I’m pretty sure mother nature was drunk for the end of April. She gave us some mild weather, then one of the biggest dumps of the season with easily 30 or 40cm of powder overnight and then days later back to warm spring with people outside sunbathing on the deck and wearing shorts and t’s. Needless to say, spring conditions at the Lake did not disappoint.

One by one people have been dropping away, leaving for their next travels or returning home. What started as a trickle has turned into a flood with next week culminating in a mass exodus. All week I’ve felt only anticipation at the thought of getting back on the road and finding the next adventure. It was only the night before leaving that I began to have mixed emotions. I’ll definitely miss the mountains and the great people I’ve made friends with. I know Canada has so much to offer in summer that I haven’t seen that I will need to make another trip back sometime in the future.

And so it’s with a bittersweet goodbye that I’m now on the bus. Looking out at the beautiful sunrise over the Rockies for the last time (for now), as the pale blues of the sky and clouds mix with the dark, jagged mountains that sit brooding like intimidating sleeping giants on either side of the road. Some of them are as intimate friends, people you see every day, wearing their familiar coat of white that they keep on all year round while others just distant strangers, glancing at you from afar, both friends and strangers changing their mood according to the weather. Like deep vibrations in the air, they affect how we feel and act without us even knowing, everyone leaving this place touched or changed in their own way. I can see why people stay here for season after season.

I know the melancholy feeling won’t last long as the excitement of the heat and sun and bright lights of Vegas will blot out everything else. And if that doesn’t do it, I know seeing Mats bright smile and infectious laughter will soon have me grinning like an idiot.