I climbed a mountain yesterday. And not a small, rinky, dinky mountain either. A big one. According to the website, it was 1.5 kilometers up.
I am making this sound better than it is. This climb did not involve climbing equipment. No ropes, or crampons were used. Just climbing poles, boots, gloves, and suntan lotion.
Which brings me to the realization that I can either remember to put suntan lotion on my ears, or on my neck. But never both. Yesterday I chose the ears, so my neck is a mass of red.
Heading to the park from Edmonton, the weather did not look pleasant. Cloudy skies, spitting rain, and storm watches for all of Alberta. However, as soon as we crossed into Banff park, the weather cleared up. It was actually quite nice when we got to the campsite. The biggest problem was the near freezing temperatures overnight, but then that made the campsite bug free.
The climb itself started easy, with just a simple continuing switchback a dog could traverse. This part was below the tree-line, so it was hard to see how high we were. Actually, it felt like a game of the first level of Donkey Kong but without the ladder shortcuts. The trees then started to get more and more stunted until they disappeared entirely and the trail opened into a large field/valley with lakes and magnificent echoing cliff walls.
This led up to Sentinel pass, a narrower switchback. By now there were no more plants, so I could see the trail from across the meadow. At the top of the pass I could see into another valley, and we were met by a pair of fat squirrels. There was no plant life anywhere around here, so they must have been getting all their food from passing hikers. And they expected to be fed! They would raid backpacks and get upset if there wasn’t any food.
From here it was no longer easy. It was a scramble up rock faces using hands. Nominally there was a trail, but we kept losing it. Invariably we took the harder way. And getting lost on the side of a mountain is not fun. It was slow going, but we took breaks every so often to catch our breath. And take pictures of us in precarious positions. At one point we even saw a plane flying below us.
We met a Kiwi coming down. She described herself as a wuss on this peak. I think she was fishing for compliments because this had been her third peak today. She was trying to climb the equivalent of Mount Everest in 48 hours.
After awhile though, things did become easier. This was because we could see the top and it looked flat. As long as flat was considered a severe angle. Nothing blocking the way except gravity. And snow. And lack of oxygen. We were making a rapid rise in altitude.
We did take a wrong turn again though and were climbing up a small glacier. This was rather dangerous because the glacier ended below us at a cliff. Eventually I saw other people coming down a different trail to the right, and figured out that that was the way to go. It was a lot easier on the trail than slogging through deep snow.
After seven and a half hours, the top was almost anticlimactic. It was a gorgeous view. We were on top of a mountain bigger than all the others around it. There were mountains as far as the eye could see. I was seeing into other provinces. But the only real advantage to being at the top top, as opposed to a hundred meters lower was the 360 degree view.
I did make sure to mark my territory at the top, so it’s my mountain now. You can’t have it.
Coming down was a lot easier. And scarier. The snow at the top was slippery and one uncontrolled slide, even if it is just a meter, puts life in perspective. But the trail was a lot easier to follow. However, we did leave it completely behind at one point. Half the mountain is covered in scree, punctuated by the occasional cliff. Scree is easy to go down, as long as you are wearing proper boots and using the climbing poles. It starts to become like downhill skiing. (I really need to try that one of these days.) Or a controlled fall.
When we got to the meadow beneath Sentinel pass we met one person running down the trial. He was apparently late for work. Five minutes later, another person came running by. He was the driver of the car. Five minutes later a girl came next. She had the keys to the car.
In comparison, from the top to the bottom took only four hours.

In conclusion, I think mountains deserve their place in being bigger than us and we shouldn’t try to change that.