Bill's last hike

 August 23, 2020, six months since the world changed as a result of Covid 19. At the moment I’m in a campground in the East Kananaskis. We've been here a week. It’s an OHV campground (off highway vehicle I didn't know what that stood for) campground and the trails run right past our campsite. Since nobody is going far this year, there has been a run on campground reservations. This was the only reservation we could get for more than a couple of days so we took it.

One of the main reasons we wanted to come out this summer was to scatter Bill’s ashes in the mountains. We’ve talked many times about making this trip and when we did the hike it was a very hot, but very beautiful day with a blue sky and views of the mountains to the west. We knew the meadow we wanted, lots of wildflowers in the spring and an unbroken view of the mountains. We found some shade under a tree and had our lunch. Down the hill there was a very healthy-looking juniper bush. It was a fitting place, protected from the winds that sweep the hillside, with a view through the trees that grow taller each year. When we first began coming to the meadow, there were hardly any trees. Now there is a scattering and they are taller than I am.

In the grand scheme of things, it may not matter what happens to our ashes, but it gave us peace and a sense of finality to return Bill to the mountains that he loved and that he taught us to also love. It pleased us to know that he would have approved of the place his final hike ended.