Twenty-three years later, we still whisper it in mythical terms: our trek in Nepal.

I was backpacking through Southeast Asia when my then-50-year-old father arrived at Kathmandu’s airport in his Harry Rosen button-down with a bottle of scotch, keen to join me on a three-week trek around Annapurna. We saw the planet’s highest snaggle-toothed peaks, drank salty yak tea, ate dahl bat (soupy lentils and rice) three times a day for 21 days, played impromptu soccer matches with little urchins and met dozens of Sherpas.

For me, the three-week trek was a grand adventure, but for my dad it was, frankly, transformational. Until then, he’d been a five-star yachtie. Roughing it meant G&Ts in some palm-fringed cove in the Caribbean. It was here, high in this Himalayan kingdom, that my dad learned to hike; to camp; to sleep on a ratty goat skin rug. Nepal changed him, shifted his horizons and rewound his internal clock. And, in doing so, it led us both down the path of many treks together, from the Canadian Rockies to the emerald hills of Ireland.

For a tautly wired CEO, this trip was the first time in 30 years he’d actually completely dropped away. Horizons moved and my dad ended up returning to Toronto, quitting his job and moving to Vancouver, where he set up a consulting practice.

Mountain Biking to Shadow Lake

Decades later, we are on another trek. As my dad, now in his 70s, heaves his mountain bike up an old fire road, I’m hoping this journey will lead us to another high-alpine mythical spot—Shadow Lake Lodge, 90 minutes west of Calgary.

Time has reversed our roles. It’s me who now leads the diversionary tactics. Chunks of chocolate appear out of my knapsack, and it’s me who recounts an old hiking moment plucked from spots my father and I have hoofed around. I use them all to lure my dad up steep switchbacks. Snacks, water breaks, distance updates—I keep them flowing like plasma, just as he did when I was small. Some people measure out their family holidays in cruise logs or cottage getaways. We do it, like notches on a doorjamb, in hikes.

Back on our bikes, we zigzag upward over carpets of pine needles baking in the sun. The forest is thick, with spindly lodgepole pine, and the occasional aspen spins its shimmery leaves in the silence that cloaks the peaks we can’t yet see.

Shadow Lake Lodge: Hike, Bike or Ride

  The 14.3-km hike has been carefully chosen. I wanted to hike somewhere significant, as I hadn’t had an adventure with my dad in years. But my father, who has problematic feet, hadn’t completed more than an amble to his local market in three years. Shadow Lake Lodge, unlike some other backcountry lodges, offers three modes: hike, bike or ride in on horseback.

We had settled on a combo—bike to the headwall, hike the last four kilometres and then barrel back out on our bikes. But the easy cycle that gains 460 metres (1,500 ft.) isn’t so easy. The grade is too much for my dad, so we spend most of our time pushing our bikes up the Red Earth Fire Road. 

“More time to talk,” grins my dad, marvelling at the gin-clear streams we cross. Long red tendrils of wild strawberry plants fan across the trail. We stop and stain our fingers with the teeny morsels of sweetness. Like the trail, the talk meanders. Food. Jobs. Finances. Books. Movies. Politics. Raising kids. Stiffening joints. Giving the grim reaper a run for his money (that is my dad talking).

Still seven kilometres to go.

Close to Comfort

We leave the campground, bounce along the road to the sign at 10.8 km and lock up our bikes. Now the grunt begins with a series of steep switchbacks on a narrow trail that serpentines through dense forests that end abruptly on a boardwalk. As you clomp along this last stretch, you can smell the wood stove and warm comforts up ahead.

My dad sighs. Slows down. Doesn’t want it to end, he says, grudgingly. I immediately think of Nepal, where I remembered him aching to stay, becoming mute on our final day. I chatter on about tea and warm banana bread and the cheese platter that awaits.

He talks about whether he’ll be able to do this again.

What? He’s never said that before. And so—I wait.

We leave the inky depths of the forest and, there it is—a vision of Goldilocks. Twelve little blond log cabins form a horseshoe around an open meadow. Central to this fairy tale scene is a 1920s Canadian Pacific Railroad log cabin (once a rest stop for horseback riders en route to Sunshine Meadows), puffing smoke from its rock chimney. This is where a hearty snack of cheeses, fresh homey bread, veggies, dips, chunky guacamole and a bar has lured other hikers to plop down and fuel up.

Relaxing After a Hard Day's Work

A Scrabble board appears, and I am gone. My dad wraps himself in a blanket and goes over to the library. Immediately, he is lost in the fables of the Brewster clan, one of the founding families who own (to name a few) Shadow Lake Lodge, Brewster Mountain Lodge in Banff and the Kananaskis Ranch and Golf Resort. Dad regales me with tales of a nearby talcum powder mine, how all the food, laundry and recycling comes from and goes back to Banff by horseback twice a week. There’s even a micro-generator powered by water in place.

That’s when Alison Brewster glides in, wiping her hands on her apron, just as her great-grandmother, Isabella, would have. Guiding us to our cozy cabin, complete with heater, remarkable views and a rack to hang my soggy clothes—all I notice is the goose-down comforter on each bed.

Like trekking around Nepal, the prize is always sweeter when you work for it, says my dad in a toast over dinner that night.

Continuing the Journey

Over the next two days, we slip into the groove we always do. We overeat at brekkie, pack a brown bag lunch and then hike all day. Up Gibbon Pass one day, then through Whistling Valley on another. Although I'm sad to report that my dad no longer hops across a bridge of rocks like he used to, he did barrel down that fire road like a madman. And he now asks me if the top is near.

If I have an extra fruit roll-up. What might dinner be?

The good part is—it’s my turn to tell the encouraging fibs, embellish elevations and cajole him about distances because, for the two of us, there is still so far to go. Miles before we sleep.

Photos by Deb Cummings