Before I post the actual pics, some context. I flew north back to my hometown, which may not sound all that exciting, until you remember where I live. Yes, the Pacific Northwest, and to get to my hometown from my current town, you can either fly 750km, take a ferry of slightly longer length, or drive 1,500km. Why is it twice as far to drive? Surely you'd just hug the coast, right? No, because there's a huge range of massive, f'-off mountains between, with no hope of ever just cruising through them.
Believe me when I say nothing makes you appreciate just how untamed and impenetrable so much of my 'backyard' is when you fly over these rugged, jagged, glaciated alpines than having a crystal clear day to bask in their grandiosity. I think I caught glimpse of them once before in my youth, but so many plane trips along the coast were covered by our usual assortment of thick, rainy clouds obscuring all but the tallest peaks. I feel fortunate that this trip afforded me the opportunity to see them in all their splendour, with skies so free of clouds, I could see the Tweedsmuir lakes in the eastern distance. Couldn't really take pictures of them through a tiny plane window though, hence these stock photos standing in.
Anyhow, having arrived in Prince Rupert, I felt an itch, an urge. The town is nestled on an island between its harbour and a mountain of its own, a long ridge with a peak of about 700m high. Clearly a mere foothill compared to the average 3000m behemoths that are scattered about the Coast Range, but a twinge of wanderlust pricked at me. That while I'd likely never climb to the top, say, Mt. Waddington, surely I could do Mt. Hays.
I'd been to the top of that mountain before, but by vehicle up the old mountain road, or taken a gondola up when there was still a tourist and ski station at the summit. I'd never hiked up it, only the various trails scattered about its base. I felt like this was something I had to do before I left, a last little bit of unfinished business where I spent most of my youth. So I did.
It was something I really should have put more forethought into than just doing on a whim. First, I was going by myself, which most hikers will say is already irresponsible, especially in an area that's rather difficult to access from civilization. The weather was nice though, if cold, so surely some other hikers would be out on this day. Save a lone jogger passing me twice (!), I was utterly alone.
I also quickly realized that this was no casual jaunt through a city park, the incline coming immediate and challenging. The whole path was 4km long, just to get to a 500m 'first' peak – I'd walked maybe twenty minutes when I was already feeling that burn. After about the first kilometre, I was at my highest heartbeat level. I thought of a friend of mine who'd gone into cardiac arrest doing the Grouse Grind, a challenging hike in Vancouver. Paramedics couldn't reach him in time, despite people being with him. And here I was, climbing the backside of a steep-ass ridge, by myself, my own heart-rate maxing out, with no one to watch out for me. Or what if I twisted an ankle, blew out a knee, slipped on some rubble? Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.
Yet, there was something uniquely alluring about the path this day. Rainforest hikes are always special, thick with foliage, seeing nature at some of its most feral – and British Columbia is filled with them. On this day though, it seemed even the mighty Pacific rainforests were tamed by the cold that had settled in. Not a biting, brittle freeze, but enough to put nearly everything in stasis. The various mountain run-off streams that dotted the trail were all frozen solid, yet no snow lay upon the ground. The usual chatter of forest fauna, dead silent. It was a realm locked between its natural state and wintery smothering. I didn't want to go back so soon, and the only way further was up. So up I continued.
Eventually, I came upon something I hadn't counted on, as you couldn't see it from the ground below: a snow line. That delicate barrier where the surrounding air is no longer warm enough to melt whatever lay upon the ground. Where you transition from just a regular ol' hiking trail (challenging though it was) to a realm reserved only for the hardcore. The path carried further, but I wondered if that was enough. I hadn't planned to go this far, much less by myself. I was getting seriously out-of-reach now. Plus, I saw large paw prints in the snow. I knew wolves were known to wander these paths, folks discouraged from bringing pet dogs because of it. How fresh were these tracks? They looked fairly recent, little erosion around their imprint, but given how mild the local weather had been in recent days, that didn't prove anything. I could have turned back then, more than having sated whatever need my wanderlust craved. Still I continued up.
Some twenty minutes later, the trail finally came to its natural end. A lone bench marked its final destination, with a view that made it all worth it. The Rupert Harbour as I'd long remembered it. The spit of land that's actually part of the mainland. The Metlekatla village clinging to the inside of that peninsula. Beyond it, across high seas, the Dunbas Islands group, the most northern cluster of Canadian islands in the open Pacific Ocean. And, if you look carefully, in the distant mist, the tall peaks of the most southern tip of Alaska's Prince Of Wales Island.
Granted, it wasn't quite the 'flying over endless f'-off mountains' kind of a view. Even from that vantage point though, you recognize just how much of nature still claims dominion over large swaths of this planet. That despite our best efforts, there's places that we will likely never conquer, that will remain unspoiled, and are privileged to at least glimpse upon these realms should we be adventurous enough to seek them out.
Okay, then. Cool. Now, about getting back down that damn mountain. Oh dear, this is gonna' do a number on my knees and quads, isn't it...? (yep!)
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