~*...the first day of spring...*~

after lunch at the kitchen, i joined owen, julia, danielle, and gabriel for a hike up crystal creek. nelson is built on a very large quartz deposit and the creek is full of large pieces of quartz that you can just grab out of the water.

i had wanted to visit the creek, but was waiting for better weather to make the hike...and i couldn't have asked for better weather than today, the first day of spring.

it took about 30minutes to walk to the entrance of the creek path in the nelson area of upper fairview. the ominous "no trespassing" sign was easily ignored as we began our journey up the snow and ice covered path beside the creek.

the snow made securing solid and secure footing a bit of a challenge. the ice made it sketchy. i knew i should've worn my hiking boots.

but hiking beside a creek was amazing. there is something so calming about the sound of water rushing down a creek. i was able to grab two very large pieces of quartz from the creek too. it wasn't the kind of quartz i was thinking though. instead of clear prismatic quartz, i found cloudy yellowish quartz shaped like rocks...and it was in plentiful supply. its amazing seeing water exist in so many forms at once: flowing liquid, frozen ice, and snow.

it took us about 40minutes to make it to the caves near the top of the creek. we disappeared inside the dark caverns of the caves where we we were forced to embrace our shadows. the cave was only about 75ft deep and tall enough for us to stand up straight. it was damp in there, which is expected for this time of year. in the darkness we began chanting, listening to the echoes of our voices bounce off the walls of the cave. hey, when next am i going to be in a cave chanting on the first day of spring?

we also sang the song that i learned at andrea's baby blessing.

i hear the voice of my grandmother calling me
i hear the voice of my grandmother calling
she says wake up, wake up
wake up, wake up
listen listen

then we ended up beatboxing and hotboxing the cave.

the walk down was sketchy to say the least. walking up snow and ice is nowhere near as sketchy as trying to come down it. i ended up doing a lot of sliding down on my hands and on my ass, always concious of the fact that there is a creek that i could fall into. this was nothing compared to riding backcountry, so i was pretty comfy with going down inclines covered in snow.

at the bottom of the creek, danielle, owen and i tossed a frisbee around as the sun set behind the mountains.

as you can probably tell, i didn't have my camera with me. i guess my words will have to describe how beautiful nature is around me.

i'll leave you with some words that owen spoke as we headed towards the creek.

its just incredible that our eyes can actually see and absorb so much beauty.

and its more than just what our eyes can see. you can breathe it, hear it, feel it. its the kootenays.

~*...normaste...*~