Lakit Lookout
That moment when you get your butt kicked and are seriously outclassed by a pack of seniors...
Sometimes you need to seek solitude. And sometimes solitude has a way of eluding you, teasingly chasing you back to society. This was one of those times it didn't quite work out... but was pretty funny anyways.
Amanda gave me a ride up and hung around until it was time to go find a lake... lucky her
Perched atop a ridge high above the Rocky Mountain Trench, Lakit lookout sits where it has for decades. Tethered to the ground by cables to brace it from the wind, snow and ground it from lightning the square little shelter hosts those who wish a memorable sunset or a deep winters ski turn.
Sun rays are sliced into neat rows of late summers light as they push through the Purcells to tease those in the Rocky Mountain trench.
Originally I had planned on doing a much longer hike, from Lakit Lookout to Teepee mountain descending it to get picked up at valley bottom somewhere near Lazy Lake. So, after a lovely evening listening to the shutters shake in the wind and tossing and turning until dawn brought quiet to my shack, I set out along the ridge to investigate the one way traverse. Several sweaty hours and some no fall zone ridge line later I was on Lakit, finally with a view of my destination. And shit did it look far away...
Unfortunately, I had to give up on my want to spend a few days alone writing like a wannabe Thoreau or Walden, due to a lack of water, anywhere. I'd carried ten litres up, but eventually, my dreams of Teepee Mountain (and its knee crushing descent) far in the distance had to die. And for me, turning around f*#king sucks. So I took a good while to stare at it and think about it with my shirt wrapped around my head to stay cool.
They sure are pretty. Looking east over the southern Rockies.
The blue moon rises over the rockies as Fischer Mountain thrusts skywards.
Know what makes it funnier though?
While meditating on the distant, lightning exposed, camel ridge trail to Teepee I noticed six silhouettes slowly picking their way along the ridge from where I'd started the day hours earlier. I decided to sit down and read a book in the shade of a three foot tree and see if these rowdy hikers were going for it -to Teepee I mean. If yes, solo me would join along. If no, I'd try and bum a ride down the long rough logging road.
Obviously anyone else hiking up here on a 40C day would have to be hardcore -- was all I could think...
At first I was feeling pretty smug thinking the mountain in the foreground was Teepee, nope, that's Bill Nye the one in the very distance is Teepee. The lack of water, and the huge S-bends of ridge line into nowhere land by myself were hard to rationalize against though I did try...
Wrong.
Lets just say there's nothing quite as humbling as getting a ride off the mountain with a six pack of gnarly seniors... Like, they all had a minimum of 50 years on me. I'm 23. You do the math.
They grumbled the whole way down. Hiked scree like it was a parking lot. Hummed. Drove and shook their fists out the window at people who drove too fast. And of course, ranted about the youth, the good old days, and Albertans and their "damn ATV's....etc. etc."
My weird weekend was complete. I went and sat by the lake with friends.