Really, PlaidCamper? What horrors have you endured?
No, nothing grisly here, quite the opposite! A post about bones, snow, quiet, and a book you might enjoy.
We were on snowshoes down by the Bow and Baker Creek a short while ago. Snow was falling, and the trees had a good coating. The wind had less teeth in the trees, and although temperatures were low, conditions were just right for tramping. And there were bare bones everywhere…
Maybe the roads were still relatively difficult to make travel out of the city an easy prospect, but returning from Yoho we saw no other traffic on the Bow Valley Parkway, other than a snow plow, and we parked up and had the trails to ourselves. Always an introvert, with a tendency towards being a touch anti-social on my time off, this was a special morning. Two PlaidCampers, deep snow, empty trails, and a backpack full of snacks? Let’s go!
Having spent a few winters lumbering along in snowshoes, I’ve developed a (slightly sad?) obsession with types of snow. There is a difference in what falls where in the mountains. On the BC side, the snow is almost a given – or as close to a given you can get in these post truth global warming days. It will often be deep, and it will often be wet and heavy. On snowshoes, heavy snow is fine if you’re second on the trail, but if you’re first – and if you’re me – it’s a workout. I’ve been known to hang back at a trailhead because I’m anti-social or quiet, but the other truth is I’m letting fellow hikers do my heavy lifting. I know, I know.
On the Alberta side of the mountains, snowfall isn’t as certain compared with further west, but when it falls it is light and powdery. Yes, I prefer to snowshoe through the powder. I’ll hit that trail and cheerfully blast a brave path through unbroken snow, leading the way and selflessly helping those who are to follow later in the day. It’s a workout, but I’m happy to help. I know, I know.
What about the bare bones that were everywhere? Tree bones! The light and the snow last week seemed to reveal the beauty of the trees in sharp, near black and white. We could see the tree bones laid bare. Alright, perhaps an overactive imagination here. I’ll admit to borrowing tree bones from Peter Wohlleben, and his wonderful book, The Hidden Life of Trees, written in part about the forest in Germany he attends to.
Highly recommended as a thoughtful and off centre read about trees, I thoroughly enjoyed Wohlleben telling how, over many years, he redefined his relationship to the trees he works with, evolving from logger to conservationist. His notions about trees being a “wood wide web” of communicating and social entities, beings that taste and smell, are a challenge to conventional thinking. He isn’t a sentimental tree hugger, he acknowledges trees have a commercial value, and he explores and explains different, less destructive approaches to harvesting.
It’s a great book to read if you enjoy thinking about other ways of looking at the world, and different ways of measuring time or wealth. Preaching to the choir here, but when you consider the beauty and complexity of a single tree, and how that single tree impacts the environment of thousands of other living creatures, then how wonderful is a stand of trees? A woodland? A forest?
As Wohlleben says, trees ought to be beyond the status of inanimate objects like stones or boulders, but because in human measured time they appear static (beyond seasonal shifts), we mistake them as slow or unchanging and ripe for (poorly thought out) commercial exploitation. Well, you might enjoy the book.
We certainly enjoyed our deep powder snowshoe hike along the riverbanks and through the trees. As we retraced our steps, I was hoping to spot the dipper we’ve seen several times along this stretch. I’d just told myself to be content with the day, dipper or no dipper, when I caught sight of it out the corner of my eye. Splashing and bobbing upstream, then dipping below the surface to pop up a few metres downstream, this was a fine way to complete our walk. No dipper photos, but a happy memory.
Thanks for reading, please feel free to share a story, and have a wonderful weekend!
Steady driving on near empty roads through breathtaking scenery, with sunshine and snow, rivers and lakes, and mountains and valleys helped to restore a sense of balance with each passing kilometre. We appreciated it then, and, with hindsight, appreciate it even more now…
Was it so very quiet, though? To be fair, when we took a short hike around Lac Beauvert, the honking of hundreds of geese could hardly be described as quiet – far from it – but it was soothing to see and hear something real rather than fabricated. It made sense. So did the industry and purpose we saw from a dipper busily splashing and feeding along the banks of a small stream. The beating and rushing of wings as geese flew in organized Vs straight over our heads was a wonderful sound.
Might I suggest you get outside this weekend? Turn off the intrusive soundtrack of recent days? Hug a tree, jump a stream, climb a hill, skim some stones, hike in the woods? Remember, there is a reality beyond our political constructs – this reality needs our help – and it sustains our conceited constructs. Go on, go out there, appreciate what we’ve got and hope we still have it in the years to come.
Emerald Lake, Yoho BC is just the place to be for a quick circular hike. We were there a little while back, and the day was bright enough, but cool in the shade. We kept up a brisk PlaidCamper pace to beat back the chill, stopping every now and then to admire the light playing on the water, or the cloud shadows floating along the slopes.
Thanks for reading, have a wonderful weekend – I hope you find yourself outdoors and having a fine time!
Thanks for reading, please feel free to share a story or leave a comment – what’s a hiking essential in your pack? – and have a wonderful weekend!
On Saturday, the forecast was for snow and more snow in Yoho. Above the tree line that was certainly true, but where we were staying, down in Field, we received rain and more rain. Freezing rain, rain that said drop your notions of paddling, and stay in front of the fire instead. So we did.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share a story or leave a comment, and have a wonderful weekend!
