Everyone has their favorite places in this world. My first favorite place is home. I live in a beautiful ranching area of the Alberta prairies.
My second favorite place is the Rocky Mountains. I first saw the mountains in 1970 when I was 17 years old and camped for a weekend in Jasper National Park with relatives. I fished from the shore of one of the beautiful lakes in the area, catching lake trout and I couldn’t keep my eyes off those majestic mountains. I wasn’t a believer yet then but curiously my first thought was, “surely God dwells here”. That was just the beginning; every chance I got in years to follow, I would holiday in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.
Banff National Park became a regular holiday place for my family. My husband and I loved the beautiful aqua colored mineral lakes, the waterfalls, the rivers, the stillness and quietness on the trails that we hiked, the vegetation on those same trails lined with spruce, pine and aromatic shrub junipers that triggered wonderful memories of Christmas’s past when my Dad would bring home a “real” Christmas tree. After a day of hiking, we often soaked tired muscles in the sulphur hot springs and came out smelling like a rose? Spotting wildlife was always a highlight; moose, elk, deer, mountain goats and a few species of bear. We also enjoyed skiing down the slopes in the crisp winter mountain air!
My Mom used to sing a song called “the Blue Canadian Rockies” and one day I was so excited to actually see the “blue” and I immediately called her. The scientific and mystical come together in this story. The trees take turns producing mists and with their limbs and tiny branches they blow a kiss and scatter the blue light waves creating the bluish haze over the mountains.
One night I watched a full moon rise over Mount Rundle while we were camping. It was June 21st, the summer solstice at 11:00 o’clock at night, very quiet outside, and while the moon rose above the peaks it cast bold silhouettes and mysterious shadows that slowly crept down the mountainside whispering secrets of the spirits of previous generations.
There is magic in the sound and the sight of a train winding its way through the mountains. If you are lucky enough to watch a train make its way through the Spiral Tunnels west of Banff you will see what I named “the dance of the Kicking Horse Pass”. The engine might be emerging out of the upper tunnel while 45 feet below it, the last cars are still entering the lower tunnel. And how haunting is that train whistle that echoes in the mountains for miles with its clear piercing unmistakable sound? I imagined that they were paying tribute to those brave engineers who died on that same mountain generations before.
Our children did not enjoy the 8-hour road trip to and from the Rockies no matter how interesting I tried to make it, but I believe they loved the camping we did on Tunnel Mountain and in the Kananaskis. In the early years we rented my parents Boler holiday trailer. Eventually we bought our own and still enjoy it immensely.
After our kids grew up we continued to travel to the mountains, in fact, more frequently, with friends and relatives enjoying the occasional convenience of mountain lodging. Then COVID hit shutting our world down, and it stopped our “group” travel but we continued, opting to travel alone. My husband doesn’t hike anymore, but I still do. I also have taken up horseback riding in the mountains with my daughter and my granddaughter (and this year, the Lord willing, with my grandsons too) which allows us to see some incredible meadows, mountain tops and spectacular rocky trails we would not normally be able to see. Everything is peaceful, and time stands still while we are there.
I am visiting Banff as I write this story, and as I look out the window of our chalet this morning with fresh fallen snow, it looks like the silent majesty of a winter morn! “The mountains are calling, and I must go!”
Comments