Recently on a radio-thon generating donations for a charity that was
aiding with homelessness, a comment was said, “Really we are all just one
decision, or circumstance away from being in a similar situation as people
struggling on the street”. That really
hit home with me, and made me think about the importance of mindfulness in our
days and decisions.
The thought was further solidified today while backcountry skiing in the
mountains well west of Banff with a very good friend of mine. Our plan was to
ascend up Vermilion Peak. The route required a switchback uphill climb through
a tree region burned several years ago to the alpine and then a traverse along
the ridge to the summit. As it would have it, the burn region had changed in
that the undergrowth was very significant making the old route impassable. The
gully had a major life threatening slide that probably had released yesterday
covering tracks from skiers either that day or the day before. From a snow stability stand point this can be
an indicator of both good and bad things which I won’t go into here.
At that point, the current avalanche conditions, the condition of the
snowpack, temperature, weather, inexperience with the location, we turned
around with very little consideration for continuing and headed for another
location. On our way down, we met 10
other individuals that made the decision to continue to climb up the avalanche
path. I can’t get out of my brain that
had this slide happened at the wrong time today, there would likely be 10
buried bodies.
Just two unrelated things this week that really emphasized the
importance of mindfulness in all that we do.
No comments:
Post a Comment