I Am Overruled
Please excuse me from this destination wedding
I am not a woman known for her love of the outdoors. In fact, I kind of hate it. So what does such a person do when invited to a beloved nephew’s wedding in far-off Banff, Alberta, Canada, where everything including the ceremony sounds like Outward Bound?
Do you think I mean that Ethan and fiancée Brittany have booked a beautiful mountainside hotel with a ballroom? No. I mean, the wedding is a hike up a Canadian Rocky and—instead of mani-pedis—the previous day, their wedding party will be on a white-water rafting trip that has the word “exciter” in its title. Why didn’t I politely send my regrets? Because I was one of only ten close relatives invited, and I so adore my nephew’s choice of mates that every time Brittany left the room I’d tell him, “You hit the jackpot, kid.”
The formal invitation is an enthusiastic, three-page email/itinerary, signed “With love (and so much excitement),” describing the three days of what I immediately characterize as my nightmare destination nuptials. I steer all conversations to the expedition whenever the topic even glances off upcoming summer plans. My friend Jenny listens to my description and its accompanying apprehensions, especially about bears, which everyone else seems to be taking lightly. When I finish she says, “’Bears’ doesn’t really say ‘wedding’ to me.”
I worry silently—what if I had a heart attack or appendicitis or broken leg or something fatal up there that would otherwise be treatable at sea level? And not so secretly I say that if one of my creative friends were to send me a destination wedding itinerary as an April Fool’s joke, this would be it.
I email my son, without my usual “Dear Ben” or “Love, Mom”:
“Are they kidding? A four-to-five-hour hike? With bears. (I went to the website). River rafting the day before? I’m rethinking.”
He writes back:
Aw, Mom, I think you need to buck up a little… you can’t back out of this! I know you’re creeped out, but I think it means a great deal to Ethan that you be there. And honestly, don’t sweat the hike. You’ve walked around the city for longer than that. And you still get to reward yourself with a tasting menu at some nice restaurant afterwards. xo Ben
I write back first thing in the morning, ashamed of my cowardice, especially in the face of Ben’s faith in me as a potential good sport: “You are right. I was just having a Banffxiety attack. I’m in.”
Between that exchange and our departure eleven days later, the groom’s mom, my sister-in-law, sends many emails. In what I don’t process as team-building, she writes:
The hike won’t be too bad until the end when it gets steeper and it will seem just a bit too long by then. Do you have a day pack kind of backpack to carry along? And or a boda bag for carting a drink along? Some of us have water bags called camels. Can’t imagine what bear spray is but I am sure it is readily available in the vicinity.
I write back that I have neither a backpack nor a daypack and don’t know what a boda bag is. I close with, “I’m hiring a Sherpa.”
When I tell my visiting northern California friend Heath about the wedding, her face lights up. She loves Banff! She’s walked that trail three times and never saw one bear. And the scenery is gorgeous. (She’s a landscape architect, so she would say that.) The hike itself? Phhhffff. She did it with an eight-year-old and a toddler in a backpack. It won’t be ninety degrees and it won’t be snowing in July (two additional concerns). Be sure to have black currant tea at Plain of Six Glaciers Tea House. I feel immediate relief until she adds, “Well, there are elk. They’re big. And if it’s running season, they’re more dangerous.” She tells me their antlers can be as big as a moose’s. I research elk, and follow a link to Longrange Hunting Online Magazine, to a thread discussing “ELK vs MOOSE…Who needs a bigger gun/bullet?” I read,
I can only answer about Elk because I’ve never shot a Moose but I can say this about Elk, they are without a doubt the toughest SOB’s I’ve ever hunted. I can promise you this, make a marginal shot on a Elk then crowd them and get their adrenaline pumping and you very well could be in for a very long day.
Ben and I fly non-stop to Calgary then drive to Banff, which seems to be one gigantic National Park. And yes, gorgeous. But if bears are scarce, why does every sign, every logo, every store mascot, and statuary depict bears and bear art?
I am sharing a condo with Ben, Ethan’s mom, his sister, Erica, and her husband of one year, Mike. As our welcome meal, Ethan and Brittany make delicious fish tacos, an homage to where and how they met, at Big and Little’s taco restaurant in Chicago. (They arrived at the same moment. Ethan held the door open for her. They waited in line for twenty minutes, then ate together.) While Ethan is grilling, a herd of deer, dozens, big and small, jog down the street bordering our grill and stop to graze 100 yards from us. I like that. They look at home here, like it’s their family reunion. Nice. No antlers. Not so bad, this wild country.
