December 27th, 2005
Mike Oldfield in the Rockies
1984. We were driving along and up a winding gravel road somewhere outside of Banff, with our backpacks in the back seat. He put a Mike Oldfield cassette in the tape deck. The music and the mountains merged.
My friend Linda and I had already spent two weeks hiking and backpacking in the Rocky Mountains. We’d camped except for a couple of nights at the Banff hostel. We’d survived hail and lightning, hypothermia, and a campstove that didn’t work in below-freezing temperatures. The mountains had become our routine.
Linda had to return home after two weeks, so I’d arranged to go backpacking with a group for my third week in the mountains. We gathered at the hostel and went for a day hike together for the first day.
It was a good group, and we had fun together. One of the guys ended up with a rock in his pack as payback for something; I don’t remember what. He was good-natured about it when he found the rock.
Another of the guys was limping slightly because of a not-yet-healed injury. He realized after that hike that he wouldn’t be able to do the backpacking trip with us. It was a hard realization after the group had already bonded.
The next day, we drove to the starting point. I don’t remember this guy’s name, but he offered to drive me although he couldn’t do the backpacking trip himself. He wanted to be with the group as long as he could, and I thought he liked me.
I’d never heard Mike Oldfield before. It expressed what I felt after living in the mountains for two weeks. It also expressed the feelings with this guy who was part of our group but had to see us off instead of going with us deeper into the mountains.
When we arrived at the starting point, he insisted on giving me the tape. Tubular Bells, I think it was. I carried it with me on the five-day backpacking trip.
That tape died long ago, but it inspired to me to buy the two-cassette set The Complete Mike Oldfield. My tapes later got forgotten when I got a CD player.
Sorting through things to pack, I came across those tapes. Mike Oldfield is playing again.