The Frozen Tundra

I must admit that I’m not 100 percent sure about what a tundra is, but I’m pretty confident that I’m familiar with the spirit of it, and I’m all about living according to the spirit of things, which is why I still eat tiramisu.*

Early this year, I went to the Banff Film Festival, which is not in Banff, incidentally, but tours all over the place. The featured film was about a couple who decided to trek across the north pole all the way to Canada. They walked for months and months and finally had to be picked up by rescue plane because climate change was causing the ice to break up, and they were about to die, basically. They were incredibly tough and resilient and cheerful, even when the woman left some vital piece of equipment at one of their camps and they had to trek back for about three years to get it.

As I watched it, shivering sympathetically, I thought, “I would never ever even be tempted to do anything similar.” I have no desire to climb Everest or visit the North Pole or similar. I don’t like being cold, I don’t particularly like heights, I have a rich history of ankle injuries, and I’m not a thrill seeker.

So why was I about 11,000 feet up a mountain on Saturday?

This week, a friend invited me to climb Timpanogos and enjoy the fall colours. Well, I do like autumn. And I do like hiking. And Mount Timpanogos is so pretty!

So we began hiking, and it was a beautiful day, and there was a waterfall, and aspens, and sunshine. But as we headed up, it got colder. And windier. And snowier. And we met a few hikers coming down who had left their camp at two in the morning and said “it’s been one of the most miserable experiences of my life.” Others advised us not to try to summit.

As I trudged through what was most certainly frozen and what I’m pretty sure was a tundra, with the wind howling around, nose dripping, and wondering if my feet were actually gangrenous or just frostbitten, I suddenly realised that the scene was a lot like the Banff movie.

Now, OK, a particularly astute observer might have noticed one or two superficial differences. For instance, it wasn’t quite so cold that my eyes got frostbite, as the intrepid woman’s did, and we hiked for hours rather than, say, months, and there weren’t any polar bears (as far as I observed), and no-one had built them a fire in a hut at the north pole. So yeah, if you want to nitpick, I guess it wasn’t quite the same experience. But I felt I was living the spirit of the north pole trek!

We didn’t summit, and I’m just fine with that. We got to Emerald Lake, which was more like “Frozen Wasteland Ice Rink,” and dove into the hut at the top, where some wonderful, marvellous campers had lit a fire, and I got to dry out my socks, thaw out my toes, and re-attach them to my feet. We chatted to other hikers who had also decided not to summit today, and we all admired the one girl who had had foresight enough to wear actual boots instead of running shoes. It was rather fun, and I think we all felt pretty tough, and the views were spectacular, and the joy of warmed feet carried me back down the mountain.

And I guess what I’m saying is that I can see how people get suckered into climbing mountains and visiting poles. They come back from a little hike and look at their pictures while they’re sitting by the fire drinking hot chocolate, and see how pretty it was, and forget their blisters and start planning another slightly bigger one. And before you know it, you’re climbing Everest “because it’s there” and getting frostbitten corneas.

Look at my pictures.** Aren’t they pretty? I can’t wait to go again next year.

*made with brandy and coffee and thus considered non-kosher by some Mormons.
**For some reason I can't post any of my rotated pictures. If you want to see those, they're on FB. If you know why, send me a postcard.