Lake Louise

I stumbled across E.J. Pieker's Alberta page last night. As a lover of mountain photography, this was right up my alley. But the picture above was the one I kept coming back to and I wasn't really sure why. The darkness, the light, the reflections, the warmth of the light inside, all of these things draw me instinctively, but there was something more going on that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then I realized that cabin is on the shores of Lake Louise. (There are, in fact, a number of photographs on the page of the same area, so it must have been a combination of things that captured me.)

Lake Louise, for me, is the site of my first near-death experience. It was 1981 and the Saltsmans were on a long awaited vacation to Banff National and Alberta, Canada in general, including a visit with some of our oldest friends, the Shinpaughs. By oldest, I mean this:

That's me in the pool and Marian in her mom's arms. First friends.

So the vacation plan was to tour the upper Rockies of Banff before finishing off the trip with a stay at their home.

Lake Louise is a spectacular ski resort in the winter, but this was mid-June and the highlight of the trip was, for me, a half day horseback ride from the resort high up into the mountains where we would stop for hot cocoa and snacks before riding back down. It was a Sunday, the air was cool and crisp, and mom and dad had bought me new boots for the grand occasion. Yes, that's a horse t-shirt. I was smitten with all things horse at that age. I also seem to be prepared for high water, but I digress.



Before the ride we'd perused the gift shop and, inexplicably, they let me pick out what I thought was just the cutest shirt ever. Part of the trip had been photographing the beavers and their dams, after all. I am not sure how much older I was before I realized the suggestive nature of this shirt or the insanity of my VERY conservative parents buying it for me. Suffice to say, two beavers are getting bus-ay under the words Made in Canada.

I remember our guide was exceptionally cute and looking a lot like John Schneider. (I watched Dukes of Hazzard religiously.) So, being all of almost 11, I managed to skip the line a bit and end up riding almost right behind him the whole way up. See?



The scenery was gorgeous (including the mountains, wink wink) and I arrived at our peak anxious to dismount and see the falls I could only just hear from the trail. This is where those new boots come into play. New boots are beautiful. They are also slick as ice on the bottom until you've broken them in a bit, and I had saved these beauties for the ride. The minute my feet hit the ground beside the horse, they were out from under me. My memories of the fall are very first-person, looking upward at the line of horses and people disappearing in the distance. My dismount was at the edge of a very narrow trail, the left side of which was nearest the source of the waterfalls. In other words, straight down. I came to rest at a slight ledge, feet dangling over what would have been a drop to my death. As a kid in shock, pretty much out of sight of the people above, face planted on the earth rising up above the ledge, it took me a minute to realize that my left arm from behind the wrist and before the elbow was, in fact, at a complete 90° from its rightful place. At this moment, from up above, my hero comes scoochting down the incline, John Schneider II, ten shades of pale. It isn't until he's getting help lifting me back up to the trail that I look down at the drop. My arm hurts. (Ya think?!?) But more than that, it's freakishly hideous. And we're at the top of a mountain where no vehicle can possibly drive. The only way down is to ride. This is when, had I not been in excruciating pain, I would have reveled in the fact that I would be riding down in John's lap.

The picture above shows Mom right behind me in line. But by the time we'd reached the summit, I'd stayed close to John while the parental units had fallen further back. So at least they weren't subjected to watching their only child appear to fall to her death, as the trail curved around a bit. By the time John had returned me to the horses, they were there, white as sheets. They followed John, Dad leading my horse, while the rest of the party stayed on for the next group leader who would lead them back down.

When we arrived at the base, another 2 hours ride, I was brought to the resort which, it turned out, did not keep a doctor around on Sunday, nor was the medical clinic open. The nearest hospital was an hour away. At this point I've gone into shock, not feeling much of anything, but not particularly responsive either. It felt like forever and no time before I was popping through the emergency doors and getting an IV which magically did make me perfectly happy to keep my right-angled arm in place for as long as they liked. I have just one clear memory of that night: telling the doctor in the operating room that he was messing with the wrong arm; they were adjusting the IV in my right arm at the time.

The next thing I know, it's morning and I'm in this pink room and mom is peeking through some glass to my left and smiling that I am finally waking up.



The vacation rolled on once I was discharged from the hospital, me sporting my canoodling beavers shirt and a cast up to my armpit with a sticker of Lake Louise at the top. Near-death wasn't too bad, as it turned out. I just hope I didn't scar my poor John Schneider lookalike for life.


And we did finally get to the Shinpaugh's, only to find the house empty because they were stranded themselves from car trouble. When they finally made it home a day later, we picked wild blueberries by the side of the road and made muffins out of them. How's that for a happy ending?