Mt. Tzouhalem

One of the good things I had, growing up, was Mt. Tzouhalem. For two years, we lived at its foot. In front of the house, the land sloped down to a meadow, and on out to a magnificent view of Cowichan Bay. But, behind us, the evergreen forest crowded the vegetable garden, and the terrain rose sharply. We could see the uncompromising grey crag from the back porch.

There were people who told me they had climbed the face of Tzouhalem, but I was far too young to try it. There was a back way. About a quarter of a mile down the drive, there was a logging road that wound up the other side of the mountain, and eventually petered out into a deer path. Following that brought me to a small mountain meadow with soft grass and rare flowers--chocolate lilies, lady slippers and shooting stars. In the center was a huge rock, at least 15 feet in diameter, which had fallen from the mountain during some unimaginable upheaval hundreds of years ago. It had split when it hit the meadow, and small trees grew between the two halves. I didn't have to walk through the split, but there was a delicious sense of shivery fear when I did. The path got steeper after that, and there were rocks to climb.

At the very top, a gnarled and stubborn tree struggled from a fissure in the rock, and I could look out over Cowichan Bay, or, with an edgy feeling of vertigo, down on my home.

It was always sunny when I climbed the mountain, yet my home seemed to be perpetually in its shadow.