Mountains

Way back when I wrote about the Grand Canyon, it was very difficult to find words to adequately describe it.  The Rocky Mountains are the same - one keeps coming up with the same words, words that have become so cliched now that when something really warrants them, they are not enough.  Words like 'majestic', 'splendour', and especially 'awesome'.   And I don't like using lots of words when a simple one or two does a much better job.

As a little experiment I asked Angus to come up with a poem about our surroundings, as we drove into the Rocky Mountains.   We talked about how poems need to use only a few words to say what you want to say about something, so they need to be carefully chosen and used.  He quickly came up with this:

"Mountains, mountains, mountains.
Majestic as they are."

Majestic was the word that immediately came to my mind, too.  I think of all the overused words we could have come up with that one comes closest to describing the Rockies.  I like the simplicity of his poem.

Then I thought surely, many others must have come up with something poetic to describe this part of the world.  I'm still looking at that one, but there is a book of poems caled Rocky Mountain poems, by Canadian Ralph Gustafson, that I'm trying to get hold of.  I can't find the poems themselves on line, just reviews with limited quotes.  But I will find them.  I might even have a go at one myself.

It feels very fitting to be ending our North American adventure here, after (nearly) beginning it at the Grand Canyon.  There's a balance in that.

En route to Lake Louise we were delayed 2 hours just west of Revelstoke by avalance control blasting:  all cars had to stop while this was done.  It was quite exciting hearing the mortar fires, though we didn't see the avalanches.  We got out and went for a walk, starting off on the Hemlock Grove boardwalk which was 'closed' (as were most hiking and camping grounds, at this time of year) but were soon waist deep in snow.  Sadly the camera battery was flat so we couldn't take photos of this or our eventual approach into the Rocky Mountains.  The ones here were taken on the way back, or after we got there.

We went through avalanche tunnels, alongside the Rocky Mountain railroad track and its tunnels through the mountains.  We passed beautiful, turquoise glassy lakes and half frozen streams, the frozen areas piled several feet high with snow.  A herd of mountain goats grazed by the side of the road, traffic slowing as it passed them.  It was all so beautiful, especially the mountains themselves, that I got butterflies in my stomach.

We got to Lake Louise some 6 hours after leaving Salmon Arm.

Our Lake Louise adventures will have to wait til my next entry as we need to get back on the road now.