Yesterday I found out that yet another of my friends has been diagnosed with cancer. Although the prognosis is excellent, the news certainly gave me pause to reflect on how fragile life really is. To consider the many people who are caught in a struggle much greater than my mere walk in the woods. And to reaffirm the notion that we must learn to savour every single moment of our existence.
The hikes on these two days brought me deep into the Beaver Valley. The escarpment seems to fold back on itself here, heading straight south for about forty km. and then sharply turning north again. As I walked deeper into the valley I noticed a definite change in both temperature and type of vegetation. Occasionally I caught sight of the escarpment to the east, so I imagine the two great walls of rock create a unique microclimate here.
At first, there were many meadows to traverse, resplendent with the pinks and whites of clover and Queen Anne's Lace, the reds of young maple saplings, and the yellows and blues of goldenrod and chicory. Their tendrils overflowed onto the Trail and playfully caught at my feet.
Then down into the escarpment, where the Trail ran along a plateau between two levels of rock. The path was bare here, and I loved the feel of my feet hitting the damp earth over and over again, heels moulding into the clay. The action was becoming strangely addictive.
Gradually the sounds of civilization drifted up to me as I drew closer to the tiny hamlet of Kimberley: the hammering of nail to wood, the echo of a combine in a field. I passed through a defunct ski hill, the overgrown slopes a riot of colour now. In the parking lot, an old couple was stowing their hiking gear in their vehicle, done for the day. We spoke, and the woman reminisced about the times of her youth when she and her friends would ski these slopes, careening carelessly down the side of the mountain and ending in a flourish of snowspray at the bottom.
Later, the Trail crossed an operational ski complex. The blazes weren't obvious here, and I spent some time trying to figure out its route. At one point I was using the newest paper Trail map, the Trail app on my phone, my GPSr, and even binoculars - to try to see the white markings at a distance. I eventually figured things out, but in the process I discovered how many geocaches I'd walked right past in the last few days. (I've been keeping my GPSr turned off unless I need it for checking my route - my mantra on this journey has been "every ounce counts", so I didn't want to carry extra batteries in the backpack).
The Trail south of the ski hill stayed under forest cover for the most part, crossing numerous waterfalls. Creeks, streams and even springs sprayed their water over rocks and boulders on the escarpment face, sometimes in the form of rapids, sometimes in freefalling cascades. Each was beautiful in its own unique way. I could hear the roar of turbulent water from some distance away, so always knew when I was approaching a waterfall. Quite often I would pause for a bit because someone had thoughtfully placed a handhewn bench near the water's edge.
Violet and Judy hiked with me for a while the first day, and the entire time the second day. We ended the hike with a picnic at Lake Eugenia, a good-sized lake created as a reservoir for a hydroelectric dam in the early 1900s.
It was a wonderful two days spent with dear friends, in idyllic surroundings.
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