Blogpost 18
SaturdaySundayMonday 30-31th July and 1st August.
At 6 in the morning at campground Berglake it drizzled and outside my tent it was freezing cold. I packed everything as quick as I could and went to the big wooden shelter here at this popular background campsite Berglake. It is a closed hut whit 4 big picknicktables, so no wind inside and pretty warm. Everybody is cooking there breakfast on their stoves and preparing for their next hike. It is a kind of silence everybody is hoping and praying that the weather will not be thát bad. I start talking with a Canadian woman and after half an hour I leave with a big hug and her card in my pocket because she is such an énthousiastic 50+ sportive traveller (and retired already….what is that in foreign countries? All these people in their fifties and already stopped working…. ) that we will have more contact by internet. 

Sun is coming and I walk away with a warm feeling. Once in a while a moment of real contact is good to have. I will learn to choose who to talk to and not to react on everybody I meet. Silence and innerstuff is still my goal. I have 15 km with 20 kilo in front of me till the first campground. I am a bit concerned. The campground I booked for 2 nights in januari, at home, I passed on the way in, seemed to be a totally wrong spot to stay. It is not logical to camp there, far away from the dayhike-possibilities, it is only there for the situation you cannot walk out the last 7 km anymore to your car. I am not looking forward pitching my tent there and spoil my time. Also because it is pretty cold today, cloudy, no ereader ánd worse of all, I am seriously running out of gazz. This cute little 117 gr gazzcan is almost empty. Eating dried food for dinner is one thing, but chewing on it in cold water is something else. My cappuccino will also not solve in cold riverwater, no tea to warm your hands. So living 48 hours on a few bars on a cold boring spot….. it puzzles me. How stupid to take this little can!!! It is a 3 days-can, i know now!

And what happened this day??

Somewhere during the hike we met and start talking. Mr. Fakebear left us later. When we arrived at my Kinney-campground I had the offer to stay at his camping for 2 nights, out of the trail. A “normal” camping with a fireplace, a toilet and a shower. Of course fully booked but i could join him at his piece of land. Ánd…with my car, included lóts of food, gazz, wine….

And allthough my feet hurt, I didn’t need to think long about this. This 7km I surely could add after a short feet-cooling down and a hot drink. No worries about gazz anymore. 

Campground Mt. Robson, with car.

We had an amazingly nice 2 days together. 

We did a sightseeing touristic day with Maligne Canyon, Athabasca Falls and….I forget. A whole lot of water together. 

You keep on picturing them, too cute!

We ate lunch at Bearspaw in Jasper. A tip from my Canadian friends on the way. A kinda Starbucksbackery! Delicious! And …..what did we see at 8pm while driving the 93A……whaaaaaaaaa!!!!!! A BEAR!!!

My new young friend with young eyes spotted him or her in the bush. I stopped the car, drove back and we both got out carefully. With shaking hands we tried to make pictures. First my car starts to make sirene-sounds because I got out and keys stayed in. I couldn’t get the keys out because I was só nervous. You want to make a picture só badly that it was a hilarious situation. And when I was taking a video and Bear looked up and looked me in the eyes, I started to whisper very nervous….omg he saw us…omg is he coming??…my video makes some strange moves there. But Bear was not interested in us at all and wiggled away. Pretty quickly in fact. We both had not one normal picture…

A bear..there in the middle

Next time (I hope) i will try to séé him actually..in stead of acting like an idiot. Anyway, we crawled in our tents pretty satisfied.

The Cavell Meadow trial

We did The Cavell Meadow walk on Sunday. I was lucky to have this guy around, born and raised in the Swiss Mountains, climbed and skied his whole live and walked up and down the trial like I ..like I….well like i do nothing anymore. 

I wanted to go to highest point at the ridge. 

Martin

And we did. 

Up was do-able, being up was the best view till now, also the coldest.

Just breath in and out

Not many people got hot coffee on top

 But down I got scared and legs blocked. I felt myself like 10 years ago for the first time at the start of a fresh frózen red piste without even knowing how to brake and my so patient partner at that time just saying “Come on, just go!” With my legs in cramp, soaked gloves from sweating hands, tears in my eyes and pissed at him that he just dropped me there I came down like i shit in my pants. Well, no partner now, so only the pissed part was missing. And then there was this cute young man and he stood again in front of me (he was already 100 m down) at the gravell and I just had to follow his steps. He controlled my shoes (of course they were good) and said, they will hold you on any slope! And it helped. But walk down in an angle of 45° with this little (rolling) stones under your shoes is still not my favourite part of a hike. 

I came the 500 meters down and got rid of this stupid fear with the song “Walk Unafraid” in my head. Fear is paralizing. I hate it! I think that I maybe wouldn’t have gone to this top on my own.

The green colors down their….

Floating icesculptures

We splurged our money between golf-society in the Jasper Park Lodge. I really was longing for a fresh served meal out of a chair. 

Well, more for a nice drink in fact!

The sun came out, a beautiful Lake, our own servant and a splendid Something Ceasar cocktail! I ate my first Bison burger..and was in súch a good mood. 

Everything fitted! (Alles klopte!)

Patricia Lake

 I offered him a night in my Lodge at Patricia Lake, where we sat down for a last chat, looking back at two well-spended days . Both travelling solo for the first time and both surprised by the ease of making new friends. 

At 6 am he went back to his car and original plan and after a hug we said goodbey. 

I went back to béd and my scedule says: RESTDAY! 

What means: blogging, trying to post the foreign blogs somewhere, loading all battery’s, washing, preparing next trip.