"Hidden Northern Canyons..."

Here again... I find myself musing this season... about how you just never know what you might find out there... if you don't go.....

Our wild lands are very mush still full of hidden secrets and undiscovered places; simply waiting for us to undertake the adventure...

A recent hiking & climbing trip to our backyard of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, proved this, once more, to me...

Having visited there, over so many years, it is easy to drift into some familiarity about this terrain. It is just as easy to stand on Banff Avenue, or near Lake Louise, even in Canmore, and look out at every summit in view, with a memory of when they were last climbed, or last hiked around, and maybe even get a bit complacent about it all...

It is just as easy to assume... that few wonders are left, little remains to be discovered, especially after summitting or completing routes numerable times...

Such assumptions, or complacency's, maybe even a bit of 'hubris'....... wear away at the enthusiasm and motivation to explore just a bit further... to travel a few more unknown trails...

The prompting of a friend was the genesis for taking a step beyond what I thought I knew...

One of these little known secrets, is that even deep within our craggy, northern, Rocky Mountains... are hidden canyons that you might think belong in the southern deserts, with their narrow passageways, high cliff walls, even ancient pictographs...

I have come to love canyons as much as mountains... They often hold very unique plant and wildlife... And they have brilliant stones found deep within them, that have been polished for millenia by the water rushing through with every spring runoff...

We hiked deep into three canyons this visit; ones that cut well into the mountain ranges; with just enough climbing and creek crossings to make it feel like southern canyoneering...

I remember... endless beds of rocks; of all shapes and sizes... cliffs so high so the top could not be seen... lush green plant life fed by cold streams... water cascading from ledge to ledge... and the eyes of an animal in the late day darkness as we slowly made out way back...

Once again... we wouldn't have known... if we hadn't gone.....

DSD