BC continued...

The Perfect Day

Cheam Peak is the farthest northerly peak of the Cheam Range, a part of the Canadian Cascades mountains. It dominates the eastern Fraser Valley, rising above Bridal Falls and Agassiz, just east of Chilliwack, British Columbia. It is one of four peaks on this range, and basically the only climbable one among them. It is approximately 7000 feet above sea level, 2200 of that being the elevation gain during the hike up it's north face. The hike itself is almost 10km round trip, and just the drive to get up there takes a good, sturdy 4x4 (and a couple of helmets for the many bumps and hazardous corners) to make it to the parking lot.

   

Mt.Cheam always held a unique interest for my dad. There were many times during our childhood that he would survey the four-peaked range from wherever our vantage point happened to be and tell us about the grassy bowl in front of Lady Peak, and how he wanted to take us up there one day. He did that hike a couple of times with friends over the years, but he (and with many things) wanted to be able to share it with his children. And we also wanted to have that experience with him, knowing that he would point out the most minute details of the nature surrounding us, and somehow know the entire history of a specific wildflower, or sing silly songs when the trail got tough.

We never did go.

Around the time of his funeral, my aunt came forward and said one of my dad's wishes were, if and when the day came, for his ashes to be brought up the side of Mt.Cheam. So when I was out this past August, the four of us kids knew it was time, especially because my dad always said that there was a narrow window at the end of August and beginning of September where the snow was nearly gone, the air would be it's clearest, and the trail would be infiltrated with wildflowers that for the rest of the year may be non-existent. 

I won't give alot of details about the day, because it was a bit of personal time for myself, my sisters, Chad, and Laura - but we did what we needed to accomplish, and so much more. We hiked past the meadowy bowl of flowers, and up the trail with a legion of other mountaineers, past caverns of leftover snow, over creeks, stopping to trade backpacks every now and then or have a sip of glacier-fresh water, all the way to the tip top peak of Cheam. And then we gazed out over the 360 degree view of the Fraser Valley, saw the surprisingly flat top of Mt.Baker, silently high fived the other hikers who made it to the top along with us, and felt for a few moments like there could not be anything as great as what we were witnessing.

 It was perfect. It was a necessary trip - but there was so much meaning intertwined with that beautifully sunny, clear day, that when you consider what our purpose was for that hike, it couldn't have been better.

Shortly after we left the peak, we headed down to a more private area with dad's ashes and sat on the rocks, overlooking more of the valley and sharing what we needed to share. Then one by one, we poured out a handful of my father's ashes in to the other's hands, and stood at the edge of the cliff, letting the breeze take them away.

And something about the way the wind picked up every time one of us stood on that ledge, taking those ashes up near the peak of the mountain, and then scattering them over the valley below, unraveled a part of that knot in the pit of my stomach that has been growing for the past while. It was a completely literal act - letting him go. And that's not to say that this was really closure, because I simply don't believe in it.  But it softened the edges. 

My dad would have been proud of us. He had a deep appreciation of nature and would go to great lengths to see the perfect sunset or topmost view. It was not by any means your average Sunday stroll in the park. It's a pretty steep slope - and there are moments when you physically would rather just slump over on a log than bear-crawl up any more arduous short cut trails, wildflowers or not! 

Altogether it was a day that all of us needed, and another important step in healing.