Over dinner, I am astonished to learn that the newlyweds will have a second athletic leg planned, “heli-hiking,” in which a helicopter takes them up a mountain, where they then, with a guide, rock climb and worse, straight up, with crampons and ropes. I ask them if their honeymoon in Fiji is going to be relaxation or more strenuous activity. Ethan says, “Total relaxation. Beach. Reading. Sleeping. Scuba diving.”
Friday morning: The mothers of the bride and groom, Aunt Beth and I, Erica and Cousin Barbara go into town for breakfast while the four men “explore” Tunnel Mountain Trail. Because the breakfast is the closest thing to a bridal shower, I had suggested in advance that we give the adorable Brittany lingerie. I am overruled. Thus, we present her with a free-trade blanket, free-trade coffee, free-trade chocolate bars, a whistle, a compass, a journal, a bag made of Indonesian cloth, and books. Erica is the only one who defies the non-girly guidelines. Her gift, my favorite, is pale blue, lacy bikini panties that say in rhinestones, “I do.”
With the white water trip just ahead, I’ve progressed to feeling not so much calm as fatalistic, picturing it to be more benign than the one I had dreaded from far-off Manhattan. I tell myself that it will be easier than my one previous strenuous white-water rafting trip in sunny New Mexico twenty-two years before. I’ll probably wear a bathing suit and life jacket, and get splashed in a minor, fun-loving way.
But it’s gray and intermittently drizzling. All of us, a whole busload, have to don so much gear that each layer makes me feel less confident that I can enjoy one minute of what’s ahead. One of the guides, from Ecuador, stands at the front of the un-seat-belted bus transporting us between lockers and river, and tells us that the water is five degrees Celsius, which is Canadian for “refreshing.” Ha ha.
We get a worst-case-scenario orientation. Another guide (they are mostly from the most athletic of the British Commonwealth nations) tells us what to do if thrown from the raft. I can’t take it all in; sometimes you swim, but sometimes you just float on your back till you’re rescued. The fear now at the top of my list is capsizing, and being unable to save myself because of the rock I knock myself unconscious against.
Halfway through our journey downstream, when I’m nearly acclimated and having something like a brave and soaked good time, we’re warned about some really serious Class 4 rapids ahead. We go ashore for further instructions, to view the much worse swirling waters and bow out if desired. It’s a fleeting temptation, but then I think: better rapids than grizzlies. The course of this scarier stretch is one kilometer long. We learn that our guide, Josh, will be doing most of the work while we six (per raft) will be huddled on the bottom.
We push off again. Josh tells us after the worst deluge that the wall of water we just survived, all eyes closed, was so high that it went way over our heads. We shoulda seen it! I learn that a wet suit’s function is not to keep you dry but to keep you warm, or in this case warmer than dying of exposure. Back in the locker room, Aunt Beth, who seems rugged and athletic and noncomplaining, further endears herself to me when she says to the room at large, “Next time, I’m wearing waterproof mascara.”
I write to friends when I’m back on dry land:
I’m dead. Walls of water (5 degrees C). I was one of the paddlers, 4 per raft. Much harder than advertised, grade 4 rapids. The whole thing was 12 km long. Soaked from head to toe—they put you in a wet suit, booties, polar fleece, slicker then life jacket. Helmet of course. You couldn’t pay me to do this again. In its own way fun but mostly the shock of it and watching us all get water-boarded and hanging on for dear life.
Dinner is indoors, warm and dry, at the Bear Street Tavern. We have interesting drinks and mostly pizza. Several of our party order some form of bison for their topping. I don’t, but I taste Aunt Beth’s so as not to burnish my reputation as the least adventurous Banffer. I like it. In this form, in cured curls, it could pass for pepperoni.
