Last week we had a final brief summer jaunt to the mountains, but it felt more like fall than summer, with fresh snow on the mountain peaks. One morning we hiked up Baker Creek before breakfast, layered up, gloves on, frost on the plants.
Baker Creek was the furthest west creek to flood last year, and by the chalets it became a vast swath of huge gravel. It’s been dug out and reconstructed, but still looks wildly different than before. It also looks much tamer, now, to our eyes, in comparison to what we found upstream. A pedestrian bridge caught debris and all the boulders and trees tangled upstream of the bridge.
We stood on a bank of boulders and fallen trees all in a tangle, several metres above the water.
The bridge has been removed (pilings damaged), and the trails wiped out.
I also found tidbits for a story. I’ve been collecting bits for a while, and found a little more at Emerald Lake a couple weeks ago. On this trip I found another piece at Stewart Canyon at Lake Minnewanka. It’s like collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces and not having any idea how they fit together until the latest piece – that one – connects here and then that connects to this and suddenly there’s a bit of story that’s come clear – oh – there.
I have half-a dozen stories-in-waiting like this, where I find bits and moments and jot them down, and then go back to my main project, knowing the other stories aren’t ready for that kind of attention, not yet. They need to incubate a little longer, and show me pieces and moments, bit by bit, until the story is ready for writing.
Maureen
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