*This is part one of two*
Gotta love powder days. We very nearly ended in disaster today. The morning was, to say the least, a challenge, but the afternoon more than made up for it. To start at the beginning, overnight, we received around 5-6 inches of new snow, on top of the 4-5 that we had received the day before. There was a LOT of fresh snow around. While in some ways, this phenomenon is a wonderful thing, in other ways, it really isn’t. For example, take using snowmobiles in deep powder. While some snowmobiles are designed to be used in deep powder (known as powder sleds, they are extremely light and powerful with wide tracks designed to make them “float” on top of the powder), others are not. Take our two snowmobiles, for example. Our two snowmobiles are considered “work sled”—they are made for hauling gear up and down flatter, smoother surfaces. They aren’t generally supposed to be used for going up really steep or powdery slopes. Unfortunately, we didn’t have access to any other type of snowmobile so we used what we had.
The morning started out with another very civilized wake-up call at around 9:30 AM. We’ve settled into a steady rhythm of waking up here. Dan and David normally wake up early—around 8 AM, but let us sleep in until 9:30 AM. We all slowly wake up to the sounds of cooking and bluegrass music. (David is a big fan of bluegrass music) When I generally wake-up, I generally feel extremely groggy. For one, I have not showered since Sunday evening. I hate waking up feeling dirty. Second, I do not sleep well here. I’m lying on a pretty narrow wooden bench that is covered only by a sleeping pad and two sleeping bags. Third, I experience pretty wild temperature extremes at night. When I go to sleep, I’m usually sweating buckets due to the very hot cabin after letting the stove burn all day. By 3 AM, however, when the stove has burned out, it’s absolutely freezing and so I have to wake up and crawl into my sleeping bag. To put it simply—I cannot wait until I get back to civilization with a proper bed and a shower. It will be heavenly.
Going back to the day, after we had all woken up and had breakfast, we started getting ready for the day. Preparing to go skiing is a process which takes time and patience. There are always a lot of things to pull together and get ready before you can even start putting on your skis. Nowhere is this more evident than in the backcountry. Preparing to go skiing in a resort is hard enough work, but in the backcountry, this work is amplified many times over. In addition to all the clothing that one must wear to guard against the cold, one must take a beacon, shovel, and probe as obligatory equipment. We must also carry a fair amount of water and food in case we get stuck. All in all, it makes for an obligatory pack when skiing and more stuff to throw in. At around 10:30 AM, we were finally ready to go. We had decided the night before that we wanted to ski the dyke—an interesting run, or so I’m told. We all loaded up the snowmobiles and got ready to go. I wasn’t in the first group to be towed—that honor went to Jakob behind David and Danny/Henrik behind Dan. As they pulled out of the cabin, the rest of us could already see major problems cropping up. Not even a couple of minutes into the run, Henrik wiped out, but Dan didn’t see him, so he kept on going. This led to major problems down the road, while Dan and Danny went back for Henrik. David, meanwhile, came back for Charles. That tow seemed to go smoothly. Before long, he came back for me. I had never ridden the single tow behind David, so it was an interesting experience, but not necessarily an unpleasant one. As we left the cabin behind us, David pulled me up a hill, before reaching the currently-frozen Lake Irwin. It was a beautiful ride as we crossed the lake. At the end of the lake, however, stood a massive and very steep hill; before I knew what was happening, I realized that David was building up speed to get up the hill. What this meant for me was a period of slack as he went up the hill and I caught up with the sled, before literally being roughly yanked up the hill. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage this hill with much grace—I wiped out halfway. By this point, David, already frustrated by the other delays, just became more frustrated with my wipeout. It was not a particularly good moment. I recovered, however, and David started to tow me again. We went past where David had dropped off Jakob and Charles and continued up the track towards our destination. We carried on like this for several minutes before David started trying to go up a slope that hadn’t been heavily used. Before we knew what was going on, the snowmobile slid off to the side of the slope and firmly dug itself in. The powder was so soft that the snowmobile literally sunk in. David was very frustrated and so was I. I took my skis off and climbed up the slope towards David and the snowmobile. When a snowmobile digs itself in like this, there’s only one thing that we can do—dig it out. As I mentioned earlier, we all carry shovels in case of avalanche, but these shovels also serve another purpose—digging out snowmobiles. David and I set to our task and began the painstaking process of digging the snowmobile out. When we had finally dug the snowmobile out about 15 minutes later, David tried to back it out. The snowmobile moved—back into another snow bank. Once again, the machine dug itself in. David was really annoyed and frustrated—and so was I to a certain extent. Needless to say, a fair amount of swearing ensued. After our initial frustration had worn off, we set to our task once more. There really wasn’t anything more to it than to dig the snowmobile out a second time. It was a very hot and tough task. Finally, with the snowmobile freed once more, David was able to get it out—leaving me behind. I packed up all the stuff and started to get my skis on to start hiking, when David suddenly showed up again to start towing me once more. We did actually make it out this time and David started towing me back to where he left Jakob and Charles. We stopped briefly to make sure that Dan was ok—he had gone off in a different direction and gotten stuck in the snow. After digging himself out three times, he finally joined us and we all (Dan, David, Henrik, Danny, and me) headed back to the lake to rethink our options. The trip back to the lake was smooth and easy. It was a nice gentle downhill slope the entire way. When I got back to the lake—next to the hill that I had wiped out on—I found Dan, Danny, Henrik, and Jakob standing there. Henrik and Jakob graciously offered to let me ride with Dan and Danny back to the cabin (we had decided to return to the cabin to decide, due to the fact that both Patrick and Mauri were still there). A nice easy, gentle ride back to the cabin had us end up right back where we started—only two hours later.
*Pictures to come*
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