Chapter 15 - Suspicious Minds - 01 29 35

01 29 35
DVD capture
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Contributed photo
DVD Time Code = 01 29 35
Location: Hwy 742, Mount Smuts and The Fist
GPS:   50d 48m 42.18s    -115d 19m 37.26s
Map / Satellite Image: Google Link
Site Name: Three Mountains / The Fist
 

Travel Directions:
Three Mountains / The Fist is on Hwy 742, 39.5 km south of the Three Sisters Drive intersection in Canmore, and 3.0 km north of “Gonna Snow” Lake. The formations are to the right (west) behind the Smuts Creek (Jump Creek) crossing.

To reach Hwy 742 (also known as Spray Lakes Rd. / Smith-Dorrien Rd.): From Hwy 1 (Trans-Canada Hwy), use Exit 91 “Hwy 1A - Canmore.” Follow Bow Valley Trail 2.2 km, turn left (northwest) onto Railway Ave. Proceed 0.5 km and turn left (west) at Main St. (also known as 8th St.), go 0.6 km and turn left (south) onto Bridge Rd. (also known as 8th Ave. / Rundle Drive). At the “T” intersection, turn left (south) on Three Sisters Drive, proceed 0.6 km and turn right (west) at Spray Lakes Rd. (also known as Hwy 742). (Or simply follow the helpful “Kananaskis Country” signs throughout Canmore.) See map of Canmore.

Remarks:
The Fist forms the centerpiece of this breathtaking mountain group. Its neighbor to the left is Mount Smuts. These are among the most familiar formations in the Spray Range, which straddles the Alberta / British Columbia border. Mount Smuts is among the region’s most notoriously difficult climbs. Note the lovely creek (Smuts Creek) that flows under Hwy 742. See:

http://www.peakfinder.com/peakfinder.ASP?PeakName=Mount+Smuts

http://www.albertaparks.ca/peter-lougheed.aspx

A much-celebrated statesman, lawyer, soldier, politician, philosopher, and scientist, Jan Smuts was a general in the Boer War, prime minister of South Africa, founder of the League of Nations, author of the Preamble of the United Nations charter, and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The following is extracted from a speech Smuts delivered on Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa, in 1923:

THE SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAIN

The Mountain is not merely something externally sublime. It has a great historical and spiritual meaning for us. It stands for us as the ladder of life. Nay, more, it is the great ladder of the soul, and in a curious way the source of religion. From it came the Law, from it came the Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount. We may truly say that the highest religion is the Religion of the Mountain.

What is that religion? When we reach the mountain summits we leave behind us all the things that weigh heavily down below on our body and our spirit. We leave behind a feeling of weakness and depression; we feel a new freedom, a great exhilaration, an exaltation of the body no less than of the spirit. We feel a great joy.

The Religion of the Mountain is in reality the religion of joy, of the release of the soul from the things that weigh it down and fill it with a sense of weariness, sorrow and defeat. The religion of joy realizes the freedom of the soul, the soul’s kinship to the great creative spirit, and its dominance over all the things of sense. As the body has escaped from the over-weight and depression of the sea, so the soul must be released from all sense of weariness, weakness and depression arising from the fret, worry and friction of our daily lives. We must feel that we are above it all, that the soul is essentially free, and in freedom realizes the joy of living.

We must fill our daily lives with the spirit of joy and delight. We must carry this spirit into our daily lives and tasks. We must perform our work not grudgingly and as a burden imposed upon, but in a spirit of cheerfulness, goodwill and delight in it. Not only on the mountain summits of life, not only on the heights of success and achievement, but down in the deep valleys of drudgery, of anxiety and defeat, we must cultivate the great spirit of joyous freedom and upliftment of the soul.

We must practice the Religion of the Mountain down in the valleys also.

Pictures of surrounding area:

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  Revised 29 April 2015