Stage 5: May 29, 2019

Stage 5: May 29, 2019

Biked Miles: 53mi

Cumulative Miles: 337mi

The Norsemen have arrived to our highest latitude for our journey. Weary from a 3:00am arrival I awaken at 08:30am but feel refreshed. I step outside to snow-covered mountain peaks hidden from our view on our late night approach to Jasper.

Breakfast at the hotel with Peter. The others are still asleep. I admire our senior Norseman’s vitality and sensible humor. Peter is enjoying life. Loves his family dearly. A role model to many for his passion to ever discover and explore and engorge on the marrow of a complete life lived without regrets. I hope I maintain my health and his sense of humor and passion to travel and participate fully in an experiential life.

Jasper town has the usual comforts of a four-season retreat for nature lovers. Plenty of hotels, B&B’s, and downtown shops and restaurants.

Chores begin with laundry at the hotel washroom. Sherpa has bike shifting problems and has a bike cable replaced at a shop in town. Randal, the owner of The Bench, kindly fixes it up in a short time.

We begin cycling at about 2:00pm. Quite a late start yet a shorter ride has been scheduled for our itinerary today. We head to the entrance of the Icefields Parkway. Paired in two groups, Breezer and Jonah start earlier and miss the turnoff just after the park gate entrance. Sherpa and I, leaving from the bike shop a few minutes later, locate it and begin our ascent to Marmot Basin. It is an afternoon leg burn for over six miles as the grade pitches persistently steeper. We pass a woman on a bike from Holland. She waves us down to warn us that she has just passed a bear 500 meters behind along the road from where she had descended. “Fantastic,” I remark and she asks “aren’t you scared?!” Sherpa and I glance at each other, both of us wildlife lovers, and I remark how wonderful it would be to meet bear but we will heed her warning. On cycles going at a climbing pace of 6-8mph uphill we could always make a quick turn and accelerate downhill should the chase arise. Acknowledging the worst rare possible scenario should not preclude from the rapture of an encounter with wildness.

We continue to climb. A few hundred meters ahead I spot a small group of elk foraging just behind the tree line. We pass the 500 meter mark and no sign of bear. I begin to wonder if she has mistaken an elk for a bear as neither is native to Holland. Sherpa and I are having fun despite the climb’s physical challenge. It is years of exertion that has honed my mental acumen to set aside any pain emanating from muscular fatigue. Desire to reach the apex, to place oneself into a state of connectivity to the natural world - this elevates the spirit and allows the mind the ability to dampen such pain. It can be sorted or pulled apart like bits of taffee or congealed and compartmentalized. Pain from physical exertion is the simplest of pain to endure. The emotional pain from the death of a loved one, or rejection, or life’s unfairnesses - these are more challenging to accept and compartmentalize properly so that life may continue with even greater passion. There is no such thing as loss when love is placed at the focal center of the mind.

Sherpa and I reach the apex of Marmot Basin where there is a ski lift surrounded by some shops. To do so we cross under a road barrier for the final ascent at 13% grade and are rewarded with a grand view of jagged mountain tops above valleys of resolute pines. These are the pines that survived yet another frigid winter that has passed into Spring and has left its scars on the landscape. The fallen serving as nourishment for the others and for the smaller creatures who find homes amidst the disintegrating logs.

We race down Marmot mountain enjoying the cool breeze. We return to the Icefields Parkway and enter a snowy mountain kingdom. The “Promenade des Glaciers” of Jasper National Park. We are winding through the valley of the Norse gods. Lush forests, vast untamed aqua-tinted rivers speckled with islands, and the constant awe of granite jagged mountain peaks beyond every winding bend in the road.

We come upon Spotty who has a bent front small crank - one of his three cranks has failed. He must return with Peter to the bike shop in Jasper for repairs as his bike is inoperable as is and we are a long way from any bike shop down the road.

Sherpa and I continue with Breezer ahead for some miles. We stop at Athabasca Falls to enjoy the swift currents of the river as the waters descend into a steep crevice beneath us. The power of water over rocks and through shoots of jagged stone walls. These Athabasca waters will wind their way for nearly 4000 miles further before depositing into the Arctic Ocean

We continue southward and arrive at the Sunwapta Falls Lodge by early evening. A haven of comfortable cabins along the Icefields Parkway. Wash up and head to the pleasant dining room for an enjoyable dinner of French onion soup and chicken with potatoes and vegetables. Protein and carbs and vegetables and salts. Nutrients to maintain my own body’s resiliency just as a fallen nurse log does for her own kin in the forests. The interconnection of organic matter.

Glaciers becoming waterfalls, waterfalls supplying vast northern rivers, rivers the circulatory system of all of nature’s creatures and plants, and connecting to the seas where the currents and clouds begin the cycle again.

I lift my water glass. It has a faint green tint. The room sign states that this hue is due to the mineralization from the native waters. I am drinking glacier water and its contents, just like the awe of the vast wildness, are becoming part of me forevermore.

We put in to sleep. We have just begun to explore this glacial garden.