by R E Swirsky
CHAPTER 9
Saturday 08:34 Heart Mountain, near Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Richard lifted his shirt and wiped at the sweat dripping down into his eyes.
“Wow, Dad.” Tawnie laughed. “You were not kidding when you said you sweat a lot.”
Richard only nodded and smiled at her. He was much too tired to respond orally.
They had been climbing straight up for the past hour, only taking breaks every twenty minutes to refill on water and take photos. Access to the mountaintop was only achieved by holding on and moving from tree to tree in some places. In other spots, the trail crawled and divided into multiple barely discernible paths. It appeared to Richard that there really wasn’t a true trail to the top at all. Just point yourself up and grab onto trees, stones, rocks, or whatever appeals to you to ascend one more step higher. He found himself drifting off to the right to what appeared an easier, more open route, but his choice soon proved unwise as the surface was often too steep to gain a good footing on the smooth stones. Where it wasn’t smooth, the rocks were sharp and jutting, and fine scree was scattered across the surface, making the surface slippery. The mountain dropped off many hundreds of feet on the right side, and every route along the edge always dwindled away to nothing. A new choice of path had to be selected every dozen yards they moved higher.
“We’re there.”
Tawnie had found her own path to his left and was now a couple dozen yards ahead of him.
“The top?”
Tawnie laughed. “Not the top, Dad.”
He paused, wiped the sweat away again, and continued to climb up behind her.
“What, then?” He stopped to catch his breath. His heart continued to pound away.
“The Crux.”
“Oh.” She had told him about the Crux before they started.
Richard scrambled up and over a large boulder, careful of his foot placement, and looked up at the wall of stone above him next to where Tawnie waited for him.
“I see now why you called this kind of hiking a scramble,” he said. He puffed heavily.
“Twenty-six hundred feet to the top and nearly straight up,” she replied.
The sparsely treed trail levelled off a few degrees and the difficulty of the climb eased as he approached the rock ledge known as the Crux.
Richard stopped and looked at the long wall of stone that stretched from the left and ran off into the side of the mountain cliff a few hundred yards to the right.
“That’s it?” The stone face rose almost a dozen feet above them in places. A number of splits and cracks could be seen at different points along the wall.
“We have to go over it,” Tawnie said.
The stone wall was nearly vertical, and even leaned outward in some sections. An obvious trail ran along the bottom of the stone wall off to the right and up a scree slope that disappeared around the side of the mountain a few hundred yards to the south. Richard moved over onto one of the many fragmented paths that connected to the trail beneath the wall.
“No, Dad, not that way.” She patted the stone wall directly in front of her.
Richard responded by pointing at the stone-packed trail below the ridge to his right. “This looks like a well-used trail over here. Maybe we can go around the wall this way.”
She shook her head. “You’ll only get lost going that way.”
“But the path goes this way.” He pointed down along the path.
“That path is only there from people trying to find another way over the wall. It goes nowhere and just dwindles out halfway up the face of the cliffs over there. It’s a dead end that way.”
He stared up at the wall above Tawnie. It looked impossible to scale. Multiple large stones and scree led up to the base of the Crux. He studied the array of stones for a possible way over.
“It’s called the Crux for a reason,” she said. “This is the pivotal part of this entire hike. You make it over and you’ve practically made it to the top. If you can’t make it over, you’ll have to go back down the same way we just came up. If you try to go around it by following that trail you’re looking at, you’ll be defeated that way, too. Many have tried, I’m told.”
“The Crux,” he said.
“Many hikers just come this far up the mountain and turn back satisfied. It’s high enough. Just look at the view from up here.”
Richard scanned the valley deep below and looked back at her. “But it’s not the top.”
“Exactly.” She pointed up to where she wanted to go.
Richard studied the face of the mountain to his right again. To him, the trail below the Crux seemed to go off deliberately in that direction. “Did you ever go over that way? To see if there is an easier way?” He followed the trail with his eyes as it climbed up a steep scree slope and disappeared around the far side of the cliff face to his right.
“This is the Crux.” She shook her head and pointed at a small metal tag of about four square inches that was anchored into the stone wall. It was red in colour with a small white arrow pointing up. “It’s right here. It’s the only way to the top.”
He chuckled. “That has got to be the smallest marker I’ve ever seen. Where are we supposed to go? Up and over? How do we do that?”
Tawnie pointed at the wall above her. “That gap right there.”
It was a small crevice in the top of the wall a few feet above where she stood. It wasn’t big, but it looked to be the easiest option. “You give me a foot up, and I should be able to pull myself up into the gap then up over the top.” She removed the backpack and set it on the ground.
“Hoist me up.”
Richard scrambled up over some large stones and scree until he was standing next to Tawnie. He interlocked the fingers of both hands and Tawnie stepped up into his hands. She reached along the smooth stone surface of the wall as high as she could until she slipped her fingers into one of the few small crevices high up above her head. She tugged and pulled as Richard lifted her higher. Suddenly she was up into the small gap and on top of the wall.
“See. It’s not that difficult.”
“Here comes your pack,” Richard said. Tawnie caught it easily and placed it off to the side. She knelt on the wall and reached one hand down towards him.
“Grab my hand, and place your foot up on that ridge. I’ll pull you up. Grab over here onto the crack in this stone and I’ll have you over in a snap.”
He grunted, lifting his right foot as high as he could manage, until it rested on a tiny protrusion on the side of the stone wall. He grabbed her hand, and in one quick pull, he was yanked up and over the Crux.
“Thanks,” he said. He looked back down over the short wall. “We don’t have to go down that way, do we?” He couldn’t manage the thought of having to do the reverse of what he just did without collapsing and tumbling over the sharp scree and boulders that lined the slope below the Crux.
“We’re descending the other side of the mountain. It’s a loop hike. C’mon,” she said as she shouldered her backpack.
“People actually climb over that wall themselves? Alone?”
She nodded. “Some do. But it’s easier and much safer if you have a hiking partner.”
He gazed back over his shoulder at the top of the Crux. “Yeah, and if you’re lucky enough to even see that marker,” he said.
She laughed. “Come on, Dad. We need to keep moving.”
She urged him higher. “And there’s really no trail at all from here on up to the top. Lots of climbing on your hands and knees in places. Just follow me.”