*This is Part 2 of Monday's Post*
We unpacked the stuff and made our way inside the cabin. Once we were inside, the interesting architecture really hit me. First, to get into the cabin, you had to drop nearly 9 feet to get to the door! The snow was INCREDIBLY deep. It was insane. Immediately after I commented on the snow depth, David told us that he had dug the door out the previous day. Needless to say, I did not envy his job. Upon entering the cabin, we arrived in a mud room/prep area. In this area—which isn’t particularly heated—the firewood is stored. We also take our boots off in this area, to avoid bringing tons of snow into the cabin. Going through a second set of doors, we arrived in a storage/living area. Standing bang-smack in the middle of the room was a wood stove—the only source of heat for the entire cabin. Along the wall next to the door were hooks—our storage areas. These hooks are where we store all of our ski gear. Opposite the doors was a double bed/raised futon—this was to become the sleeping area for Patrick and Jakob. Underneath the bed was yet more storage space. From the door, to one’s left is the kitchen. There’s no door or wall between the entry area and the kitchen to allow the heat from the stove to move throughout the cabin easily. The kitchen is pretty small—but well equipped. There’s a full stove/oven and a propane refrigerator. The middle of the kitchen contains a ladder up to the second story and an island. There isn’t a whole lot of room between the island and the stove. Finally, turning left again, one reaches the den. A counter (with stools) separates the kitchen and then den. In the den, there are a couple of couches and a small table. In addition, David has a laptop for movies and some speakers to play music.
Moving back to the entry area, off to the right of the doors is a stair case leading up to the second-story. The stair case switchbacks half-way up, but not before leading off into another room. On the 1.5 story, there is a room containing yet another bed—to become Charles and Mauri’s. In addition, directly off the staircase there is the bathroom. A note about the bathroom—it is primitive to say the least. There’s a small sink with a cooler (more on that later). Behind a curtain stand two toilets. One is a composting toilet for number twos. The other is a normal toilet for number ones. It’s a pretty basic system, but as David pointed out, it’s a lot better than the alternative, which is to have to use an outhouse. Continuing up the staircase, we arrive in a narrow hallway—literally a loft that contains benches on both sides and a narrow walkway. In one half of the loft, there was a sleeping pad and sleeping bag set up on a bench—this was to be my bed. The other half was used for storage. At the end of the loft stands a VERY narrow entry way into the other loft containing the master bedroom. This is probably one of the more interesting architectural features of the cabin. This entry-way is probably about 3-4 feet high and 2 feet wide. On the master bedroom side, only about half the entry way actually had a floor connecting to it. The unique properties of this cabin mean that the master bedroom loft contains a cutaway that looks onto the kitchen. When David was adding on to the cabin, he could only attach a portion of floor to the entryway. This means that it is a slightly treacherous journey from my bedroom to the master. The master bedroom is probably the nicest part of the whole house. It contains many windows that look out onto the surrounding landscape. In the center of the room sits a bed with chairs around it for sitting out and admiring the view.
Just briefly, I’ll talk about some of the utilities in this house and then I’ll move back to the day. Electricity in this house is very interesting. David lives totally off the electricity grid, generating all of his own electricity from solar and wind power (he has solar panels and a windmill outside). A massive bank of batteries stores this power for when we need it and David also has a generator as a backup. For water, David actually does get running water in the summer (unpurified, of course), but in the winter, we melt snow for water. A massive pot sits on the stove and just constantly melts water. It all needs to be purified, of course.
Moving back to the day, after exploring the cabin and getting settled, it was time to make lunch. After a brief lunch of tortillas and lunch meats, we suited up and headed out to do some serious skiing. In the backcountry, of course, there are no lifts to take you up to the top of the slope. Instead, in that time-honored tradition, one must hike up to the top of the slope in order to ski down. To hike up, we all have skins that we attach to the bottom of skis. These skins act as grips on the bottom of our skis—allowing one to move forward, but not backwards. In addition, our skis are designed to allow one to “free heel”—that is, one can be clipped down to the ski, like in a traditional downhill ski, or one can release the heel to allow one to walk almost normally (not totally…as I’ll explain later). In addition to our skis, clothing, skins, and poles, we also took a couple of other absolutely essential items with us. The other important fact to remember about the backcountry is to remember that you don’t have a ski patrol that looks out for avalanche danger and rescues you if one happens. Oh no. Out here, one must evaluate the avalanche danger by him/herself. To that end, we all carry beacons, probes and shovels. All are used in the rescue of a team member in the event that he/she gets stuck in an avalanche. The beacons allow us to look for each other—they will locate a team member, even if he/she is buried. The probes/shovels are used to actually find and dig out the person who is buried. With all that equipment, we packed up and headed out onto the slopes. Today, we were only hiking out of David’s house into his backyard (cool, huh?). His backyard, however, is pretty steep. We hiked up for about 30 minutes, climbing about 800 vertical feet. By the end of that climb, however, I had a deep appreciation for chairlifts and why man invented them. Climbing on skis is REALLY hard work. For one, you start sweating profusely…only this sweat has nowhere to go. It’s so cold outside that you are wrapped up trying to stay warm…until you overheat. In addition, it’s a pretty good workout—I would say it’s about the same as running up a mountain. Your heart really starts pounding. Finally, I reached the top of the slope and headed down. This was the part that made the hike really worth it. The entire slope was basically untouched, beautiful, virgin powder. Once you got your speed up, it literally felt like you were floating down the slope. It was incredible. After a quick second run up (during which the hike just felt even worse), I headed down again. Once more, I got an incredible rush as I headed down. After that, I called it a day and watched the others as they did one more (or two, in the case of Henrik…) lap down the mountain. We all headed back to the cabin and I got my first taste of being towed. Believe me; it’s easier than water-skiing, but still pretty hard work. The worst bit is when you hit some downhill. At that point, you start going past the snowmobile and have to worry about getting the rope wrapped around you. Fortunately, I was able to avoid any serious problems and made it back to the cabin without any serious problems. A quick dinner of stir-fry and a movie (“The Big Lebowski”) rounded out the day. All in all, this day was pretty successful and I really enjoyed my first day of backcountry skiing. I can’t wait for more!
*Pictures are still forthcoming*
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