The wedding day dawns. My son, 31, who discovered camping and national parks only after he’d left home, remains cheerful for the next seven and a half hours, and is watching me for lack of sportsmanship. I am relatively cheerful when not petrified. The trail is steep and sometimes narrow; we see no bears, but a sign warns of cougars, and people pass us on horses, who are defecating left and right, ahead, behind and under foot. On one narrow passage, I inch along hand over hand with the help of a steel cable, a plunge to sure death on one side, a mountain with no give on the other. The scenery, the Rockies, are poster-beautiful, but wasn’t it beautiful enough an hour ago, at 5,000 and 6,000 feet?
The wedding happens in a meadow after lunch. Nine of us form a circle around Ethan and Brittany, and Aunt Beth reads vows so beautiful that we cry from start to finish. Each of us offers the intention/hope for their marriage, which we’d been asked in advance to prepare. I’d worried about mine, in which I’d be thanking “the fates and the imps of comedy” for the couple’s lucky, chance meeting, and Ben had questioned “imps” as being too flippant. Another mild worry: I’d be saying these two are beshert—Yiddish, meaning meant to be, arranged by God, which might be considered pushy in a nonreligious ceremony, and Brittany’s family is Catholic. We drink champagne (imported via backpack all these miles by my niece’s husband). We fully understand alcohol is not the ideal high-altitude beverage, but we don’t care.
We finish the hike, 1.6 kilometers left out of seven to the summit, which hadn’t sounded so bad until I do it. It is steeper and, after a point, disowned by the park service, a pass-at-your-own-risk finale. As I sit on a rock, listening to the avalanches too far above to reach us, Ben says, all smiles, “You did it, Ma. And tonight a pre-fixe dinner, a five-course tasting menu!” I said, “I know. I can wear a dress.” And then a little pathetically, “I brought a necklace with me.” The new bride laughs. She kisses me and says, “I love you.” She looks beautiful in her cut-off jeans and t-shirt, pearl earrings her only concession to bridedom.
My final email of the day says,
Another 7 km down. Ouch. In parking lot of Lake Louise, trying to get bride’s dad’s car started with jumper cables. He left his lights on for the entire 7+ hours. Oh we just did! Erica’s husband is an electrical engineer. Some nice Canadians helped.
On the way to dinner, when I’m still using words like “ordeal and murder,” Ben has a rare flash of temper. Could I please get over the hike and remember that this was a beautiful, moving, wedding? Isn’t that what counts? I know you think it’s cute,” he says, “but it’s not. Stop kvetching.”
All dolled up (as the itinerary had suggested), we twelve troupers sit at one long table, late enough that the restaurant is nearly empty. We laugh, but mostly cry over toasts that are so affectionate and touching and funny that we marvel at previously hidden talents for speech-making and storytelling. I hadn’t prepared anything in advance, but I stand to praise the teamwork and fun and quite astonishing fellowship. I began, “As most of you know, this was not my dream destination wedding.” (Knowing laughter.) I went on to say that it had been the most wonderful weekend ever; unforgettable—a bonding of the permanent kind.
The next morning, at our good-bye breakfast (bagels and lox, hosted by the Christian side) Ethan took me aside and asked if I could send him what I’d said the day before; that he especially loved “the imps of comedy.” And what was that Yiddish word again, because Brittany wanted to know it. “Beshert,” I reminded him. Preordained… inevitable…fated…meant to be; destined in the womb to be together. Yes, I’d send it. Of course.
I wished him a wonderful honeymoon and a great heli-hike. “Too bad I can’t go with you,” I said. Though once again red-eyed and choked up, we both laugh.
Over ceviche in Brooklyn a week later, Heath debriefs me. When I describe the terrain and its vertical challenges, she realizes she’d been thinking of the wrong hike! Mine was the iconic one, the Canadian Rocky hike! The one she’d done with two children was easier; and it was her husband who made the climb with toddler Phoebe in the backpack. She cites a statistic she knows from being outdoorsy: that only 3 percent of Yellowstone’s visitors ever venture more than 100 yards from the road. Not that I went to Yellowstone, but still I love that statistic. I look it up, confirm it’s true, and I tell everyone: I left the road, big-time. Boy, did I ever. I am mosquito-bitten! I have a sore big toe and a scratch on one elbow where skin met rock. I am part of a tiny, thrill-seeking elite!
Ben took pictures of me at the summit, my hair blowing in all directions. I am wearing lipstick and a happy look. I show it to people and say, “Note the fake smile,” but that’s a lie. It’s not fake. It’s me on top of a mountain, and I am thrilled.
