Last weekend I just had to get out into nature again. Vancouver is a great city but it is shocking how days and weeks just pass by without really feeling it. On the one hand it is nice to have certain comforts and pleasures but on the other hand there is also a lot to organise on a constant basis. You have belongings again, liabilities and also you are wasting a lot of time with the technical gadgets of our time.

With all of this city life also brings back many of the things that exhaust and frustrate us. I can feel how it is tough to keep up the deep happiness I have experienced after the trail. Life was definitely easier. And it was more focused and less diluted. Even though I am very much concentrating on the flying part at the moment and the progress is very good the entire life is more tiring somehow. And it is hard to tell what it is.

I am glad I have my koru. Very often I just look down on my left foot – even wearing shoes – and do remind myself of the state of mind I had been in and which I don’t want to loose. And it still works to calm me down or to not let me get annoyed over stupid things. But it is an interesting experience how quickly a city life and a stable environment brings you back into certain habits…

Therefore it was really important to get out again. And to do it by myself as well. I left early in the morning since it was a 25km hike with 1500m of elevation each way – up and down. The trail info said it is a 12h hike but I figured that was the “average joe” number and I would be a little bit faster than that. Anyways – I wanted sufficient time.

What a hike. The first five km are almost flat and after that it’s more or less just straight up. A rough trail, scrambling and all the stuff which I like.

It took me about 4 hours to get up to the top which give you amazing views over the flats of Vancouver, the surrounding mountains and Pitt Lake. It’s very cool because Pitt Lake is also a dedicated training area for flight training which I use very often for my flights. It was very cool to stand up on the mountain which passed in the plane very often already. What a great spot!

I spent about an hour and a half on the top and just enjoyed the peace, no cell phone reception and the feeling to be in the “right environment” again. It was also just a beautiful day. Blue sky, warm, fresh water from the snow fields close to the peak. While I sat on the peak an eagle started circling around the peak using the upwinds. A fascinating spectacle.

It was tough to leave since the views and peace up there was just great.

But of course – at one point of time I had to go back to “normal life”.
So funny to refer to normal life in that sense. I will never be able to re-socialize in the normal world… ?