Watch out for Buffaloberries!

While in Banff we purchased bear spray, as hungry bears ramp up their feeding prior to hibernation and one of their favorite foods - high-calorie buffaloberries - were in season when we visited. Both Aden and I listened carefully to the lecture on how to use the bear spray, and then I promptly gave the spray to Aden and told her to lead at all times. Good parenting? I think not (but Aden is truly the better outdoorswoman).  

Come to find out that we could not hike one of the routes we had planned due to the trail being in bear territory and boasting a fine crop of buffaloberries. On the Lake Minnewanka trail, hikers were required to have at least four people per group, with the front row carrying bear spray. (Sounds like a Formula 1 starting grid!) Group members could not stray further than 3 meters at any given time. Penalties of $25,000 Canadian would be levied if hikers were found breaking the bear rules. As I did not relish the thought of finding two or more strangers to hike and make conversation with for a 9-mile duration, we flexed to another trail.

The new route also had a plethora of buffaloberries trailside, their bright orangey-red skins glowing in the intermittent sunlight between bursts of rain. I clicked my hiking poles together periodically and we attempted to sing "American Pie" to alert any bears to our presence, but I ran out of breath on the climb and had to pray (in my head) for good luck and no bears.

Mama bears can eat up to 100,000 berries per day and their large male counterparts can eat twice that number, which raises the question of how any berries at all are left in Banff National Park?! But for better or worse, we saw no wildlife except for tiny squirrels carrying mushrooms to safe heights, where they either stashed the burnt orange fungi in the crook of a pine or sat nibbling, watching us with condescending bright eyes. We saw nests but no large birds, bubbling mineral pools but no fish. Disappointment vied with relief for primary emotion on our wildlife sighting.

We're still in the thrall of our trip, listening to our playlist and recalling the hikes of only a week ago. Fortunately the fall leaves are entering prime season here in Colorado and the calendar looks open for a nearby hike in the coming weekend. We couldn't pack our bear spray, so are left to hope that the berries are all "et up."

Canadian Rockies - A Northern Attitude

 "If I get too close / And I'm not how you hoped / Forgive my northern attitude / Oh, I was raised out in the cold. / If the sun don't rise / 'Til the summertime / Forgive my northern attitude / Oh, I was raised on little light."

- Lyrics to "Northern Attitude," song by Noah Kahan

We belted the chorus along with Noah Kahan as our rented black Honda Civic swept to the right and around the curve of Canada's Highway 93, the Icefields Parkway. Rain squalls swept through the valleys carved between peaks by enormous glaciers and tall mountains gathered clouds before their faces as if shy. As we climbed and descended, mountain lakes of pale aqua and deep turquoise dotted the left side of the road and healthy pine forests rolled to either side - a green quilt thrown over rock shoulders.

This was our third day in Alberta, Canada, visiting the Banff National Park, Lake Louise and the mountain town of Banff.  Accustomed to the dryer Rockies of Colorado, with forests dented by the pine beetle and undergrowth turned pale brown by intense sun and lack of rain, the Canadian Rockies were like Rocky Mountain National Park on steroids. Not the height of the mountains - Colorado has taller peaks - but the intensity of the colors, the size of the glaciers remaining, the health of the forests and the relative lack of people all combined to give us a particularly Canadian Rocky Mountain high. 

In our hike to the top of Parker Ridge that third afternoon, we walked through a forest of young pines throwing off a wet, evergreen scent redolent of Christmas, of the best pine air freshener ever created. Our boots beat a regular rhythm on the wet ground, stepping around tree roots and over rocks, ascending via switchback and staircase to the top of the ridge where we could look right and see the massive Saskatchewan glacier feeding into the glacial plain below. We captured photos before a snow flurry descended, tiny pellets slapping us in the face despite our raincoats and hoods.

Later that day we had hot drinks at the Columbia Ice Fields information area, sitting on a porch absorbing sunshine while the glacier-generated katabatic winds flowed over and around us, bringing the chill of the glacier to our seats. We didn't spend much time motionless, but jumped up again to explore the "Toe" of the glacier and retrace our steps back along the canyons and lakes of the park.

The natural splendor of the mountains, the shocking cold of sudden fall (from highs of 52 we returned to 85 - degree temps in Denver) and the joy of hiking with my daughter relieved the stress of recent weeks and provided perspective to the routine cares and worries of our "real life." Just to know that such beauty exists, that adventures await, and that our bodies can carry us on amazing hikes over and among mountains - provided a shift in attitude that can't be replicated. There's a popular saying here - and in Banff- "the mountains are calling and I must go." True for me and my family, and how lucky we are to seek them.

Sacramental Care-Giving

 “We could afford to do this because a person can get paid more to sit in front of a computer and send a bunch of emails than she can to do a job that’s so crucial and difficult that it seems objectively holy: to clean excrement off a body, to hold a person while they are crying, to cherish them because of and not despite their vulnerability.”

-Jia Tolentino, New Yorker Staff Writer

Tolentino's words moved me to tears. Referring to parenthood and care of her children, she also describes caregiving for a sibling, spouse, parent or friend. The idea that selfless, often mind-numbingly repetitive actions of caregiving are sacred flies in the face of our culture's emphasis on earning potential and GDP. Her words note the relatively high value of sitting and typing ephemeral emails.

When we perform acts of care for a loved one we are in sacred relationship, and the vulnerable individual allows the (momentarily) stronger person to see them in a weakened state. That is hard, also.  Tolentino says in an interview with Ezra Klein "The thing that connects them both is submission." Both sides of the coin are sacramental; caregiving and allowing care to be given. 

The submissive actions take us out of our modern plane, out of the speed of daily emails and texts, away from the urgency of stockmarket gains or losses and Fed interest rate decisions. They focus us instead on the miracle of being alive, the fragility of human bodies, the strength of character required to care-give and receive care. 

Tolentino's timely message pierced my heart. Having been on both sides of this holy connection, I need to provide care again soon, and indeed it will be a sacramental privilege.