Imaginative Landscape

• Harry Hedley, Grade 11, The Peninsula School
• Short Story
• 2014

Finalist in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

Disembarking the lift, I scoot off from the bustle of humans clustered around the trail map. Green pine trees topped with wonderful white snow whiz by as I sail across the cold sleek snow. I feel like a renegade, betraying the snow, going horizontally across instead of down the mountain. From the foot of the mountain I must look like a defiant ant, edging its way further from the conforming colony. I slide past tree trunks, swaying and swatting at me with their grotesque limbs.
Taking my eyes away from my destination for a split second, I consume the landscape around me. Multiple settings merge into one dominant scene; mountains, forests and a huge body of water combine in a blend of colours that seem to connect like a jigsaw puzzle. Under the bluebird sky to the west, a river snakes through the middle of a valley, gradually transcending into cascading waterfalls and subsiding into a grand lake situated some several hundred feet below my position.
Snapping back from this epic view, I resume my quest for a rugged ridge, only a few furlongs away. Alas, I lose speed and slow to a snails pace with cranky frustration. Ejecting my feet, I throw my skis underneath a nearby overhanging rock emblazoned with rotten fungi from seasons past. Life has vanished somewhere behind me. Only the ridge, radiant snow, blue skies and the distant hum of crashing waterfalls remains in my mind. This is a place where the scenery has prevailed over human impact, a place where logging is forbidden and sixty black bears roam free on the mountainside in spring and summer. After an intense hike, I crest the edge and as always my breath is taken from me. A serene sense of peace affiliates my soul and creates immense contentment in which I can truly relax for hours.
I approach a rocky outcrop sheltered by two shouldering boulders. It forms a motley throne yet providing an isolated haven from the noise of society and the township back behind the slanted saddle of the ridge line. Reclining on my throne, I look straight at the stark contrast between the jagged mountain peaks of the Canadian Rockies and the bright blue sky, a dome over my head. As I slow my breath my senses pick up the definite details of my surroundings. The crisp air pierces my nostrils and the silence of my position is eerie compared to the noises that had encompassed me minutes ago. There is nothing but fresh mountain air, crisp and penetrating my lungs.
Sitting there for hours, I feel like a meditating Zen priest, pondering the world and acquiring a sense of peace that I would not have dreamed of obtaining. This panorama will stay with me until I die, endlessly developing and growing old like the sun that is now sinking low in the valley to the west, fashioning a gleaming rainbow as if to say its job is done for the day.