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| From Moss Rock, Victoria - today's climb! |
A Mountain to Climb
We had been climbing all day. A few rest breaks to take in the vast forests, ribbons of rivers flowing to the sea and in the distance a small town. Doll houses. Lined up in squares, nestled in arcs and circles. Threaded through with greenery, trunks of trees invisible from the heights. Highways, like thin pencil marks, dotted with cars like tiny scurrying ants. Once climbing again, our eyes fixed on the next granite handhold, our goal was the mountain top.
Understand. I’m a prairie girl. If anyone had told me when I walked on the flat dirt roads of Saskatchewan that I would be scaling a mountain with a climbing group……….well, I would have doubled over laughing. Life does send one down strange roads, or should I say climbing up challenging mountains. I had moved to the mountains as a young wandering twenty something. I was only going away for a year. That’s what I told my family and friends. The mountains and valleys held me always for one more day and one more month until 15 years had passed.
I started joining groups just because I was homesick for my friends. None of the groups really fit me - or should I say I didn’t fit in any of them. Except for the hiking and climbing group. The flat prairies had never offered me the perspective that the mountains did. Climbing with a group of friends was really something hard to describe. Although each of us focussed on the granite in front of us, we were together. We always knew where each other were, if there were problems, calling encouragement to each other. The first one to the top of the mountain found a place for our lunch, or if it was an overnight, where we would be camping. The relationship between us was something I had never felt before.
Half way up the mountain, we felt the cold that signalled a storm. Weather reports had talked about a possible storm, but it was supposed to have gone the other direction. We reached the mountain top just as the storm broke. Our leader had arrived first and had one shelter erected. Cold and shivering, we all crowded into one tent, pulled out our snacks and water and settled in for the night. Then it started. One little snicker from one of us - no names! Before long, just when the thunder cracked, we were all leaning against each other laughing at nothing. We were safe, and warm and dry - and very happy.
“Nothing truly valuable can be achieved except
by the unselfish cooperation of many individuals.”
~ Albert Einstein
Author's note: A very tongue in cheek memory that is only partially true. Climbing Moss Rock didn't require an overnight camp ~ we were still in the Victoria. To this prairie girl, it felt like a mountain but really one a big rock. February 15, 2024
