In Memoriam

So I lost a friend recently. And by "lost," I mean in the permanent sense. I'm okay. Really, I am. Don't get me wrong, I have my moments of not-so-goodness, but I'm actually dealing with it better than I thought I would.

There's a mountain near the Upper Kananaskis lake called Mount Indefatigable. It rises 3000 feet above the lake itself, and the only approach to the summit is a trail approximately three miles long. Doing the math, that's about a thousand feet per mile ascent; which doesn't sound that impressive, but believe me, that's pretty huge. Until this weekend, I'd never climbed it. It's one of those trails I'd hiked past a thousand times, but never quite completed. I'd come close, make no mistake. The first time I tried, I had to turn back within sight of the summit. The second time, I wasn't even able to make the attempt. And in a way, that's what this whole story is about.



Five of us arrived at the Kananaskis Interlakes at about 12:00 pm. The skies were blue and clear. A faint haze hung in the air. We later learned that there was a controlled burn taking place nearby. The smoke hung heavily in the valley, unable to escape completely. And we were about as well as we could expect. The mountain we planned to climb hung above us like a gigantic stone monolith practically daring us to try it. Strapped to my hip, I had a camera (which, it turns out, was set to the wrong ISO, and so for the first half of the trip, my pictures look bleached out and grainy) and a spare lens. My back held water bladder, lunch, a jacket, and everything I would need for the summit approach. My right thigh pocket held a rock.



The first mile or so wasn't terribly interesting. A lot of trees, a long climb. It wasn't until we broke free of the trees at the first lookout point that we really realized how high we were. We'd hiked just shy of a mile and a half, and we were at least a thousand feet up. The whole valley was spread out underneath us. It was gorgeous. The thin haze seemed to make waves around the mountains of the valley. Maybe it did. Whatever was happening was an interesting phenomenon, but beyond that, it was just plain beautiful. Already, our group of five didn't look like they were all going to make the summit. Dora's ankles were starting to bug her: her boots weren't properly worn in. Which meant that Rich probably wasn't going to make the entire trip up either. But we pushed on.



The second lookout point was equally beautiful. This was where the trail started getting hard, and this was where most people call it a day and turn back, and it's kinda hard to fault them for that. The view is probably the best effort:payoff ratio of the entire hike.



And then there were three. Two of our number decided to turn back. One had heels that were getting somewhat raw, and her boyfriend, I think, was starting to get tired himself, and the hike was only going to get more vertical. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't half-consider turning back as well, but I guess I'm just stubborn that way. I don't like to let myself give up; so I didn't. My recollection of the last time I'd attempted to climb this mountain was that it got steep and annoying at this point, and my recollection was not wrong. At the end of the day, it was sheer determination that got us up to "the bowl" where the three of us stopped for lunch. It was here that I realized that my camera was set to an absurdly high ISO, and my photos promptly got a lot less overexposed, and a lot less grainy.





We finished lunch and stopped for a moment to catch our breath. We could actually see the summit from where we were, but the last time I'd had to turn back, we'd seen it then too. We'd turned back within about 20 feet of the top because the scramble to the top was crumbling under our feet, and it was a looooong way down if we slipped.



And then there was one. Or so I thought at the time. As we climbed out of the bowl, I had two very tired companions. I was tired too, frankly, but I was making it to the top if I had to drag myself face first over sharp rocks. There was just no way I was going to stop this close to the summit again. They told me that they would wait here until I finished. I think they could see it in my eyes or something, but they knew it was important. I was making it to the top of this mountain.



Yes, I'm in this photograph. I'm the tiny little speck making its way up the winding trail towards the summit. I didn't know it at the time, but my two companions had also made the decision not to let the mountain beat them.

I made the summit, exhausted. The trip up the mountain had taken a simply huge amount out of me. The last 500 feet of elevation gain were the hardest, not just because they were insanely vertical (they were); but because the summit was so close you'd swear you could reach out and grab it, but every step you took didn't seem to bring it any closer to you. Sheer stupid stubbornness drove me the last fifty yards up the mountain.



I'm not an overly emotional guy by nature. But standing on that mountain was one of exactly three times in my adult life that I've actually been moved to tears. It was like the whole world was spread out like a giant tapestry. The valley we'd just climbed out of spread out as far as I could see. Lesser mountains almost seemed to bow down before the mighty Indefatigable.

