change in shade. It was a perfect sunset in a perfect setting, the glacier ahead absorbing colour from the sky like ink on a white dress. It probably got a bit chilly in the evening but I don’t remember, I was so tired that I pretty much passed out instantly. That sleep was needed and then some, for the second day brought 24 km of ground to cover on foot, hiking up to the top of the Panorama Ridge which affords amazing views of the lake and glaciers below, the mountains distant, and the Black Tusk, an ominous looking spire of obsidian clawing at the sky. And we couldn’t have asked for a better day to do this hike. The weather was perfect, the skies clear, and the sun shining, and we set off again, up and up to the Panorama Ridge.
On the way, our eyes were peeled for bears. It is a sad Canadian that has not seen a bear in the wild, and I was tragically a member of this oft-scorned club. I was hoping to remedy this. No bears were spotted, but I did see two marmots, which was also a first for me. Soon we were at the top and it was better than I could have expected, bordering precipitously on perfection. I had reception on my iPhone and even photos taken from its poor camera had received plenty of praise by the time we finished hiking out. Our main goal complete, and a quick lunch of apples and peanut-butter sandwiches, we set off for civilization again, making pretty good time in the mountains at about 5 km / hr. Even when we’d reached the vehicle again, there was still plenty of ground to cover. There weren’t any really significant stops for some miles.
We stopped in Whistler, as I’d never been, and looked for a cheap place to grab a bite while we explored the small town. I didn’t realize that they used the mountains for mountain biking in the summer, this was a revelation that I found very exciting. Dan was meanwhile impressed by the sheer number of people using the lift, particularly those with high-end gear. I think that had we more time and money a day on the mountain here would’ve been in order. Instead we returned to the car and set off north towards Jasper. There was no time for cooking so we stopped for some pizza in Pemberton which, somehow, felt very familiar to me. I think I’ve seen a photo of my mom at the Pemberton train station before. At 10 we finally came to a recreation area where we pulled in, made camp, and called it another very long day.
Although we had been looking for somewhere to stop along the way, very little presented itself to us that next day. We took the road less-travelled and headed north to 100 Mile House on the old gold trail before turning east. I’m sure both of us will find ourselves on the southern highway again at some point, but up here, excuses are harder to find. We cut across the northern country and skirted some fires nearby enough to darken the sky, making our way for Wells Gray National Park. Thanks to the distance we had covered yesterday, we made it there early enough in the afternoon to drive and see some waterfalls. They were beautiful to look at, particularly Dawson Falls (I think that was its name) a wide, terraced fall. There were others that could have been captured in different light but it was not meant to be today. We debated coming back for some sunset photos but driving and hiking and, in my case, a lack of sleep precluded that. We instead had pork tenderloin for dinner while pouring over the maps, planning the next few days, grabbing a shower, and roasting marshmallows while admiring the impressive array of stars. Tomorrow, we would head to Mt Robson, sitting on the edge of BC and Alberta and boasting the tallest mountain in Canada’s Rockies.
