Sky High

The thing about being in the middle of the mountains is that you want to get closer. A hike along one of the Kananaskis trails would have done that but it didn't seem a good idea to do it alone (this is the kind of place where they sell bear repellent spray).

It seemed as if I could get a little closer in Banff where I was told there was a gondola that could take you up for a panoramic view. Oh, I thought, kinda like the time I took the ski-lift to the top of Blue Mountain.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Excuse me while I laugh at my own expense. Here's the gondola:


7500 feet of quiet terror, the silence broken only by the creak of the gondola cable, the whistle of the wind, the shudder and jolt as we passed over junction boxes, and my spontaneous hymn sing when I had to convince myself that I would not plummet to my death in this small tin and glass box. (In case you are wondering, the hymn of choice was I Feel The Winds of God. And no, there was no one else with me.)

You'd sing to God too, if this was your view looking back. It's fuzzy because it was taken through the back window. That little strip of grey and white in the middle of the photo is where we came from.


This is where we were going, which makes you sing a different kind of song.


I confess to being completely undone by the experience. I couldn't breathe that well and I attributed it to the altitude but then I realized, no, my breath is catching because this is so incredibly moving.


Then I got all geeked out and asked someone to take my picture:


I checked to see if there was cellphone reception (!) and called Kelly from the top of the world (well, from the top of a particular piece of the world). I knew that she, being risk-averse, wouldn't be too keen on my little jaunt, but I quickly found out that she had no call to diss my dangerous activities since she was answering my call on a portable phone while in the bathtub. (People often ask how we've made our relationship last over 20 years. I think this paragraph just about sums it up.)

I walked up to a second observation deck where yet again, I was reminded of western Newfoundland (see previous post). The steroids have clearly leached out of Bonne Bay Pond and spread to Gros Morne and the Tablelands:


I took a photo of two Pakistanis standing by a plaque that said how far they were from Islamabad, and they took one of me saying how far I was from St. John's: 4467 km, 70.3 degrees ENE. (Toronto, on the other hand, 2827km 92.9 degrees E.)


It was all downhill from there: