Trundling

Sometimes it’s the simple things that really resonate. That deep primal joy of fresh baked cookies, hitting a baseball for all your worth and a good hair day. The best things in life are often the most distilled – free of the clutter of confusion and complication. A few days back I had one of those moments of Zen, a moment worth sharing. It all started on Saturday when I went on an overnight hiking trip with my lifelong friend Bryan and a new friend Mark. We set out into the wilderness near a place called the Highwood Pass, deep in the heart of Kaninaskis Country in the Canadian Rockies. The plan was to follow a river to its source, turn right to a pass and camp for the night. The following day we’d follow a ridge back to the starting point and complete a great little loop.

The first day was filled with pleasant hiking up the river with intermittent views, the odd pile of bear shit and a running commentary of good conversation. We gained the pass and made camp, ate dinner and decided to go for a little hike to pass the time till bedtime. Further up the ridge we walked until we eventually summated the peak of the ridge. We sat on the crumbling summit and took in the magnificent view. Before long, the inner ten-year-old grabbed hold of my better judgement and I tossed a rock off the edge into the void. There wasn’t another soul in the area; both sides of the ridge were devoid of tracks and habitation. One rock grew to a second and soon the small stones weren’t large enough. The first rock we chose to roll down was about the size of a basketball. It skipped off the summit, dropped for 50meters, landed on a grassy shelf and accelerated to terminal velocity before dropping over some smaller cliff bands and disappearing into space.

Bryan mid trundle

The game was on. Prising rocks the size of microwaves, bar fridges and desktop hard drives we let them free to tumble, skip, roll and eventually fly into the unknown. Giddy with pre-pubescent excitement we strained to out due each other, launching rocks with ever increasing mass. Cheering like rabid sports fans we jumped with excitement when the boulders had enough geologic integrity to hold together before launching over the final cliff band and into the abyss.

It wasn’t long before we noticed the ultimate prize. Over the other side of the ridge, a couple hundred meters down the slope was a stand of dead trees. Like a thousand bleached white bowling pins, they were just asking for it, begging for it, calling for it. The first rock, moderate size by our standards, the girth of the TV I owned in my first apartment hit the stand of dead poplar with the force of a hand grenade. Bark exploded like a cluster bomb shooting skyward in a cloud of munched dead timber. More and more we rolled, ever increasing cracks were heard echoing throughout the valley. The largest was the size of a coffee table, rolling on its edge, somehow threaded the needle of the first row of trees before impacting a dead tree the once stood 10meters tall. It was no match for our mighty stone, the dead conifer exploded like a Bastion bomb. Branches flew in every direction and the sound reverberated through the range. Like a thunderclap the silence that followed was deafening.

Was it immature – maybe? Who gives a shit. When we were kids our dads wouldn’t have let us do that and soon enough we’ll be telling our kids to watch out, be careful and don’t throw rocks. It was a moment of Zen a trip back to a simpler time when there was pure joy to be found in trundling a rock down a hill just to do it for nothing more then the pure joy of being there and doing it.

SK