What began as a trip to prove I could still hike like a 20-year old turned into proof that hiking as a 40- year old might be even better.
Check out my posts on Niagara and Toronto and you’ll see that I’m a big fan of Canada. The cities are friendly, easy and cosmopolitan and the outskirts are beautiful and serene. I have always, and from the first visit, felt at home in our Northern neighbor so as I considered where to go for a major hike, the Canadian Rockies came immediately to mind. And my visit to Lake Louise and Banff National Park did not disappoint.
This year I turned 40, started a taxing new job and had a heart breaking fall out with an immediate relative who went from being lost to found to lost again in a matter of months. So, yeah, I needed a bit of Canadian chill like you don’t know. And boy did I get chill.
I headed into Alberta at the tail end of September thinking I’d snag the last bit of fall but an early winter storm had different plans: fresh snow, serious ice and ongoing precipitation most of my trip. Rather than ruin the trip, this winter mix probably made it. The trails were gorgeous white wonderlands and relatively solitary since most tourists stuck to viewing areas and the hotels.
Over the course of four days and 45 miles I climbed over4,000 feet in elevation, saw the most amazing spectrum of blue colors in glacier-fed lakes, walked the streets of tony Banff and made new friends. As I trekked through Yoho National Park, across the Ice Line, around in Paradise Valley, to Lake Celeste, up to frigid Lake Helen and through Healy Pass I had precious time and space for the kind of thinking you don’t even realize you’re brain is doing for you.
Originally I embarked on the trip because I felt like an expiring timer, counting down in the wrong direction away from youth and toward something unknown but surely worse. One day I woke up and was suddenly “old”. But there’s something about the crisp, cold and quiet air of a challenging hike to get the brain working in undercover ways. By the end I had somehow learned that age can be evolution and not necessarily degradation.
True, just finishing the miles was an accomplishment, a verification that age hadn’t bested me yet. But the literal space of the place gave me the mental room to learn to embrace my never-ending potential rather than mourn bygone days. It just sort of came to me that age didn’t have to mean anything I didn’t want it to. As humans ours is the kind of potential that’s not blocked by mere birthdays but is created through faith, trust, optimism and acceptance.
Consider the Larch tree, native to the Banff National Park area – the oldest park in Canada. I happened upon the Larch during the only month when it is at it’s full glory – beautifully golden hued. Does that mean all the rest of the months it’s useless and ugly or that it’s simply preparing for it’s bloom? I’m older, it’s true. But crunching through those snow, Larch and ice covered trails, I think I started to bloom again, too.
