Dream Vacation

It's that time of year when college students flee somewhere warm and dry for a week, hopefully to escape the dreary Missoula spring weather. Unless you're crazy, that is, and decide to go farther north to chase the receding snow just so that you can camp in it and freeze your ass off.
       
Guilty! My very best adventure buddy and I loaded up the car and headed for Alberta to spend our spring break snowshoeing through deep crust and camping out in spring snowstorms. The Canadian Rockies were like nowhere we'd ever been before.

A scene like this ought to be narrated by Morgan Freeman.

This picture is of our trek to the toe of the Athabasca Glacier, my brother's obsession of the entire trip. I had to force him to stay off the glacier itself. Dying in a crevasse and becoming one with the glacier forever seemed not to bother him too much.

That's alright--I actually understood this sentiment. Dying in Banff amongst the towering peaks and extremes of life. . . you could a lot worse. (You know, if you HAD to die.)

For four days we explored, snowshoeing through some extreme avalanche territory, crossing semi-frozen lakes and negotiating icy trails and roads blocked in by snow. We got stuck only once in a parking lot, though that was nerve wracking enough. It was the middle of the Canadian wilderness and we had no cell service or snow shovel, a fact I keenly remembered at that point.

After the car got stuck we were both a little shaken, especially when the snow began to flurry and the clouds descend. There wasn't an open winter campsite around for hours of driving. When I saw a sign for an open hostel in the middle of nowhere, like a little winter oasis placed there just for us, I hurried to pull over. HI-Rampart Creek Wilderness Hostel turned out to be another wonderful part of the journey, being our first time ever staying in a hostel. As soon as we saw the heated rooms with bunk beds we were sold. Besides, the guy running the hostel seemed like he had been alone for days, possibly months, with only his adorable dog Dana for companionship.

Our last day in Canada was magic. We woke well rested from the hostel to peer outside and see that the clouds had lifted, and it was going to be a beautiful day in the Rockies.

Almost right away we came across a wolf bounding gracefully down the highway. He stayed for a few moments in front of us before leaping over the side of the road and disappearing into the valley below. It was my first time seeing a wolf in the wild, and I think I see what all the fuss is about now.

The weather held the entire day, through our trek to the glacier and exploration of steep, dramatic canyons filled with ice falls. At the end of the day we worked our way back to Banff town, which is pretty charming when you look past extensive tourism. Also, I am of legal age in Banff, so my brother and I capped off our trip with a few drinks at the bar while watching a local band, whose members wore cutoff jeans and no shoes, play songs like "I'm at Home Getting Hammered While She's Out Getting Nailed."

Despite sleeping out in a snow flurried campground that night, we stayed warm and neither of us wanted to leave in the morning. We'd been living out a dream, and nobody wants to wake up from that--but eventually it is time to return to the real world. My brother is graduating this spring and his life is moving on to working a job in Denali National Park and wherever he wants to go after that. And it's time for me to finish up the semester with as much grace as I can manage, and set off on my own new adventure alone in the Arctic tundra.

Life moves on, but we'll always have the pictures.