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June 19, 2014 Issue
mountains
Mountains in the spring Photo: Jozien Keijzer
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June 19, 2014 Issue
mountains
Kluane Lake Photo: Jozien Keijzer
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June 19, 2014 Issue
sheep on mountain
A land of sheep and rock Photo: Jozien Keijzer
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June 19, 2014 Issue
mountains
The view into the park from above the mining roads Photo: Jozien Keijzer
With so many places to go, what makes one decide on this or that way?
Partly because we have a visitor, Margreet, here from Holland.
Another reason is my husband, Don—who I call “old-timer” (do not tell him I said this) — ran into another old-timer, and got to sharing old stories about mines.
This rekindled a longing to travel up a certain mountain close to Kluane National Park, where fortunately neither beauty nor animals stay within fixed boundaries.
The forests are light green, the spruce-covered mountains, darker. Driving higher, mountains are adorned in their typical spring cloak of striped black and white; Kluane Lake is still frozen; the Slims River running. A long drive for a day trip, I do wonder if it’s worth it — I could have started hiking at my doorstep.
I breathe, trusting all will be well as my friend takes time in the well-done museum at Destruction Bay.
Eventually we find the old mining road Don was looking for. I had visited here once before. Memories of shiny black rock and puddles full of butterflies sipping mud come back to me. We follow the road higher into mountains. The black rock is still there; the mountain geologically folded, learning there are all sorts of rocks. As for butterflies, as so often on mountains, the whites show first followed by over half a dozen other varieties.
Driving our Jeep, climbing up steep, narrow roads Don built years ago, sometimes we backtrack, coming out by the dead-end of old drilling stations.
We experience many switchbacks.
Margreet and I get out to move rocks fallen across the road. The views let us see higher mountains behind the one we see from the highway. Lots of “oohing and ahhing” accompany glimpses of these white giants of the St. Elias Range.
Finally Don says, “This is far enough, you two can hike the rest.”
Margreet and I bounce up to what we perceive as a top.
This is the world of sheep, rock, and tiny wildflowers. There are windflowers, which are anemones, and blackish purple blooming oxytropes; and more butterflies. We hear a pika or marmot, but do not see it.
The “top” is not the top, as always. Later we’ll come upon a higher one. When down below, we see yet another top behind it.
But we are far enough.
The day is crystal clear. From where we are, at a height of around 6000 feet, we see Mount Steele. At 16,644 feet, almost three times as high and far in the distance, the size of the ice fields in which the white giants live is probably as big as Holland.
Hard to imagine, it makes us very humble; both our puniness, combined with the chance to look into such a magnificent world, creates wonder.
Back below, a shiny, beautiful black bear running up from the lake touches down one paw at a time crossing in front of us, eager to climb back up the mountain.