The lucid dreams are starting to freak me out. During the night I dreamt that my girlfriends grandfather was driving a bus with her whole family on it. That bus ran a red light and smashed into a minivan carrying my whole immediate family……I woke up not know what was real and what was dream. I hate those….. I soon realized I was in the mountains and decided to climb out of my stink cocoon and see the day.

It’s summit day. That’s right. We’re climbing our first summit. Mt. Myra is the target. We’re actually kind of half way up it already, but we can’t see the peak because it’s around the corned and behind another smaller peak. Myra sits at just under six thousand feet. It’s mostly rock up from where we’re camping. Whoop whoop! Now summit day is a good day for a number of reasons. First, it’s a summit- come on! Second, our packs only contain “summit gear”. This means my 65lbs pack now is only like 30lbs. Good news all around.

So we start the day earlier than usual as we have no idea how long it will take to climb the summit. I think it’s important to point out here that because we had to switch course areas from Pemberton (mainland) to Vancouver Island our course instructors have never actually climbed this mountain. Actually, I may be wrong here, but I’m fairly sure they have never actually been in this area before! Kudos to Matt and Jasmin. Respect.

So off we went. We left our base camp all set up and started up the steep slopes to the summit. The scenery was amazing. It was one of those half sunny, half cloudy days. Big fluffy white buggers. Nice. The Strathcona mountains are unlike any I’ve ever seen. They are completely jagged. They have sharp points everywhere. This makes for tough navigation.

We climbed for the morning. We’ve gotten over the “everything hurts” phase so we’re able to start moving somewhat efficiently. The weather was not cooperating though. We had to make about a half dozen layering/delayering breaks. The sun would go away you’d start to freeze. The sun would come back, you roast your touche off. We finally stopped, took off the packs and prepared for lunch. We ended up having lunch at the base of a small glacier. If you’ve never drank from a dripping glacier you’ve never drank good water. It was so clear it was unbelievable. The best tasting water I’ve ever, and probably will ever, have.

We were starving. Julie, a super kind hilarious resident of Chicoutimi, was the lunch bad ass for the day. Now, to understand Julie you have to understand food. Julie loves food. A connoisseur you could say. Food in the mountains is the currency, not just the nutrients. So we unpack lunch and set it up…….what is it? 10 graham crackers each, some cream cheese and strawberry jam that has to last this meal and one more. So a mini cheesecake if you will. Julie is not impressed….. She shoots angry “I can’t believe this is all we get to eat to climb a mountain” scowls at the instructors. They are staring to fall in love and are smitten so they don’t notice. We all preciously eat our crackers and bask in the sun. Those who have brought extra snacks pull them out. I unfortunately thought “extra snacks” meant one or two power bars. Those have long been eaten so I had to feed on good old trail mix.

We continued on for a few hours and traversed around the side of the first smaller peak. This brought us into a magnificent cull (valley, pass) between the real summit and the smaller summit. It’s one of those places you can see so far in two directions that if you had binoculars you think you could see the back of your head.

It’s at this point that we started to notice mountain Matt and rock climbing legend Jasmin start to become a little quieter and more direct with their instructions. The climbing up until now has been fairly simple. There have been no really technical sections. Up ahead looks different. We traverse up a very steep rock slope. This is no rock slope like I’ve been on before. There are roughly 60 billion rocks the size of mittens precariously lying on one another. Every time you take a step 312, 116 rocks shoot down the slope below you. Helmets are on. We make it to the other side where Matt and Jasmin tell us to stay put while they find a way up. So we sit like good little students would and wait…..and wait….and wait… Some of us peed, some of us didn’t.

Finally Matt and Jasmin returned. They’ve found a way up. Matt led the charge while Jasmin played sweep (the last person). We had to go back across the billions of rocks. This time we gained elevation though by going across and up. Near the top of these rocks in a little gulley by a stream before the next steep climb sat one lone plant. It’s about a meter tall and has huge leaves out to each size. I’m right in front of Jasmin. She whispers that this plant is called Indian Hellebore. It’s extremely poisonous to humans if ingested but its leaves are #2 on the Butt Wipe list. #2!!!! I make a mental note of this and plan to strip the plant naked on the way back.

We arrive at huge sweeping terrace of a plateau that is just below the actually summit. The rest of the climb is almost straight up. Matt runs up (literally) and finds a route. We start to move up nose-to-butt. This is where you are so close to the person in front of you that your nose literally touches their butt. This is to prevent rocks from gaining enough speed to kill someone. If you knock a rock loose and it starts to roll downhill you yell ROCK!. The French girls of course yelled roche, but luckily it’s one of those words that sounds the same in English.

The short section is hard but not too long. We reach the summit. There are amazing views all around us. We can see the mine where we started. We can see a huge lake (Buttle Lake). We can see all of the peaks around us. It’s breath taking. We have 10 minutes to enjoy the view. It’s taken longer than expected to arrive so we need to boot it back down to ensure we don’t travel at night. We grab a group photo, Matt plays us a tune on his penny whistle (he carries it everywhere he goes!), and we head back down.

The climb back down was uneventful as we knew the route to follow. As promised though when we passed the Indian hellebore I, and a few others stripped every living leaf off of the plant. Low impact my butt. After touching my first leaf I knew why it was butt wipe #2. The top of the leaves are waxy, like a rubber plant. The underside however is much like velvet. A small layers of peach fuzz like hair grows there making it unbelievably soft to the touch. This is wiping at its finest.

Because we stink so bad three of us decide to take a dip in the lake……I lasted 35 seconds, maybe less. I think this water is super water or something. It seems to be able to go below freezing and not actually solidify.

Bed time…..As I settle in for the night and close up my sleeping bag around me I start to feel a little scratch in my throat. I hope it’s not a cold. I close my eyes, this time expecting to see lucid dreams of kamikaze bus driving potential-in-laws. It’s the end of Day 5 as I know it.

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