 Tangle
Ridge
- Canadian Rockies
Thursday September
4th 2003
I needed to get out
and hit the slopes again. August was a bust. I was starting to feel
like I was missing something.
I decided to do a
trip I had wanted to do for some time; to bag Castle Mountain,
Stuarts Knob, and TV Peak by spending the night out on the mountain.
This was an idea I had two years ago but has been put off time and
time again.
By the time I got to
Banff the smoke was chokingly thick. There was a possibility the conditions
were going to improve near Castle Junction but they were worse.
At Lake Louise I got
another coffee and went to the park headquarters and they said that
the conditions near the Ice Fields would be better.
At that point the
best option for me was to scramble up Tangle Ridge. A change of
destination was a good thing because I was not well rested and had a
late start for an outing the size of the Castle Mountain trip.
I got to Tangle Falls
late in the afternoon and was under way. It was good to be out of
the thick smoke but there was still a substantial amount in the air
and near the half-way point I was feeling dizzy and decided to
quit and set up the bivi.
The rest of the
afternoon and evening was spent enjoying the views, relaxing,
eating, photographing and reading.
That night was
peaceful, quiet, calm and warm. I spent hours looking at stars,
and satellites. It had been quite some time since I had been out under the stars and it made me feel as though I've missed
it, I started to cry.
Tears of joy; I get a
lot of those lately. I was thinking it was pain but I'm starting to
feel different. The brain just needs it I think, so I don't feel
ashamed to feel that way anymore. Some people use drugs, alcohol,
cigarettes or even some types of food to cope, to blunt the
emotions. But
if you don't use those your body invents other ways to get what it
needs.
Thats the way I see
it anyway.
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A Columbia
Icefileds panorama |
At one point I
observed
three small satellites flying in a triangular formation. They were in
a very high polar orbit and were moving very slowly across the sky.
I wondered if they were some sort of US military satellite
experiment.
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2.1 MB MGP movie
Slurred speech
from the smoke inhalation |
Moments later in the
constellation of Cygnus the Swan I noticed a flash of light. It was
as though a satellite had blown up. Two more flashes were observed
over the span of a few minutes, then nothing. Hummm.... perhaps it
was the trio of satellites blowing up?
I witnessed a few
meteors, laid back and thought about life, what a strange journey
it is, filled with pain and pleasure.
The next morning I was
up before dawn, ate, then was at the summit in 45 minutes. The sun
was just coming up.
The views were
obscured by smoke and now I have to go back to get a proper
panorama.
After spending 45
minutes on the windless summit, I started back down to the bivi and
got there at 10:00 AM or so. I took off the boots and enjoyed a
morning nap in the shade of the boulder.
It was luxurious and
refreshing.
The trip down was via
the stream. I missed it on the way up and really enjoyed the
different scenery. This peak was comforting and friendly to me.
Not all mountains are
so civilized.
CANADIAN MOUNTAIN PANORAMAS
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| Mountain / Image |
Java |
VRML |
Jpg |
Size |
35. Tangle
Ridge
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Java |
VRML |
JPG |
350k |
 o much of what is best
in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our
stability because it measures our sense of loyalty. All other
pacts
of love or
fear derive from it and are modeled upon it.
Haniel Long
1888-1956, American Author, Poet, Journalist
 here is between sleep
and us something like a
pact, a treaty with no secret clauses, and according to
this convention it is agreed that, far from being a dangerous, bewitching force,
sleep will become domesticated and serve as an instrument of our power to act.
We surrender to sleep, but in the way that the master entrusts himself to the
slave who serves him.
Maurice Blanchot
1907-, French Literary Theorist, Author
he highest compact
we can make with our fellow is --''Let there be truth between us two
forevermore.''
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
©
CanadasMountains.com + Tim L. Helmer
Friday February 08, 2008 11:21 AM
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