Frost, Wine and a Storm in a Tea Cup

"The mountain is a riddle." Says Martin and he is right. As another fist of scree encloses my foot I curse ever trying to solve it. The ring of mountains that surround Waterton are little children compared to the great ridges that split the prairie from the coast but more than enough of a playground for someone who hails from the south west coast of England. The peak creeps up on us even though I feel it should be the other way around and to reach it I shed the pack I've been carrying on bike and foot since 7:30 that morning. It falls face down, straps flailing like the legs of an upturned beetle and finally on the pale, cracked crown of the highest point in the park we can sit and breathe and sip cheap rye whiskey. I feel elated. There's a framed picture of a Burmese Mountain dog called 'Hoover' by the Cairn, a poem on the back already being obscured by dirt.

But this is just a pit stop.

We still have to find an appropriate place along the ridge to pitch our children's play tent, all the while praying to the mountain gods that the weather stays clement. The formations we climb over are drawn from science fiction novels with neon lichen and square cut rocks like negative space. Martin tries to keep the moral high by teaching me nursery rhymes in Czech and talking about the madness of Mushroom Season in his home town. The sun turns to blood over the soft red hills of Western Alberta and, travelling without cameras, we try to commit the view to memory. I can still picture the blank faced prairie in the north, the now familiar Waterton ranges to the east and Montana's jagged toothy jaw, turning blue and disappearing south forever.

Finally we find somewhere flat enough to hold us and suddenly I'm caught by the strange illusion of scale this high up. I came here to escape Toronto in summer, with it's choking heat and tobacco coloured atmosphere and I am not disappointed. Without the city's enforced edges, the sky expands until it can contain everything at once. The sun hunkers down over it's own horizon while the star strewn night has already come out to watch it go. In another corner, a tiny thunder storm is making trouble and never has lightening seemed so perfect or a boiling sky so contained. We disappear inside our tiny tent to drink plum wine and read Robert Frost. The wind bullies the flimsy canvas but I can't fight sleep long enough to pay it any mind. For the mountain is a riddle and tomorrow we have a whole new set of puzzles to solve.