Lisa and I headed up the creek with Lola and Willow. It was chilly with frost on the windows. It would have suited me to go towards the sun on the west side, instead we went east where the mountains get bigger, taking the sun longer to rise.
Not much water in the creek up high, plenty of rose hips and cones on the spruce, the winter birds will take advantage.
Lola stayed on leash because she is a puppy and we haven’t quite have her figured. If she went after something I don’t trust my ability to chase her down.
We watched the sun rise through the low spots in the mountains, lighting the shadows and turning the trees colour.
All the up and down, older its harder to keep track. Been told things are good and bad. Haven’t been able to tell the difference. Now older, I don’t care as much. It’s hell on the writing and photo taking, also making love suffers. Is it age, no longer have the want to fight like in the old days. Lovemaking and fighting, nobody can tell me they aren’t connected.
Still, if truth be known, it’s good not to be a slave to fighting and sex. Cripes, before long I’ll be sitting to pee. Drinking lite beer. Less calories and low alcohol. I’ll start birdwatching, not unusual, but will go out with the group. Start wearing a sweater in the fall regardless that it’s still goddamn hot. Start limping to let everyone know my advanced age. Swear off whisky. Refuse spicy stuff because, ‘it will keep me up at night’. Take my boots off every time I enter the house. Keep the slippers beside the door. Wash my dentures every night. Religiously, brush my remaining teeth. Teach the hounds English instead of learning dog. Pull out the flowers before they go to seed, saying, ‘I’ll never smoke all that shit.’
It doesn’t sound good but old age does have its advantages.
Hunter organized a fantastic fall hike up Pedley Pass. We started out early and were on the trail by 8:30. Bree, Hunter, Tiara, Bree’s Dad Dave, Mike, Dave and me cut through the bush to Bumpy Meadows and then higher to the crossroads. We were accompanied by the good dogs Willow, Ash and Pedley damned and determined to explore her namesake.
Dad Dave bathing in the mornings first sliver of light.
We choose to cut across to the small lake instead of the ridge. Our pace was good and the sun was still down at 11:00 at the lake. After a bite to eat we had some time to explore and take some photos.
Tiara and Hunter exploring the rocks.
Dad Dave and Mike shot the shit at the lake. Bree walked Pedley around the lake, Hunter and Tiara headed for higher ground through the rocks and Dave and I looked for fossils.
Dave cracking shale to reveal a small sea creature.
We all gave thanks for family, good friends, health and the wonderful natural vistas that met us at every bend on the trail. I can think of no better way to spend a weekend.
Beautiful Bree running Pedley along the trail.
Very fine day.
Mike, a man who makes everyone feel special, while having kicked the ass of cancer in his spare time.
Absolutely brilliant weather. Blue skies; warm temperatures in the day, around freezing at night. The garden is still waiting for some hard frosts to sweeten the turnips and cabbage.
Dave, Jack and Matt before sunrise.
Knowing it can’t last I booked a day off for a hike. The idea was to take a coworker from the United Kingdom out, so he could see some Canadian high country. I always feel a little sorry for the kids who come and work at the resort from other parts of Canada or overseas. The area is sold to them as scenic, but unless they have a vehicle they are not able to leave the valley bottom.
Accompanied by good friends Dave and Matt, we picked up UK Jack at 6:30 am and we were off for Forster Creek. A leisurely drive and we were at the trailhead and hiking by daylight.
UK Jack from a lookout above the bottom lake. He has promised me this photo will make it back to his parents in England.
Jack is a tremendous worker at the resort. He works hard and never complains. He is very personable, in my experience, like all the workers we have had from the UK.
The hike up was great through the forest, along Welsh Creek, picking through the moraine to the first lake. The entire area at one time covered by glaciers. I always imagine what it looked like back in time. Now the remaining glaciers are on the highest points of the mountains.
Only a small part of a remaining glacier. The rocks below show where the glacier once occupied churning and breaking the mountain rock.