I drew in a shaky breath, and dug into my pocket for the rock I'd lugged 3000 feet straight up. It had been marked and dated with a sharpie marker: "August 19, 1996: Mt. Indefatigable." It had been given to me eleven years ago by a friend who had taken it down from the summit, and had charged me with the task of putting it back. I'd always assumed that he would be there with me when I returned it to its original place, but I guess fate had other ideas. Three weeks before the hike, he'd died in a tragic accident. By pure coincidence, a hike to the top of the same mountain he'd charged me with returning the rock to was planned a few weeks later.

I'm not sure whether I believe in God, or theology or spirituality or any of that stuff, really. But for a brief moment, standing on the top of that mountain, holding a stone that I'd had in my possession for eleven years, I could almost bring myself to believe in fate.



I left the rock on top of a tiny inukshuk someone had constructed on the summit, a place I like to think he would have chosen if he were there with me. I didn't say anything, no prayers, no long eulogy. I don't think he would've wanted me to. But I did stand there on the mountain, and decided that just being here, doing something he wanted me to do, something he'd asked me to do, was the most fitting memorial I could give him.

I walked down off the mountain as if a weight had been lifted off of me. Yes, I was no longer carrying a rock around in my pocket, but I felt as if I'd done something I needed to do. Something that was waiting to be done. Something someone had asked me to do. I'd done my mourning, and I was ready to move on.

We all mourn in the way we see fit. Some of us stand solemnly around the deceased's grave, some of us sing hymns, some of us pray, some of us party.

And some of us climb mountains.

Everybody needs a hobby

So it turns out that I haven't had a lot of time to pursue any real hobbies in the last five years or so. Funny that. So I figure that there are worse hobbies to have than photography. I saved up my last three paychecks as a grad student, and spent them on a new camera.

For the last ten years, I've been operating on two different cameras. First, a Nikon F60 (N60 in the states), and a Canon Powershot S60. My favorite of the two cameras being, by far, the former. That said, I tend to take a lot more pictures with my little Powershot.

The bottom line is that the writing's been on the wall for a long time: 35 mm film is slowly disappearing, and I admit that I've been in denial about it, largely because of my aforementioned love of my Nikon F60. For me, the real clincher was when I found out that Nikon had no plans to design another film camera after the F6. Point-and-shoot 35 mm cameras are all but extinct (seriously, try to find an amateur-level P&S film camera these days). The only film formats likely to survive the great Digital Revolution are the medium-format and large-format films, and even they will probably disappear eventually. Hasselblad now makes a full-frame medium-format CCD sensor.... The cheapest camera it's attached to costs $15,000.... so pretty much my current annual income. I didn't buy that.

So I got myself a digital SLR. I didn't go too crazy. I didn't buy myself a EOS-1Ds Nor did I dish out for a Nikon D3. Ultimately, I opted against both of those cameras for what I considered to be two very good reasons: 1) I'm not a professional and 2) I don't have $9,000. No, I went for the camera that professionals use as their back-up camera. The one that they use when their real camera breaks down, or doesn't have the right lens attached, or doesn't have its battery charged, or whatever (although, I once knew a sports photographer who went to every event armed with three identical EOS 1Ds SLR bodies, each mounted with a different lens; for those of you doing the math, that's almost $30,000, not counting the lenses mounted to them; and the one of the three lenses he was using that I could identify at the time was worth $10,000 on its own; he rationalized it by saying that he didn't want to waste time changing lenses). I wanted something I could play with, not something that'll empty my bank account. Although, in hindsight, it did end up emptying my bank account, but only by virtue of the fact that my bank account is practically empty to begin with.

So the first few shots I took in a word, sucked. But I'm starting to get the hang of taking pictures with this thing. You have to think about a lot more, because you don't necessarily have a computer doing the thinking for you. You have to think in terms of depth of field, and white balance, and F-stops and shutter speeds. You have to think about ISOs and how they affect your images. You have to think about metering and when to use a flash. You have to decide when you want to opt for a regular lens or a telephoto.

Yeah, fun stuff.

Expect photos to be posted here in the near future.