Parker Ridge Trail is a popular hike. The parking lot was about half full. The information posters showed the flowers we could expect to find along the trail. Marie studied these, and stopped frequently to examine the flora. Several other people set out from the parking lot the same time as we did. We were: Robert and Roswita, Tim, Jenn and Vic and CJ and Caitlin, Peter and Marge, Catherine F, and Marie and me. A dozen of us.
They first hundred yards or so are easy, and most hikers struck a brisk pace. I foresaw a stiff climb up the steep mountain side; Tim had studied the maps (he's a geographer), and told us it was a 1200ft vertical difference in about 1-1/2 miles of trail. Recalling what I had learned about hiking as boy in Austria, I started walking at what even to me seemed a very slow rhythm, and let others pass me. Eventually, I passed most of them.
Within a couple of hundred yards up the trail, I knew I'd made the right decision. I maintained the rhythm to the top, never varying its speed, just taking shorter or longer steps depending on the terrain. About 1/3rd of the way up, I passed a gentleman who had raced ahead of me. He was standing by a bench, chest heaving, chuffing like a broken steam engine. I greeted him without pausing, and kept on. The wind picked up the higher I got, and began to chill me, despite the wind-proof jacket I wore, and which had seemed too warm just minutes earlier, when I was sheltered by the forest. I reached the top before the others.
I carried a kite that had never flown. At the top, there were two stone-built low shelters, one occupied by a family of four. I sat down in the second one, it reached part way up my back. I was glad I'd tied my hat on, else the wind would have blown it down into the valley. Then I flew the kite, a parasail about 20" wide. I paid out about 150 yards of line, and watched the kite soar off the brow of the ridge and out over the valley. The rest of our group saw it, too, and took some photos. CJ showed up, and held onto the kite. The wind was strong, he hard a hard time holding it. Eventually, I reeled the kite down. Tim helped me retrieve it as it came into the turbulence below the ridge and dived onto the rocky ground.
On the other side of the ridge a small hollow sheltered us from the wind. We had our lunch there, sitting in a raggedy row along the east-facing slope. To the north, a small pine tree, sheltered by the hollow, demonstrated that the tree line is a zone, within which minor differences in micro-climate determine whether or not a tree survives. After lunch (and lots of photographs), we held a short ceremony committing Mum and Dad's ashes to the ground, scattering them under the pine. I read parts of the service from the Book of Common Prayer, which Mum preferred over the more modern forms. Catherine F. read a few words on her own behalf, and a letter from old friends on the Island. We stood for few moments in silence, said the Grace, and broke up.
We went on the trip because Roswita insisted on it. At first, I didn't think much of it, agreed mostly because Roswita is my favourite (and only) sister, and because it was a good excuse to see Tim, and Jenn and her family. But Roswita was right, it was good thing to have a committal rite.
I printed off some of the photos for Cassandra, Niobe, and Jon. I especially like the one of the tree with the higher mountains in the background, for Parker Ridge is only the first in a series of ridges that lead up to the peaks. I used a cheap panoramic camera, the kind that magazines once gave away as subscription premiums, and which one could find at Value Village. This one has a glass lens, so it takes reasonably sharp pictures. I will use it again.
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