The morning we finally rode up the mountain

Four years in the valley and we’d never actually done the ride. Tom kept saying “we live here, we can go anytime,” which is exactly why we hadn’t. Then his parents booked flights and there was no more “we’ll go next week.”

This is a personal blog. I’m not going to tell you what a ticket costs, because I don’t sell them and I never will, and by the time you read this the price will have changed anyway. The operator’s own site has all of that. What I can tell you is what an actual morning up there looks like when it’s two locals and one visiting mum with a stubborn knee and one visiting dad with a low tolerance for queues.

The base station, or: parking at 08:40

We aimed for the first cabin of the day. That meant leaving our house at ten past eight, which for two people who work from home is essentially the middle of the night. The road up Mountain Avenue was empty. In August this road is a slow-motion parade of hire cars stopped in the middle of the lane to photograph mule deer — but in mid-September, on a Wednesday, at 08:40, we were entirely alone.

The lower car park is generous but the layout does that thing where it looks half-empty from the road and full when you actually drive in. We got the last spot in the top row. Tom’s dad, whose Toronto parking instincts run deep, congratulated me like I’d landed a plane. I did not tell him it was luck.

Waiting to board

The queue for the first cabin is short but weird — everyone is quiet and slightly cold and no one has committed to their coats yet. Mum kept saying “is this going to be one of those things where I’m glad I did it or one of those things where I complain for a week?” and refusing to say which she was hoping for. The staff were extremely friendly in the way Alberta service staff are extremely friendly at 08:45, which is a slightly rehearsed but genuinely kind register I still don’t have.

We loaded three to a cabin, ourselves plus Tom’s parents. If you go with strangers you might load four or five. The cabin has room, and the door slid shut behind us with a sound I can only describe as “too solid”.

Eight minutes in the cabin

People say “eight minutes” like they’re selling you an app: only eight minutes! But eight minutes in an enclosed cable car climbing something like seven hundred metres in a straight line up the side of a mountain is a long eight minutes.

You lift off with almost no sensation. The base slides down and away. Then you clear the trees and the whole valley opens under you at once: the townsite, the river, the golf course, the highway east toward Canmore. Tom’s dad went completely quiet. Tom’s mum said “oh” the way she says it when she means something. Ears pop — twice for me, once each for the others. Tom, for the record, is the only one who pretended his didn’t.

Halfway up the cabin swayed a little at a tower pylon. This is normal. It is also, to a Toronto knee, briefly not normal at all. Mum grabbed the rail and looked at me for confirmation that we were not, in fact, dying. I nodded. She nodded back. The moment passed. The cabin kept climbing.

The upper terminal

You step out into a warm, wooden building that immediately smells of coffee. It is a genuinely nice building. Not in the marketed sense — in the sense that someone thought about how a person feels after a cabin ride and gave them a floor that doesn’t squeak and a chair to sit on. There are windows on every side. On a clear morning you can see the Cascade ranges to the north and the Bow River threading east until the light gives up.

The queue for the outside boardwalk is on the west side of the building. Tom went straight for it. Mum bought a coffee. Dad said “I’m going to sit here for a moment.” He sat there for the entire visit and I still think it was the best decision anyone made that day.

The boardwalk and the wind

The boardwalk climbs a little further up the ridge to the old weather station. It’s not far — maybe fifteen minutes if you stop to read the plaques, ten if you don’t. What no one told us until we were standing on it is that the entire boardwalk is above the tree line, which means the wind is a proper physical fact.

Here is the honest bit: Tom wanted to turn around at the first gust. He is 191 cm of ex-barista and the wind pushed him sideways half a step and he looked at me with a genuine are we OK face. We were OK. A minute later we were laughing. Mum, who I had been most worried about, was already twenty metres ahead of us, one hand on the rail, taking a photograph of a raven that had landed on a post like it had been waiting for her.

The raven who wanted to be in our selfie

At the far end of the boardwalk, where the weather station sits on the highest knob, there was a raven. He (I decided he was a he) was about the size of a small dog and completely unafraid. Mum lined up a selfie with the valley behind her and the raven walked straight into the frame like he’d been booked as an extra. He then stayed for three more pictures, hopped onto Tom’s dad’s empty coffee cup, and left with what I can only describe as satisfaction.

Tom got a photo of the raven eating a corner of his mother’s scone. Nobody offered anyone anything — this bird just took what it wanted. It was one of the highlights of the summer.

Back down

We rode down in one cabin, four adults this time (mum sat next to a stranger, who told her the weather station used to log cosmic rays back in the 1950s; she asked me on the way home if that was true and I said probably). The ride down feels shorter because you know what to expect. The valley returns to you piece by piece: first the trees, then the golf course, then the highway, then the roof of the base station appears under your feet.

We were back in the car park by half past ten. Mum said it was one of the things she was glad she did. Dad said the coffee was pretty good. Tom said we should have done it in year one. He’s wrong — we did it exactly when it was supposed to happen, on a September morning with his parents, and I’ll take that.

Small notes for anyone reading this before their own trip

• Windproof jacket. Not a fleece. Not a jumper. An actual windproof shell. Even in August. Tom will vouch.
• Ride up early or late. Middle of the day is packed cabins and mid-blue skies. Early morning is quiet cabins and low sun.
• Boardwalk shoes. Regular trainers are fine. Sandals are silly. It’s a wooden walkway with occasional wet planks.
• The upper deck has a proper café. Don’t haul food up with you.
• Ignore the wildlife. Do not, under any circumstances, feed the raven. He’ll take it anyway. Don’t give him permission.

— S.