Last week, fellow photographer Allison invited me to join her for a weekend outdoors with Colour The Trails. We would leave the next day, driving 2.5 hours north of Canmore to Jasper National Park. It would be my first camping trip of the season, so I spent Thursday evening gathering & my gear, making sure I felt prepared to leave right after work on Friday. I rarely get to visit Jasper, and with summer flying by, I decided to lean into the spontaneity and say “yes” to joining her on this trip.

I had only ever met Allison once before, on a fall hike in 2017. On our long drive up to camp, we caught up, swapping stories about the common challenges & triumphs of being raised by Asian parents in a Western world; photography; our careers, and more. It would be Allison’s first time camping, and even that is something we as people of colour have in common—many of us do not get to experience the joys of the outdoors until much later in life for various reasons (some of which I explore in this post).

It was 9:30pm when we got to camp, and there was just enough light left to set up our tent without headlamps. It was while Allison & I were setting up the tent that I suddenly realised my hiking boots were still sitting comfortably in the doorway of my home, 2.5 hours away in Canmore. I had a brief moment of shock before recovering and laughing it off—I had brought spares of everything else in case someone else was missing something, but had managed to forget the one thing that you can’t go without. Worst case scenario, I would be able to catch up on my book (Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina) in the tent while the others were out, I thought. I was proud of myself in this moment—ordinarily, something like that would have derailed me, putting me in a bad headspace for the remainder of the weekend. I am learning not to beat myself up over something so human as forgetting something so obvious at home.

After Allison & I set up the tent, we joined the others around the fire. I felt right at home with these women. It felt as if I was meeting friends I had known for years. During our introductions, we played “two truths and a lie” (as it turns out, coming up with a believable lie about yourself under pressure is pretty difficult). I met Zahra (za-ha-ra) & Khadija (kah-dee-jah), two sisters from Somalia who were multi-time migrants like me, having migrated to Libya, Saudi Arabia, Ottawa & Calgary in their lifetime. Zahra is the lead co-ordinator for Colour The Trails Alberta. Romissaa (roh-my-shah) & Omimah (oh-my-mah) are half-Moroccan, half-Egyptian, two sisters in a family of 8. Then there was Maria, who is Colombian; Shenaz, a Pakistani-born-Canadian, who drove all the way from Edmonton; and Diana, who is Kenyan and brought her adorable 3-year-old son, Sage. Allison & her family are Chinese, and then there was me, a Filipina. Each of us had such rich stories to tell, bonding over the common ground of our diverse backgrounds & upbringings. I even learnt that the word for “armpit” in Tagalog & Somali is very similar.

The next morning, we gathered over breakfast before heading out for the day’s adventure: an icewalk on Athabasca Glacier. I made my usual camp breakfast: a bowl of oatmeal and an AeroPress coffee, and prepped myself a bagel with veggies & cheese for lunch. At 9:30am we met our guides Corin (Athabasca Glacier Icewalks) and Tim (Zuc’min Guiding), as well as photographer & fellow outdoorswoman, Eva. Thankfully Corin had a spare pair of hiking boots in my size, as well as extra rain pants & jackets for everybody else. Heavy rain poured on us for 20 minutes while we were gearing up at the toe of the glacier, and the haze from the wildfire smoke trapped the cold air in this valley, preventing the warmth of the sun from getting through. We hiked up at a leisurely pace, pausing every now and then so that little Sage could keep up with us. Tim and Corin would help carry Sage over tricky crossings. When we got to the ice, we put on our spikes, being careful with our footing around the crevasses.

Tim shared his Indigenous perspective of the ice with us, teaching us about the mysteries of the mountain, and what a true land acknowledgement really means to the Indigenous. A land acknowledgement is beyond simply stating whose territory you are on—it is a way of arriving, pausing before you enter, almost as if you are knocking on someone’s door before you come into their home. It is a way of saying that this land will now be part of you and your story as much as you will forever become part of it and its story, and paying homage to that.

It was painfully obvious to me how much the glacier has receded. It always weighs heavily on me to think that glaciers such as this one could disappear entirely within the next 50-70 years; even less if we continue to get record-breaking heatwaves like the one we had this summer. The glaciers on the Columbia Icefields provide water to both the Atlantic & Arctic Oceans, supporting many fragile & diverse ecosystems along the way. While it is scary to think about what would happen if the world’s glaciers receded entirely, as Tim said, this place is as much a disappearing valley as it is an appearing one. As the glaciers recede, nature continues to show up in the form of alpine wildflowers, moss and other vegetation, extraordinary survivors springing to life after millions of years under ice. It is humbling to think that entire valleys like this were once completely swallowed by ice, as high as the very tips of the mountains themselves.

When we got to the ice wall, we ate our lunch and paused for a long while to take it all in, and take some extra photos. It was peaceful up there, with no one else in sight. The sun even came out briefly, helping to warm our windburned faces. We spent 8 hours of that day on the glacier. I was so in my element out in the elements; I can’t imagine living my life any other way now. These mountains truly have become part of me, as I have become part of them. I can only hope to leave this Earth better than I found it.

Some of the best decisions I’ve ever made have been spontaneous (out-of-the-ordinary for a person who loves to plan), and this weekend was no exception. Forging such meaningful connections with a group of women after over a year in lockdown filled my soul. There was raucous laughter, so much storytelling, and so much brown girl joy. I can’t wait to make more memories with this group of strangers, now my friends.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series documenting my weekend with Colour The Trails Alberta. You can read Part 2 here.