I want to see mountains Gandalf, mountains!
With my typical timeliness, here is a report on the trip I took some centuries past. Sure, Japan has no shortage of mountains, but they are mostly these weedy, eroded round-topped things completely covered in Dagobah and so not very viscerally satisfying. No, three years away from home left me with an undeferable lust to see REAL mountains...you know, epic, craggy, ice-crowned Jötunheimr vistas with frost giants playing dodgeboulder atop the storm-lashed peaks.
And also to strike black metal poses from the summit.
Dear old friends S and I, and lovely new ones Q and M, were kind enough to invite me on their pilgrimage to the Ephel Duath, known to those not of the blood of Numenor as "Banff National Park". We all had much "real world" stress and anxiety that could only be gotten rid of by casting it in to the fiery chasm at the heart of Mt. Doom.
The weather was lovely, sunny and clear for the most part but bracingly cool. But nature be a fickle mistress, especially in the high places of the world, as we were soon to learn.
When deciding just what to climb the night before, we read a description of the Cory Pass, which, without embellishment, stated that we could expect "huge baroque rock formations reminiscent of brooding gargoyles." That pretty much ended all debate.
It was encouraging to climb to a point where you could literally see another weather system on the other end of the valley. Hell, I'm pretty sure we could see another time zone.
Witness now the skateboard ramp of the NORDIC GODS.
This is the quintessential Canadian landscape: rugged, untamed, vast in proportion, with a complex existential struggle for self-definition underlying everything. The one mountain standing aloof off in the distance represents Quebec.
Taken a rough estimate of 300 meters over the valley floor, looking straight down from the brink. I dunno what it is...things that would have had me in mortal terror even a year ago now exert an almost hypnotic attraction. It's like I want to test the limits of mortal frailty and my own mind, feel alive by dancing on the razor's edge of life and death...or I just subconsciously desire my own destruction, your guess is as good as mine. The whole James Dean, Yukio Mishima, "Candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long" thing.
[No need to worry, I'm just being melodramatic as usual. I am riding high on these, the happiest days of my life, with no desire to get off just yet.]
S and Q in roughly the same spot, prudently keeping their distance. I'm the only one with a lemming instinct, apparently.
That pass in the top left corner? We climbed up there.
Intrepid Exploratrix S leads us onward toward parts unknown. Here there be dragons.
We ate with our legs dangling off the precipice. It was a glorious day to be alive.
Gebirgsjäger-Regiment "von Asskick" on the move.
Having now climbed a Real Mountain™, I now no longer feel like such a poser for rocking my Bergsmutze with Edelweiss badge.
Next step, to fight my way up one.
Typical boring Canadian scenery *yawn*.
About 3 hours in to the ascent, which would have been debilitating were we not so buoyed up by the epic untamed forces all around us. I'm hardly the most outdoorsy person in the world, usually preferring to see the wilderness from the window of a moving vehicle, but come on...how can you not be stunned by all this?
THIS. Shadows of clouds crawling down the valley.
Then Q and I sighted a cave mouth high above the path, led to by a treacherous slope of gravel and loose rocks. Of course, we had to risk our lives to climb up to it.
In preparation for the inevitable kobold ambush, I had my wee knife out when we ventured inside. It pains me that my spellcheck does not acknowledge the word "kobold".
And from there, a short, sharp ascent to the pass. Could only stand at the highest point for but a moment, looking out the other side over this vast bare canyon what seemed to stretch for miles below, because with sudden violence a great gale fell upon us, threatening to hurl us off the precipice to stony doom below.
I put on extra clothes 4 times in the course of the climb. It was a good day.
The sudden gusts of wind making to hurl us off the spire were as nothing compared to the instinctual desire to be photographed in a state of supreme peril.
ca. 4+- hours of climbing to stare off the peak for ca. 10 seconds. A good trade.
Logical next stop from here? Why, the laundromat to dry our clothes, followed by dinner at a nice steakhouse, still reeking of the woods. That's the kind of "roughing it" I like, small, controlled doses no more than 30 minutes away from traffic lights and assless chaps.
Next day, our legs were a bit stiff and we were in the mood for something a bit more flat and leisurely, so we went for a hike on a groomed trail down in the valley. At one point we were eating wine gums off a big rock in the river, rugged pioneers that we are. Oh yeah, this guy:
And then this happened. Seriously, what is with us honkies? Post us out in the sticks for 48 hours and we go all Lord Of The Flies.
Virtually in the shadow of this! Banff just rolls in absurd contrast. The castle ambiance of the place was continued inside...nothing but halberds and huge carved banisters and roaring fires and animal heads looking at you forlornly. We pretended to be guests in order to access their restaurant, which under other circumstances wouldn't have even accepted us as help.
High tea with finger sandwiches and exquisite miniature deserts at ca. $45 a head. I had a comparatively blue-collar sandwich as a substitute, tres gauche.
And roaring away right beyond the courtyard and barbican, some unruly nature defying the Will of Man. Where are the Japanese civil engineers to encase in concrete the bed and sides of this dangerous hazard when we need them?!
Our approximate state following a very full weekend.
Then we went to a hot spring bath, which was full of Japanese tourists looking baffled by the fact that everyone had bathing suits, didn't wash completely before entering, and that the water was of insufficient temperature to peel flesh. They were mortified. But for us nekulturny, kunstlos, gehin-na gaijin, it was a sweet, muscle-soothing release. We took turns carrying S around in the water and generally chillaxing. Our impression of the whole weekend was summed up by a gangsta vanity plate in the parking lot:
Then, back to the "real world", but who cares about that place. I've been there too many times.