On the trail to Cropley Lake you gain 1000 feet elevation distance before reaching the little cirque.  There the forest give way to an alpine meadow bending up the mountain ridge that wraps around the tiny like.  Cropley sits as if in the cupped hand of some mountain giant. More than two-thirds of the elevation is gained in the first half mile. We are at that spot when I discovered the absence of my camera.  There is nothing for it. We have to go back.

Aki hadn’t minded the steep climb on soft snow but the thought of having to climb it twice on snow shoes near breaks my heart. With hope of finding the camera a few feet away we slip and slide down the slope to the base where the little silver box still lies on the snow.

From here a saddle overlooking Hilda Creek is only a half hour slog across steep ski bowls broken by stripes of spruce forest. The sun escapes from a wall of clouds to send bright light onto the saddle, enticing us away from the steeper Cropley Lake trail.

Sunlight softens the trail to slow our pace but we reach the saddle before it disappears into a dark swirl of storm clouds that even now chokes the Hilda Creek valley below. Aki, who had worn herself off dashing after smells on the wide ski bowls, rests quietly as I take in 360 degrees of mountains  shining white in the morning sunshine. All is dark below. Fog fills the Fish Creek valley and Gasteneau Valley to the east as a storm swallows the lower lands to the west.

We don’t often climb to these high places for there is much beauty in the rich forest lands below. But sharing sunlight with a circle of mountains as the rest of world is darkened by clouds is something to savour. Aki shatters the moment by barking toward a nearby ridge, which returns the favor with a mocking echo. She barks again. A echo follows. Bark/Echo/Bark/Echo. Aki and her alpine twin.