This is the latest I’ve hiked Welsh. The mountains which show snow in summer is completely gone revealing how small the remaining glaciers have become. The wonderful day we were enjoying, even blessed with, is partially responsible. If the length of warm weather swapped with the cold those glaciers would grow back in no time. Perhaps it will happen sometime filling those empty basins above and below the lakes, keeping ice on the lakes year round, until their blue water freezes straight to the bottom.
Once at the first lake it was decided before I barely had my camera out that we would head up to the highest lake. Matt quickly found a route and we were off. Another hour, after a scramble, we were having lunch at Aberystwyth Lake. Jack was able to tell us the proper Welsh pronunciation, although, he didn’t know the meaning saying, he didn’t speak Welsh.
Iphone photo on the hike down, didn’t have time to grab the Nikon.
The way back down was trying as we took another route through the talus that required me to carry Willow. I cradle her in my outside arm allowing me to fall into the mountain if I lost my footing. Willow is an amazing little dog but has trouble with big loose boulders that move. By the time I was down to the first lake I was sucking hind tit and my arm was aching. We did it right with our spacing, however, not rolling boulders onto each other.
Upper Welsh from Aberystwyth Lake.
The sun was directly above, lighting the turning tamaracks. It’s a perfect world when the gold is opposite the blue green mountain lakes. That was the last I had my camera out as we were heading down. I thought we must be late for something.
Dave, in shape at the ripe age of 63, my good friend who’s intelligence always knocks me off my horse if I ain’t paying attention.
I’m getting old and hiking with three men, in shape, with a combined body fat percentage about 10% of mine can be trying. Still I did my best. Matt kept me company, knowing you never leave the weakest behind. Cripes that pissed me off.
Starting from the top; Cassiopeia, Andromeda, The Andromeda Galaxy, Perseus and its two star clusters, also Pleiades, Taurus and Mars just coming over the mountain Ridge.
To look at the stars is to be amazed. In this day and age we know the science of astronomy. We know distances and the difference between planets and stars. You can steer a ship, plant a garden and set our calendar by them. If we have something in common with every generation going back to the beginning of man it is the stars. To look at the stars among the trees and mountains on a dark night, to feel those pin pricks of light flow through, as they have done and will continue, is to feel lucky.
A quiet morning walk. Orion is up. Mars is red between the red giants Aldebaran and Betelgeuse. To set your eyes on them is to get your bearings. To realize the biggest and fastest is only because it’s closest. An optical illusion.
Orion, Taurus, Pleiades, Mars and four satellites.
The cemetery is dark. I know my way around. The tourists still haven’t blocked Mom and Dad’s view. They used to dig the graves here, a chore given to them by my Grandfather, for extra money after the war. They will be the last of us buried here. Lake view even for the dead has skyrocketed.
Brandywine, Chocalate Cherry, Sweet 100 and Black Krim.
The garden is on its last legs. It’s a good time of year when you can go out and grab supper; broccoli, spuds, kale, beets, carrots, and plenty of tomatoes.
We have yet to have frost so the tomatoes are outdoing themselves. Plenty of ripe ones. They need picking everyday. Lisa and Scarlett took a bunch down to the old folks home yesterday, something our kids did regularly when the garden produced more than it does now.
Life is good when you have home grown tomato salad for every meal.
Damn it feels good. The cooler weather has been a welcome reprieve. It’s still warm for this time of year. Waking to cool air has been nice. Pretty soon we will be ‘fighting for warmth’. That’s what my son Hunter calls it, when you pull the covers over your head, and flex your muscles to keep warm. Probably why many families in the old days had so many kids before central heating.
The summers are trying, heat and tourists. Lisa and I thought it would be funny if fifty years from now, people looked at the large second homes and thought, ‘Damn, what were these folks thinking? Global warming and not an inkling of thought to try and cut back. Can you imagine the energy used to heat that monstrosity?’
Tough to run through, but you can do it if scared enough.
