Trail Magic

September, 2022

One foot in front of the other I trudge up the mountain. The hike seems impossibly long. Mike shared his cold with me, but he has long since recovered while I hike congested and coughing and on day three. Twice I collapsed on a nearby rotting log and I ask him if we really want to hike today? Do we realllly? His words are surprisingly upbeat as he comments on the altitude we already gained and on how nice it will be once we hit the alpine. In hindsight, I never thought to raise my eyebrows at Mike, the ever realist, who wasn’t one for overly positive words of encouragement. We were planning to stay for three nights, and I can’t recall my backpack ever feeling this heavy, I’m not sure if that’s due to the head cold or by simply living off of Thai food at the beginning of the summer.

This was our fourth summer hiking Passby, you’ll remember me blogging about it previously (or maybe this is your first read!). It’s our favorite hike, and the only hike Mike agrees to do more than once – he’s a one and done hiking kind of guy, and prefers walking with a gun. Passby begins at an old horse corral and meanders its way up the mountainside just outside of Smithers, BC, through an old cut block to a lush forest of large fers, and finally to the wide open alpine. What is now a well-maintained hike, was once used with pack horses for hunting, and we are told also by the original People of this land. The trail has changed since we did this hike a mere four years ago as it’s become slightly more popular, and the blow-down on the trail has been removed, the beginning of the trail labelled and widened.

As soon as we reach our usual camping area, I bust out the mickey of fireball from Mikes pack. Exercise may not kill this cold, but a sure shot of Dr. Mcgillicuddy’s cinnamon whiskey surely should do the trick. I place the dehydrated pasta meals by the fire and take a long pull from a tall boy of some local brew we purchased in Smithers. Mike’s just set up our florescent orange tent and sits down beside me on his green pair of rain pants spayed out on the forest floor.

I breath in the sweet forest scents and wood smoke from the campfire. I inhale long and deep and for the first time since unexpectedly returning to Canada, I look at Mike sipping his Bud, and I focused on the right now. We talk about everything that stresses us and everything that excites us: Mike has incorporated and is subcontracting for a local mine and sawmill (Mac Attack Millwrighting). He’s talked about owning his own business since the very beginning, so this is a huge and difficult goal. I’m dabbling in the agriculture industry and it’s nothing what I thought it would be like (I've long since left and went back to the mine).

I talk about missing Hugo and how it’s soul crushing, but time, and he holds my hand in understanding, because Mike loved him too. And I bring up coming back to Canada early and how I’m still mourning that impossible decision. But we talk about promises of other adventures: hiking the West Coast Trail, visiting Scotland, Snowboarding and seeing Kwejac, the land Mike’s grandmother Anne from. And I’m smiling again.

We are renting out our home and in the process of purchasing a second (update, currently renoing the second). I’m living in camp on a 4x3 rotation while Mike is up in Fort St. James renting a suite on some lakefront property, with no time to enjoy it as he’s ten on and four off work.  We cohabitate on the weekend, living off of strong coffee and the delusional idea that next week, life will slow down. We chat about how much work the house is going to be, but also how rewarding the work will be. We giggle about divorce dust and sweat equity, terminology that Mikes parents provided us, and hope to hell it’ll be the later outcome. And I realize the difference between excitement and anxiety is simply who you’re in it with.

After savoring two cups of camp coffee, my favorite type of coffee, and having some oatmeal for breakfast Mike suggests that we hike to Arrow Lake. Last summer we hiked to the peak of Passby, and we spottled the lake from up top. The hike today isn’t nearly as strenuous without overnight backpacks on, and I’m feeling much better than the day before. Mike admits his sleep was terrible due to me open mouthed snoring while facing him all night long - I’m a keeper!

We make our way above the alpine, going across the mountain, not directly up it, and cross three large voids, with small streams at the center. I find an old caribou shed, which was amazing, since they haven’t been on this mountains in about a hundred years, Mike explains; there’s only moose in this area now. After detouring a couple of times from finding and loosing the path, we walk across the scree toward the clear blue waters of Arrow Lake. After a leisurely lunch consisting of Mr. Noodles, to get a better view of the lake, we climb up the rolling hill. Mike suggests continuing in a final attempt of finding the second lake and a cabin we were told about. The long grass rubs my legs with the wind pushing against us,  and I’m staring at my feet in attempts of not getting tangled in the wild grass. I look up to a beautiful view without a lake or cabin and swear to myself knowing Mike will push on to go up just one more hill. He says something about how he’d doesn’t matter how many corners or mountains we climb as long as he's in it with me, but this is a lose paraphrase because I was thinking about yet another damn hill we needed to climb and that I was mouth breathing harrrd already, when I look up and he’s holding rings. 

The bustling noise of the wind stops and my ears are ringing and I forget about mouth breathing, but I think my mouth is wide open. I stare at this tiny, elegant ring with a red garnet shining back at me, safely displayed in Mike’s comically monster mechanic paw. And for the first time ever, I’m speechless. And my world stops. Because before Mike, I didn’t care about marriage, or weddings, or soulmates, or life partners. I am unapologetically independent. But then I met this person who is my equal, who stood beside me when my anxiety broke me and is okay in that I cry All. The. Time. I found this man who makes me do all the things that scare me, like snowboard drops, and purchasing a house in my name, and skydiving when I thought I'd blow an eardrumb due to plugged ears. I found someone who made me want a legally binding forever, and made me want to believe in the idea of forever and I want to be a wife for and a parent with. I found this person who I want to spend my whole life with, who makes me a better version of myself, whose problems I too want to solve, who fixes my Volkswagen so I make dinner and happily complete the pink jobs and pushes back hard when I push him. And now I'm happily gush-rambling.

Mike never actually said the words, he only held out a stunning second-hand ring, gifted by his sister, which means the world, originally his Grandma Anne’s. I think I said various words like wow and sputtered a lot. And Mike laughed. And I took the rings. It fits perfectly; a perfect sign of a sure thing.

Later, Mike told me he would have gotten down on one knee, but he knew I was a feminist. And it was just the most perfect proposal.

Kirstin

My best relationship advice: Make sure you're the crazy one.