Our favourite part of the trip, hands down, was the day we hiked up to Snowbird Pass. It was a 9 hour, 27km (16.7mi) day, all to walk to a spot where you could see an enormous icefield thousands of years old. We stood and imagined how the rest of the valley would have looked centuries ago—the lush green valleys, bright wildflowers & flowing streams we had just passed being nothing but ice. The world was quiet here, and I longed to sit in its stillness for far longer than our little lunch break.

Our second day at Berg Lake was a little more leisurely. I had every intention of letting my body rest, but for me, sleeping in was impossible when the world came alive. I woke up a little after 5:30am, gently unzipping the tent to peel away our “door” and peek at the outside world, gingerly facing the cold.

“Do you guys do this for fun?”

These were the words uttered by a group of girls we passed on our way down from Berg Lake. By that point, we were already a quarter of the way into our 20km descent, having already spent 4 days living at the foot of Mount Robson, the Canadian Rockies’ tallest peak (3,954m above sea level).