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Testimonies Ken Sonnenberg
Testimonies Ken Sonnenberg
| Ken Sonnenberg |
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July 18, 2003 It was a spectacular day in the Canadian Rockies, one of those cloudless, intensely sunny days that come only a few times each summer. I was standing just above the treeline on the slopes of Paget Peak in the Kicking Horse Pass. The view was awe-inspiring—the mountains of the Continental Divide towered above, their glaciers blinding white in the thin alpine air. Forests of spruce marched up from the valley floor, finally breaking like waves on the rocky heights above. The wind was calm, the setting was quiet and peaceful, and sun was gently lowering into the hazy, golden west. And yet I was filled with a sense of panic; I was gasping for breath, and I scanned the incomparable vista with eyes blind to its wonders. For I was alone and lost, I couldn’t find my path, and didn’t know how I would make the descent off this mountainside to the safety of the valley floor below. The day had started well. I had planned a hike with a friend on a route new to me in Yoho National Park, just west of Lake Louise, and the weather forecast was good. The farther I drove into the mountains that morning, the more my anticipation grew, for the skies remained unusually clear. The fact that, at the last minute, my friend was unable to join me dimmed my pleasure only a little. Leaving the car in a scenic spot just off the Trans-Canada Highway, I set out on the trail to the Paget Lookout. After a pleasant climb on a good trail, I reached the abandoned fire lookout, a small bare cabin just below the treeline, where I took a break and admired the views. The glacier-hung north faces of Mt. Victoria and the Cathedral Crags revealed themselves in all their splendour. Leaving the trail behind, I set out to scramble up Paget Peak itself, reaching the summit without great difficulty. As promised by the guidebook, the 8400 ft. peak provided “splendid views and a satisfying feeling of accomplishment.” Having reached the heights, the true pleasure of the hike began—a walk along an alpine ridge strewn with patches of tiny purple flowers, leading to a higher viewpoint less than an hour away. There, while eating my lunch, I enjoyed the best view of the day, a magnificent vista of the Main Ranges of the Rockies. Immediately to the west, the fantastically eroded slopes of Mt. Ogden plunged sheer into the jewel-hued waters of Sherbrooke Lake, almost a kilometer below my perch. To the east and south reared the familiar peaks surrounding Lake Louise and Lake O’Hara. And to the south, the Kicking Horse Valley curved gently away, beneath the two kilometer high North Face of Mt. Stephen, and into the golden distance. In that pure, calm air, far from the clamour and haste of the metropolis I had left that morning, time seemed to slow, marked only by the imperceptible descent of the sun down the deep blue dome of the sky. Eventually I roused myself and faced, with regret, the necessity of retracing my steps. At first, all went well: back along the ridge to the summit, then down the bare south face of Paget Peak. I took a different route from the ascent but kept heading towards the white lookout cabin. From there, I knew the trail led down the mountainside, through the forest and back to where I had left the car. Eventually, I reached the treeline and lost sight of the lookout, but wasn’t worried since I was following a clear beaten track which I believed was leading in the right direction. Lost After a little while I discovered to my dismay that the formerly clear path was becoming fainter and fainter, and it soon petered out in the bush. I was in the trees, on a different part of the slope than in the morning, and couldn’t get my bearings. After looking around, I saw another beaten track which seemed to be heading the right way. Unfortunately, it too faded away in short order, leaving me standing above a rockband with no obvious way forward. Another path seemed to be visible in the distance, which I then followed—but with the same result. In following those false paths, I’d lost my sense of where the lookout was, and my sense of direction was hopelessly confused. At that point, the realization crashed in on me that I was truly lost on that mountainside. I can vouch for the truth of the saying that panic is one’s worst enemy. For a timeless interval, the sun was dimmed in my eyes, my chest seemed seized in a vise, I panted for breath, and the mountainside seemed to revolve around me. The day had been warm, I was down to my last few mouthfuls of water; I had eaten my lunch, there was little food in my pack, and I had seen only one other hiker the whole day. Dire imaginings painted themselves before me, and my spirit sent up broken appeals to the Lord. I tried to take deep breaths, calm myself and think rationally. Eventually, the solution to my predicament came to me, which I am convinced was God’s inspiration: to find my landmark, I had to turn around and climb back up the mountainside to where I had last seen it. Needless to say, that second ascent up Paget Peak was unpleasant; I was hot, thirsty and already tired enough. But what a feeling of joy and relief it was when the roof of the lookout poked out of the trees on the slope below me! The verse bubbled up into my mind: “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 106:1). I landmarked the cabin’s location firmly in my mind and started down. The descent wasn’t painless, but I was so relieved to know where my goal was, and arrived at the lookout with a deep feeling of thankfulness. Although I was hot, tired, sore and thirsty, from there I practically flew down that trail. I was so happy to be on the right path, the one I knew would take me back to my goal! Life’s Journey In our lives we have many decisions to make; there are many possible paths to take—for example, which course of study to choose, which career, whom to marry, which job to take. Many routes are attractive and seem like easy shortcuts to our goals. But as I found out on that mountainside, not all paths are necessarily good and lead to where you want to go. Indeed, some lead into uncomfortable or even dangerous situations! On that day, it turned out, there was only one right path for me to take; all the others were false. Isn’t this true on life’s journey as well? In the end, isn’t there only one right path to arrive at the true goal? Jesus told us about that path: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:13, 14). And we find this path only through Jesus, for He tells us, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). May God grant us His grace, that we all find and stay on the right path. |