I cherish oceans and treasure mountains. Physically prominent on the west coast, it wasn’t until I moved to Toronto 25 years ago I realized how vital their presence are for me. How so? The cadence of the ocean waves recalibrate my own rhythm, while the sheer massing of rock formations grounds me. I consider them my bookends for balance.

To nourish my love of life and my passion for work, taking respites near oceans or mountains are essential. Over my career I’ve hiked amongst the canyons, arches and hoodoos of Utah, rode horseback to a remote ecolodge in the Patagonias of Chile, and trekked to a Buddhist monastary in the Bhutanese Himilayas. I’ve boated through the mangroves of Florida, suntanned on the French Riviera, and snorkelled in Akumal Mexico. I even bought a house with a best friend on Prince Edward Island partly for the sand dunes of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. More frequently I return to the west coast where, in addition to hanging out with my family, I embrace the natural landscape. In case you missed it, here’s my blog from last week about the beach I played on as a young lad.

As genuine friends are prone, most play a supportive role in my pursuit of balance while several are active participants. For 15 years my friend Wayne has shared his favourite boating destinations up the west coast on his boat, and shared his cabin in the Coast mountain range. In May I blogged about my journey on Wayne’s boat ‘Rhinegold’. Right click here if you’d like to read it!

This weekend I got my mountain fix.

My annual pilgrimage is about a two hour drive from Vancouver via the Sea-to-Sky Highway to the Squamish River Valley. The highway itself is a treat to navigate, being a spectacular ribbon of road winding along the edge of the mountains with the ocean below. Here are some pics:

The cabin is located on Cloudburst Mountain. The ascent requires negotiating a rather treacherous former logging road with precarious switch-backs up the mountain’s edge in a four wheel drive. Or, one can test one’s mental and physical prowess by hiking it, as I’ve had the occasion to do.

Our destination is always tiny glacier-fed Lewis Lake which is home to fifteen rustic cabins each in varying degrees of comfort and repair. Wayne’s little cabin ‘Lorien’ is perched on an escarpment overlooking the lake under a canopy of coniferous trees. Constructed of timber and cedar shakes, this seasonal cabin boasts a vintage wood stove, a Coleman burner, a small gas barbecue and an outhouse. An ordinary garden hose snakes its way from a little stream to a single kitchen faucet where the clearest coolest water pours.

Here the air is pure and your lungs breathe deep. Majestic stands of coniferous forests stretch across the landscape, wrapped in the coastal mountains where snow-capped glaciers seemingly drip over precipices like blue-tinted frosting. The ground is ruled by bears and the air by bald eagles, and although the contribute to nature’s song there is a stillness in this environment that resonates deeply. Lewis Lake serves both as a poignant reminder and a real life antidote to the crushing din which constantly assaults our daily urban lives.

Thank you again Wayne for your friendship and generosity. I am filled with gratitude for our times at Lewis Lake. This trip has been a perfect finale to a wonderful summer and the ideal precursor to the start of the Autumn real estate market. Behold the power of nature’s balance!

~ Steven