It will probably never happen. The final answer to the pickle we are in will have to protect the richest. Otherwise it would have been solved long ago. It’s not that hard really.
We had breakfast behind Swansea. We took a spur away from the ruck. Plenty of bear shit on the road, they are also trying to avoid the crowds.
Even wondering cutblocks, climbing logging roads, looking for dead snags, a chicken or two crossing the road, washouts, Lisa and I looking at each other in glances, her saying, ‘you should put it in 4 wheel drive,’ and me saying, ‘I’ll put it in four wheel when we’re stuck.’
Fetch me a switch. Dark night and shadows. Good thing we don’t live back then.
A butterfly sunning itself on a thistle. I was happy with the bokeh in the background. It was achieved with my trusty 70-200 F2.8 Nikon lens.
The heat refuses to let up. The sky is blue with a thin haze of smoke. The garden is still going strong. Every blade of grass in our yard is dead and crispy to the delight of the grasshoppers. It is a chore just trying to keep water on the garden.
***
This happened to Willow and she hasn’t been happy about it. She got something stuck in her paw and it became infected. She was licking it raw. A trip to the vet, a few antibiotics, a cone and she is on her way to recovery. Once the swelling went down I was able to cut open and remove the material with a knife. It looked like the burrs that she got into on our late night walk. When she first got the cone she vigorously protested. She refused to eat, drink, use stairs and pee or poop for two solid days. The only sound out of her was whining. Lisa has had to feed her by hand. Willow is starting to get used to it.
A few weeks ago, newspapers quit delivering to the valley. We used to get The Calgary Sun, The Calgary Herald, The National Post and The Globe and Mail. My sister Deb and I miss the Globe.
I am yet to subscribe to the web version of the Globe, but may have too. I subscribe to the web version of The New York Times which I enjoy very much. I also regularly read CBC News, Global, BBC, CNN and Fox.
CNN and Fox are a source of humour as they are not even reporting from the same planet. It is crazy the spin they put on current affairs. They do, however, accurately demonstrate the left/right divide in the United States.
***
Today’s afternoon waning moon.
Recently, a young housekeeper I work with was bitten by something while sleeping at staff quarters. The first time their elbow blew up to about twice its size. They were justifiably alarmed. A few days later they were bitten again below the knee and it started to swell. Everyone suggested they see a doctor.
As doctors are not available at clinics without an appointment they went to emergency at the local hospital. They waited 6 hours without seeing a doctor. A nurse suggested they go home and come back if it got worse.
Some bites can be dangerous without treatment. Just ask the Good Neighbour who was bitten by a spider and had blood poisoning for over a year. I can’t help but feel this housekeeper was treated this way because they were young and poor.
I remember a time when Lisa was in emergency with a broken wrist. Her wrist was being set by a hungover intern (they admitted being hungover due to a Grey Cup party). The doctor on duty at the time had the reputation of being one of the worst in the valley. There were several other people waiting to be cared for, when all of a sudden the emergency room was alive with commotion. Doctors and nurses running hither and yon just like you see on TV when they bring in a shooting victim. Only this time it was an Invermere big shot businessman brought in by his wife.
Lisa was asked to give up the gurney she was on for the mortally wounded. We know him well and thought he must have been shot or having a heart attack. Lisa gave up the gurney willingly. We asked his young wife what had happened to him. It turns out he fell off the last step of his stairs.
The very next day I looked out my office window and there he was walking down the road like nothing happened.
Lisa on the other hand had to have her cast redone, because it had been put on improperly. She was later told by a competent doctor that she should have had surgery as the wrist bone had been broken right through. Her wrist still gives her trouble.
Anybody who thinks all people in Canada have equal access to healthcare are mistaken. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for being able to access any kind of healthcare. We’re lucky, it’s just some people are more lucky than others.
***
A fire fighting helicopter with a water bucket.
There is a few fires burning around us. The smoke hasn’t been too bad so far. We are fortunate considering how hot it’s been.
Palliser Pass 