Get yourself friends who will say yes to hiking 80+ kilometres and 2,000+ metres of elevation gain over 4 days with you. In mid-August, Brittany, Sam, Justin & I hiked to Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park, a world-renowned mountain destination and home to the second tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies.

On the last weekend of June, we packed two coolers, a couple bags, our camping gear and our dog into the back of our car and made our way to Ontario to visit Justin’s family and the farm. We drove over 3,400km through three provinces across four-and-a-half days to get there.

Halfway through 2020, the summer we spend most of the year waiting for arrives. It brings with it the full weight of joyful promises and optimistic mountain objectives from summers past, and our muscles ache not from bracing ourselves against winter’s bitter chill, but from throwing ourselves wholeheartedly into the warmest days we’ll have all year.

In mid-August, we visited J’s parents’ farm in Ontario. A long-awaited visit, the warmth, humidity, lush green pastures and utter tranquility was a welcome break from the relentless rain, tourist hubbub and parched mountain air.

Living wholeheartedly in the mountains. One day, this place will no longer be home, but everything I have learnt from the woods, the silent rock, the ancient fossils, the glacial streams and the resilient alpine wildflowers will always be with me.

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.

A spontaneous camping weekend in late July, trying to make the most of the summer. When you’re surrounded by mountain beauty, getting away is quick and easy (and only half an hour from home); there are few excuses not to get up and go, and yet so often we all let life get in the way of the experiences, moments and opportunities that truly matter to us.

This summer was fleeting, in a vastly different way to that of last year’s. This year felt a lot like treading water, taking things one day, one step at a time. Before I knew it, it was mid-July, and my backcountry trip to Berg Lake was fast approaching. All the glamorous ideas I had about training for the trip went out the window while I focused on working and applying for permanent residency.

A memorable day for many a reason, although I find myself wishing that one of those reasons was not that my bear spray accidentally went off as I was putting my pack on. Thankfully, it only mostly affected my hands and we carried on.

A moody, rainy day in late June. Our summer in the Rockies looked mostly like this, but the rain helped to keep the smoke from the wildfires at bay, for a time.

It's going to be hard for me to put into words the depth of my love for the mountains. The unexplained affinity I have for these tall piles of ancient rock and how it is that I'm drawn to them in the first place, as a woman born in an archipelago of 7,000 islands who spent her entire life in countries surrounded by the ocean (amongst zero mountains).

Summer brought us a string of visitors from Australia; one of whom was my dear friend Annie. An incredibly talented photographer, I'd been quietly following Annie's work since she was 16, and even then she was blowing my mind.