Final Thought: mountain top experience

The first time I shot the Emperor’s Challenge, I didn’t quite understand the assignment.

“The race starts at 8,” I was told. Or maybe 9. This was a long time ago, after all, and the Emperor’s Challenge was a much smaller event back in those days.

So I showed up at 8. Or maybe 9. Or maybe I was 15 minutes late.

I got to to the Core Lodge (which is where the race starts and ends), and asked where they wanted me. Someone pointed up at the top of Mount Roman. (This was also back in the day when the race went up and over Roman, as opposed to its current route over Babcock.)

“Oh,” I said. “And how do I get there?”

“You run,” was the reply.

Okay.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to run all the way. The last … km? 2 km? was on the road, and so I was able to drive my old Ford Escort Wagon up to where the trail—basically a cut line—intersected the road.

And I got out of the car and started running up that hill. Carrying my camera bag.

I made it … 100 feet? before I couldn’t run any more. There’s a reason why I was photographing the event and not running it and that reason is, I am not a runner. I love hiking, but running? Just never did it for me.

So I started hiking. Up. And Up. And up.

The person I had talked to at the start/finish line had told me Kristopher Swanson would probably be at the top in about an hour, and so I pushed myself. It was me against Swanson, a race to the top?

Did I beat him? You bet I did. Not just because I had the shorter route, but because, after about 15 minutes of struggling up the hill, someone came by on an ATV and asked what I was doing.

I said I was the peak photographer, and they gave me a ride most (but not all) of the way up the mountain. I pulled out my camera as I made my way up the last half a km or so of roadless, nearly featureless terrain. As we had climbed higher up the mountain, we drove into the clouds. Visibility was measured in tens of feet, not in kilometres, or even metres.

While I beat Kristopher to the top, I was not the first there. About 100 m before the top, a lone figure emerged out of the fog, resolving into the form of Nathan Bernadette.

This might seem odd, but at the time, there was a walking race that started an hour before the running race, and Nathan was a walker.

By the time the second walker (the appropriately named Fred Walkley) hit the top, I was there, waiting.

That first year was wet and foggy and cool and I couldn’t stop grinning as figures would emerge from the fog and resolve into actual people. Some would run past, some would stop and pose. A few would climb up to the top of the rock that stood next to the race route and pose there.

That was the first time I shot the race. Since then, I’ve shot it at least a dozen times. The last time was in 2024 on a perfect, blue sky day.

This year I won’t be able to be at the peak because I seem to have injured myself by falling off my bike onto hard pavement. That makes me sad, but it is what it is.

Typically, this is where I would turn that experience of being atop the mountain into a metaphor for life, but I just talked to Barbi Mackenzie this morning for my daily video update of life in Tumbler Ridge—Today in Tumber.

Barbi is the volunteer coordinator for the race. She’s the one who lines up people to help with everything from being on the mountain to hand out water and jelly beans to racers to finding folks to help people park to getting people together to assemble packages for race day.

There is a lot of work that goes into planning the race, and most of it is done by volunteers.

And talking to her, it reminded me of how much in this town is done by volunteers.

If you have kids, and your kids play hockey or soccer or baseball? Those groups are organized by volunteers. Or if you’ve ever been to an event where the Lions were serving pancake breakfast? Those are volunteers, too.

The library has paid staff, but a volunteer board, as does the teen centre.

And when I needed to go to Fort St. John to get a trio of pins stuck in my leg, I caught a ride with Crystal Nicholls, a volunteer with TR Cares.

You know how Tumbler Ridge is known for it’s hiking trails. Guess who maintains those? Volunteers. Or if you love ATVing about the area? You can thank the local volunteer ATV club. (Thanks, Tim, et al.)

In one month, the fall fair will be held out at the fairgrounds. There’s be vendors, games, music and a whole lot more, all of which planned by volunteers.

When the town was evacuated because of the fire back in 2023, the people who manned the Emergency Support Services tables in Dawson? Were volunteers.

Volunteers are the life blood of this community, but it feels sometimes that it’s the same 20 or so people who are doing the volunteering.

Some of you treat Tumbler Ridge like a work camp; a place where you stay to do your job, but that’s never really become home.

You don’t have to volunteer. But if you only live your life for yourself and never take the time to get involved in the broader community, you will have a very meager existence.

There’s something amazing that happens when you stop gazing at your own navel and start doing things for the betterment of not just your own life, but the lives of those around you.

Errata: Congrats to Steve Weber and Alexis Murray, winners of the Killswitch Engage Tickets.