In the Sky

I don’t put much stock in horoscopes but a few things amuse me. I’m a Capricorn – that’s the mountain goat – and we’re supposedly stubborn and ambitious. We’re climbers, and though I know that’s meant to be figurative, I like to take it literally, especially when I’m above the tree line.

I am slow and out of shape, so I was a bit out of breath while we walked back to the chairlift that takes you to the top of Whistler Mountain.  But I was supremely content, surrounded by that Kodakchrome sky above, the tops of the clouds below, my feet on the ground. I don’t like to fly, but I do love altitude.

I love the high places best during the alpine summer. Patches of snow stand out white on black stone. Everything is tough at altitude, even the tiny flowers. Heather, in pink and white, purple lupine, paintbrush in an almost fluorescent red – cover the meadows, scrubby little snowdrops cling to vertical cracks. If you are lucky, from a distance, you will see bears, grazing in the meadows – if you are not so lucky you will see them from much too close. The bugs are hungry and aggressive; I have a welt the size of a dime on my wrist from a horsefly bite. And the sun is unfiltered, brighter, adding a warm edge to the air, or is it the snow that’s adding that cool undercurrent?

Walking away from the crowds at the top of the lift, we look out across the valley. There is a shark fin of black poking through feathery clouds; updrafts pull gray strands along the cliff edges into the sky where they dissolve in to the blue. The trail crunches under our feet with the sound of broken glass and then the sound of snow as we turn up, following a foot track to a rocky outcropping facing the opposite direction, back towards the village, back into town. There’s a lake, green, and some blue roof tops, and a sea of condos and hotels. The scraped brown paths of ski runs are clear on the opposite mountain. Over the course of the morning, the clouds have disappeared and all around us are a ring of peaks, peaks blanketed in glaciers, black and gray and white against the sharp blue sky.

Back at the bottom of the valley, the village is packed with activity. There’s a mountain bike festival on and the plazas are packed with boys armored like turtles, and girls, too, all tough as nails, dirty and tattooed and taped and bruised. But the noise is too much for me, the crowds, after being in the sky, are close and every time someone bumps up against me, I want to scream. “You can be IN THE SKY! Why are packed into this crowded shopping mall?” I haven’t eaten enough during the day, and that’s made me edgy, a meal fixes my mood and I don’t mind the valley as much anymore.

This morning in camp, the sky is cloudless. The same peak I saw as a needle threading the clouds is completely visible; the entire mountain is outlined against the pale sky of the lower valley. There’s an ice field below, and leggy lodge pole pines and from across the slopes, the noise of the highway. In town there is coffee and more crowds, more bikers, more shopping. But in my head there is the warm grippy stone under my shoes, rusted and gray with lichen. There is the smell of altitude, snow and bristlecone pine and cloud, all twisted together into the air, all of it going up, further up, still further, until it dissolves into the blue.

Practicalities:  You can walk up the mountain, but why would you when you can take the lift?  If you plan in advance and, buy your tickets online, you can get quite a good deal. If, like us, you just show up, buy your tickets at the visitor’s center in the lower village – you’ll save a few bucks over the ticket line at the gondola. There’s a lift station at each end of the spectacular Peak2Peak gondola, so you don’t have to bring anything at all, but it’s good to have bug spray, a water bottle, sun sunscreen, and snacks. Don’t be a moron and go in flip flops, wear running shoes at the absolute minimum and bring layers in case the weather changes.

Disclaimer: Our trip was organized with assistance from Camping BC. They covered our campgrounds and transportation expenses. We paid for all of our own activities.