Tantalust, Part I: my little Everest
To say I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the Mountains would be an understatement. While other mountaineers likely dream about far off high places in the Andes or the Karakoram, I spend most of my time thinking about those right on my doorstep here in British Columbia, Canada. You see, I’ve lost the taste for commuting. I imagine I will travel to other mountain ranges in the future to test my mettle but for now I just don’t want to invest my time in Planes, Trains and “those aren’t pillows!”. Coming from Ireland, a quaint Island on the edge of Europe, going anywhere new usually required hopping on Planes and wasting hours of my life in Airports. It seems self-evident now, but a quote I read many moons after leaving Ireland eloquently describes the epiphany I had that fateful day when I decided to leave, for good, the home I had grown up in: “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” ― Seth Godin I was living and working somewhere that I couldn’t wait to escape from for a few weeks of every year. Time was ticking by and I was about to enter that financial quicksand that is the 30’s grind of getting a mortgage, having some kids and getting into a lot of debt and then trying to work my way back out of it. There had to be another way. So, “why not go on a permanent vacation?” I told myself. Why not live in the kind of place that I’d like to escape to? It’s seems straightforward enough but it’s surprising how many people I meet that pine over a vacation location they hated having to leave who have never investigated if they could move there. The idea of a “Holiday” now seems so strange to me. I’ve been in Canada for 3.5 years now and apart from a few days just over the border in the US to visit some mountains I haven’t been to any other countries, and apart from one work related flight I haven’t been in any Airports either. For me now, the summits of Mountains have become the Capitals that I wish to visit, and the Ranges they lie within the Countries whose borders I wish to cross. One such Range abuts the very town that I live in. It stands like a medieval fortress, flanked by a wide treacherous moat, with high, dark Watchtowers on all sides. The Tantalus Range. I had been making plans to travel East to visit some Peaks...
