Roman Mountain, Tea and Geology

I write to you today during my lunch hour at work (although I usually write these posts over the course of several days, and this one continues in the public library). As part of my job in the Exploration department, last week we hiked up (again) to the top of Roman Mountain. It’s a wonderful view, and I regret that I did not bring my camera with me on that occasion. I must next time (assuming there is one); in the meantime however, my supervisor did snap some shots, and I was able to take some yesterday when me and some colleagues went flagging up the opposite side of the mountain (not reaching the top ourselves).

The Stetson: Photo taken by my supervisor, on Roman Mountain, looking towards The (aptly named) Stetson.

The water here is very hard, I’ve found, which limits me to making tea (more often than not) at work only, where there exists a water cooler. We have no kettle there however, so I am reduced to boiling water by filling a mug and microwaving it. Although I have a kettle at the apartment, it is covered in limescale, and the taste of the water interfers with even the strongest of teas I have.

My aunt gifted me with a water filter in hopes that it would help, and although it has removed the chlorinated smell, the water itself remains hard; I am surprised that there are no places in town that sell water softening tablets.

Most of the photos I have taken thus far have involved scenery rather than tea. Interesting geological features and the like, as the majority of the tea I drink is while in the office (which does not have much to photograph). There have been a few instances where I’ve made tea (I’ve found I’ve been drinking quite a bit of Dorian Grey [thank you Great Wall]; so much so that I’m running very low on the amount that I brought with me) in my Libre and brought it with me, but the Libre hardly keeps it warm long enough.

Photo taken by me: A hike along the more dangerous opposite slope of Roman; it is very steep, and nothing but loose shales and claystones; it is a good thing that hard-hats are required.

The area of Roman that we hiked up of, shown above, is actually along the slope of a glacial valley. One is constantly slipping on loose rock, but it is quite pretty.

Sadly, there are no tea shops where I am. I am an hour drive away from the nearest other town, and there I discovered a joint tea (and coffee) shop and used book store (Faking Sanity in Dawson Creek, if you must know). A group of us drove into town during my third or fourth week here, and I discovered the shop just as it was closing for the day. I was still able to buy The Map That Changed the World, a book that’s been on my wishlist for some time. But I was unable to try any of their tea.

The shop a wonderful find, and would be more wonderful still if I could drive, and owned a vehicle (thus far I have only been there once, as recounted above). Since this is not the case, I have been living almost exclusively off of the tea I brought with me, which is quickly running dry; otherwise, my aunt sent (along with the water-filter) some lapsang and earl grey from Tea Desire. Since my aunt’s parcel, I’ve had an offer from my favourite tea shop back home, The Great Wall, to send me more tea (they actually offered more than once–originally before I even left). I would accept, but I’m starting to gather so many extra items (rocks, mostly) that I’m a little worried I won’t have the room to spare in my luggage when I fly home half a month from now.

For the sake of tea, I’ll end this post with a shot of Dorian Grey I strategically placed beside the rock collection accumulating on my nightstand:

Pieces include: glauconitic sand in siltstone matrix, plant fragments in shale, pyrite in shale, my travertine pocked die, and hematite, plus an interesting banded red and cream rock.