Over the Moon in the Rocky Mountains

Wild-west-feeling majestic mountains, lakes as clear as glass, blue skies and unlimited expanse - People who have always wanted to become on with nature should travel to the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

On horseback you do not only experience a breathtaking scenery, but mailing one important thing: total tranquility.

Although "The Sound of Silence“ by Simon and Garfunkel was written about twenty years before I was born, it has always been one of my favourite songs in the world. And I have always wondered what it may sound like, the sound of silence. Now I know: Silence sounds like gently rolling hills and mountain tops covered with snow, like horses softly plucking grass between heather on pasture that stretches to the horizon. Silence sounds like “No phone connection”, like no electricity. Silence sounds like beef steaks, as long as my forearm, which are silently fizzling over the log fire. Silence sounds like Brokeback Mountain.

This is exactly where I am: the very place where the notorious Hollywood movie about

two cowboys in love was filmed. It is half past six in the morning, I wriggle out of my cosy sleeping bag surprisingly fit and chirpily and I open the door of my little log cabin just in time to see the first rays of sunlight crawl over the mountains. Although it is September, it is quite chilly  out here, the temperatures in the low single-figure area. The sky glows in a cheerful pink and luscious orange and some hundred metres away, our horses have scattered over the open pasture and are leisurely chewing the late summer grass. There are no fences here – if they wanted, our four-legged friends could abandon us here in the wilderness.

Breakfast in the wilderness "Don’t worry", says Wyatt, the young cowboy who is our guide on this pack trip and who trudges alongside me over the grass with a wide-brimmed hat and clinking spurs.