16th January 2014 - Rogers Pass, its not over. After lighting the fire, in the alpine hut on my own (in an isolated part of the mountains) I heard some loud noises in the kitchen, with pots and pans clanging, it sounded like someone was making dinner. How could that be? I headed towards that direction in total darkness and shined my head torch where I heard the loud noises. I seen nothing and this spooked me right out, I was convinced that someone was there. So, I shouted out “helloooooo...is anyone there?” I was answered with utter silence, reminding me of all the creepy horror films Id ever watched in my lifetime. Trying to forget about what just happened, I went back to poking the fire and prepared some food, the top quality food that was given to me from the chefs at Heather Mountain Lodge. Wasting no time, I threw on some chicken wings, 15 ribs, loads of veg and a kilo of pork all into one pot and began cooking up a storm. Definitely the man way of cooking, throwing everything into one pot, for you know, less washing up. To my surprise, being out in the mountains alone, a group of three Quebecers turned up after a long ski, now I had bunk mates. We sat around the hut, shared a few stories of our adventures as well as sharing my 10 kilo of meat. To add another social mix into the hut, Norwegians arrived too. After the big feed I seem to sit back, in front of the fire and listened to two languages chat away, which I found really therapeutic. The Quebecers told me there was an extra guest in the hut, they didnt know who or what but that he definitely existed, they said we think its a killer racoon or something. Before heading to bed I replied brilliant, thanks for letting me know, Ill be sleeping well tonight. Climbing the stairs, I put two and two together, it must have been a critter from the noises earlier. Not that this really put my mind at rest. I stupidly, left four plastic bags of food (more high class meat) before snoozing away. At 3am, I was suddenly awoke by loads of rustling and commotion - the sound of plastic bags being touched. My first thought was thats my breakfast!! I ran downstairs to salvage my meal(s) and as soon as I entered the room, the critter had gone. Next I immediately went over to where my bags of food were, to find that one bag (of high quality meat) was gone, too. Still hearing the noises of the missing bag, now in another room. I chose not to go in there, I was too scared to what I could find. My next step, was to save my three other loads of food and take them back upstairs and lay them by my side while I went back to sleep. Just as I started to nod off, I was alerted by a noise, mostly howling, screaming and loads of scratching, 3 metres away from my bedside. At this point, now the Quebecers were awake and panicking too, we grabbed our lights and shined it on the animal. It looked like a large, vicious, angry, giant squirrel with devil like eyes, lit up in the darkness. The Quebecers were shouting its a Marten, its a Marten! I couldnt care less what it was, all that mattered to me was did it kill humans? I responded thats great that you know its a Marten, now do they attack? He looks pretty angry about me taking the rest of my food back. One of them answered I dont think so. Brilliant answer I thought to myself, you think. With the constant growling and scratching, my guess was that he was pretty upset. He shouldnt of been, the little b*****d just had my prime meat. I was really looking forward to eating the meat for breakfast, if I wasnt so scared, I would of straggled it to death. With his screaming and carrying on, I knew what he was trying to tell me “oi Jamie, I couldnt care that youre running across Canada, give up the rest of your food”. There goes my night sleep, I decided to go downstairs, light the fire and begin to blog about the day. After an hour went by in front of the cozy fire, I drifted back off to sleep at 5am. The blog didnt get done. The next morning, after saying goodbye to the people in the hut, I trudged back towards the number one highway, more than one kilometre away, retracing the exact same steps where I had helped pack down the snow, the day before. With legs that were kind of rested, this go was much easier. I hung around the approach waiting for Parks Canada, as they had insisted on piloting me again. The look from Parks Canada was like “I mean business, lets get going”. Although I felt like this, I tried to lighten the mood by saying in a chipper manner “good morning!!” I didnt get a good morning back, but still really happy I said it. After the morning hello, we discussed about the day and about the decent that would be taking us 500 meters below. So, I opened up my stride and allowed Caesar to pull me downhill against gravity. With the first few miles under my belt, I felt that Caesar was totally redeeming himself on this run, after the hell he had put me through going up Rogers Pass. Caesar is definitely a burden, no matter what, whether running up or downhill, but I do have to keep reminding myself that its not his fault, its safe to say, we were friends again at this very moment. With Parks Canada driving in front of me, I felt a pressure that I had to really put effort and speed on this one. Knowing they didnt want to be there, put some healthy pressure on the run, to get it done quickly. Working in my favour, the miles flew by until a nice little surprise came out of nowhere. Three snowboarders, Tyler, Brent and Rob from Trappers, showed up on the side of the highway with food, drink, in fact, they had anything I wanted. They even offered a brand new tent to offer, I thanked dearly but explained that Caesar is already obese and doesnt need anymore weight. Running on, the warmth was increasing every half an hour as I continued to descend. It really is amazing how the temperature is rising the further West I go. Also, knowing that Ive left temperatures behind in the Prairies like -40C, was doing wonders for my mental health, which is unstable, often. Sometimes being a little unstable is what we need in our lives, thats when I came upon more snow sheds, that I had to run through. Here, Parks Canada alerted me to the fact that this was not there territory. They had made phone calls earlier that day, to make contact with the people that might be able to keep me safe, during this very dangerous stretch of highway. However, they didnt want anything to do with what I was doing and insisted that I dont run through the snow sheds. As Parks Canada was explaining this, he then said but, I know what youre like now, stubborn. So, do you want to do the same as yesterday, put Caesar in the back of my truck and you can run the tunnels alone? I was really appreciative to his offer and said “thank you for understanding”. Maybe Parks Canada were warming to Flash, after all? Tackling the tunnels was extremely narrow and there was definitely no room for Caesar. On many occasions I had to squeeze my back up to the wall and allow big trucks to drive by. After leaving the snow shed, Parks Canada had finished their job, I was no longer in their territory. On a separate note, now and then, a few times during this trip, people havent quite got it to what Im trying to achieve. Thats OK, because I remember when I told my Mum I was going to run across Canada and she replied with do you fancy a cup of tea? Now given sometime, she gets it, for sure. I felt that this might have been the case with Parks Canada, maybe. Although, they had every right to be angry, running the Rockies in the wintertime, is undoubtedly crazy and one that I wouldnt recommend a single soul to try. Unless, the person doing so, had the opportunity to inspire other peoples lives. Then I would tell that person to run over it as many times as theyd like to, because I know, Id do the same. Ive said it before in the last blog, but Ill say it again, thank you Parks Canada, for getting me through the most critical part of this journey. With all the snow melting around, it seemed to be creating a flow of water running steeply down the hills at the same pace I was going. Every step was soaking wet and there was no way around this, my feet quickly became like ice blocks. Adding to the river road, one corner with no hard shoulder (due to the 7ft snowbanks covering them) nearly ended my run across Canada. The snow banks made it impossible for oncoming vehicles to see that I was there. Two trucks driving side by side, ate up the entire road and headed straight for me - I could see them but they couldnt see me. Panicking, I began to frantically wave my hands above the bank, hoping they could see my some Flash colour, but I knew they couldnt. Time for plan B, it took all my upper body strength to launch Caesar into the snow (which was like ice) as far as I could push him, followed by myself, diving head first, into the snow. The trucks barrelled past and missed me by inches, phe To close for comfort, I ran as fast as I could to get the job done, after that experience, I just wanted the day to finish. Sprinting to my night stay I met Penny and Dave from Selkirk Tangiers helicopter hanger, who were kind enough to allow me to sleep in the hanger. The night wasnt over though, the snowboard dudes returned to surprise me with a portable BBQ, thinking that they would most probably find me in a snow cave somewhere. With a warm place to stay and the grill all fired up - I was happy that another mountain had been tackled and hopefully another life changed.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 20:42:38 +0000
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