Blizzards Be Damned: Mount Hereford

Waking up a night owl before the December sun begins its rise in the eastern sky proves challenging and, if you’re the one waking this person up, it could result in several spiteful words thrown your way. But if you and said night owl have been best friends for years and you, on multiple occasions, have demonstrated your viciousness first thing in the morning, it’s likely said night owl is terrified you’ll drag her out of bed. She knows you’ll do it.

So, when I ignored my alarm and ignored Will’s frustrated attempt to get me out of bed, it was the loud, piercing ringtone set for my best friend that had me frantically tumbling out of bed and hurrying through my morning routine. There was no saying what she would do if she knew I was still in bed.

By the time Will and I pulled up into her driveway, my brain foggy with sleep and my coffee still scalding despite the cold, I glared unenthused out the passenger window. A knowing and amused look graced my best friend’s face as she descended her driveway towards us. Will rolled down my window from the driver’s side of the car, letting the freezing air flood in, while I made a point of highlighting my grogginess to the cheerful woman grinning down at me.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” 

In the fall of 2020, as I prepared to leave my full-time job to continue my studies, my best friend, Noam, had set out to accomplish a long-sought-after goal. Inspired by a university colleague who, back in 2018, had challenged herself to head out on one new hike every week for a month, Noam decided she wanted to push herself. Four hikes weren’t enough for her since she was used to tackling six to eight during peak hiking season and spent her summer canoe camping in the North.

For as long as I have known Noam—since nearly 13-year-old us met in seventh grade—, she has always been determined, sporty, and wild. Not the wild you’d associate with party girls, but the sort that wore baggy wolf tees, howled for the sake of it, and embodied the essence of an adventurer. She was always buzzing with energy, encouraging others around her to step outside their comfort zone and do the things they wanted, but were too insecure to do.

But, after struggling to find a job during a year of skyrocketing unemployment and her dog sitting business—usually fully booked for the year—not bring in any clients, combined with the stresses of planning a wedding that might not happen, keeping her head up became difficult. It was then that her goal of completing fifty-two hikes in a year became more than just a challenge to achieve. It evolved and shaped itself into a way for her to stop stewing in a cycle of self-pity and gave her something to look forward to every week.

At first, Noam would head out on her own, text her mother and me where she was going, and call us on her hikes whenever she felt off about being alone in the woods. She’d tease me about not being with her, knowing that one, we did everything together, and two, I’d been desperate for a hike, as well. And though Noam made it seem like it was fine, I could hear in her insistency that she preferred to have company with her. On several occasions that she’d ventured out on her own, trails that should take about six hours to hike, she did in two hours, hurrying through them with a worry that some creep would follow her. It made her hikes unenjoyable and meaningless, which was far from why she was doing them in the first place.

By the beginning of December, Noam had accumulated two months of hikes under her belt, and with me newly unemployed, I decided to join her. Despite the light snow we had in the city, we would pack our snowshoes in the car on the off chance that there would be more snow in the woods. We would weigh down our backpacks with the portable stove and kettle for hot chocolate, stuff them with the extra socks and mitts we thought we needed and spent our hikes keeping count of every tumble one of us took—whoever fell the least won bragging rights.

Winter hiking became enjoyable. Instead of Noam rushing through a hike to get back to the safety of her car, together, we would take our time. We’d often stop along the trails to guess the animal tracks in the snow, and when we would reach the summit, take a moment to appreciate the sights and silence. On our way down, we’d race each other, unable to stop even if we wanted to. We were just two crazy gals running through the woods, giggling and chatting and teasing one another. Sometimes the conversation would steer in the direction of our worries, thoughts and plans, allowing each other relief from the endlessness of our internal monologues.

Our trip to Mount Hereford was no different.

Joined by our fiancés, we drove the two hours to Saint-Herménégilde, where the conifers sheltered us from the cold nip of the wind. It was frigid but not bone-chilling. Just enough for the large, fluffy snowflakes to drift down from the grey sky and stick to our clothes. We left our snowshoes behind, deciding, once scouting the area, that they would hinder us rather than help with the compact snow. With their long legs and lost in their conversation, the guys headed out in front of us. Starting our ascent at a faster pace than Noam and I had been used to, and which quickly found me wrestling with my layers, trying to shove them in my backpack.

The grogginess of sleep had long left me. In its place, a lighter, happier mood carried me through the forest. It was a shared mood between the four of us, each glad to be out with friends again, electrified by the crisp air biting our skin. Noam and I recounted stories of our previous hikes, telling the guys about Noam running straight into a tree, almost poking her eye out in the process, or when I got a nosebleed before even stepping out of the car. Each hike had something about it that stood out to us in our memories. Like the time we slid down the icy slope of the backside of a mountain on our bums, grasping at trunks and branches to stop us from colliding.

We emerged from the evergreen canopy and onto the rocky summit, its surface covered in a shallow layer of snow and the grey sky concealed by the haze of the fast-falling snow and gusty winds. A blizzard shrouded the mountain peak and fought against us as we stepped further along the summit, the rarity of the moment consuming us with child-like excitement.

It was like we were on an arctic expedition!

Note from the author:

Special thanks to William Botka at William B Photography for the beautiful pictures. If you’re interested in seeing more of his work, please visit his portfolio here or follow his instagram @williambphotographymtl.