A Winter Storm
*WHUMPF* “Did you hear that?” “I felt it” “Wait what? I didn’t feel it!” “What do we do?” “We don’t go any higher. We turn back.” “… ok” Last Winter myself and Spring started getting into backcountry ski touring. Learning to ski follows naturally if you live near mountains and wish to continue to visit them through the Winter. There is of course snowshoeing, but it is laborious. Skiing makes the uphill climbing more energy efficient and the downhill is fast. You can’t beat skiing for the ground that can be covered during the short hours of daylight through the Winter months. While the mountains in Winter are staggeringly beautiful they are also extremely dangerous. More so than in Summer when the temperatures are more hospitable and the hazards, though still present, are largely visible and known. As Humans we tend to anthropomorphize many things and I feel that when we see something beautiful that makes us feel happiness we imagine that the source of that beauty cares for us, otherwise why would it make us happy? We imbue these places with intent towards us. When the winds howl the mountain doesn’t want us there, but when the sun shines it welcomes us openly. I have felt this in the mountains while watching a sunrise or staring out at a grand panorama. It can be easy to let the joy felt blind us to the objective dangers that are always present. The mountains do not care if we find happiness or not. The are eternally indifferent. To an outsider who has never explored deep into a remote mountain range this may seem laughably obvious. It is only those that answer the call to venture into these high places that understand the struggle to separate the objective reality with the subjective emotional experience that one undergoes while immersed in these environments. I know I will spend a lifetime trying to understand it and, like all those pulled back to the mountains, will continue to go there to experience it. When I first started my Winter forays into the Hills it was easy to fool myself into believing that all I needed to get into the mountains was enough mettle to endure the cold and the skill to be able to ski, but I’ve since learned that this is merely the tip of the iceberg of the knowledge and experience that I actually require. The Winter Storm that titles this post does not refer to the weather but rather the early experiences of most individuals who push into the mountains in Winter without an understanding of the risks they are taking....
Scrambling Blackcomb Peak
This season myself and Spring decided to bite the bullet and buy Ski Season passes for Whistler/Blackcomb. Last Winter we simply didn’t get to ski near as much as we wanted. Very little of the fluffy white stuff fell early in the season and then a few weak layers appeared in the snowpack creating persistant avalanche concerns. A lot of our free time was spent waiting out bad weather, waiting for more snow or waiting for the avalanche risk to drop. We’re total ski novices, so we didn’t want to push our abilities under those conditions. This season, even if the weather is bad, we can ski at Whistler inbounds at the resort. We only really visited Whistler for the first time last Spring and we were amazed by the amount of terrain it gives access to. We expect to use it for ski practice under bad conditions and access to backcountry terrain under good conditions. A benefit to buying the Ski passes was that we got free Summer passes for hiking from the Gondola tops. Initially we imagined we’d be using these a lot this season but things didn’t work out that way. We didn’t use them at all. We’re still bitten with that West Coast ideal that mountains have to be earned and that requires hiking them from the bottom up and not using gondolas to bypass the slog to get above the treeline. However, with the hiking season coming to a close, and the mountains beginning to feel like the snow is about to fly any day now I wanted to use my free Summer pass at least once. Similar to my Mount Cook report, I had a free day when Spring was working so I decided to visit the summit of Blackcomb Peak solo. I actually imagined I’d be accompanied by other scramblers but that wasn’t to be the case. I arrived in Whistler late in the morning, joined the throng of tourists heading up Whistler Mountain, then took the Peak2Peak gondola across to Blackcomb. The place was buzzing with tourists. It’s not usual that my days in the mountains begin at 6200ft, surrounded by people in cotton and denim and the buildings and machines of modern society. I’m glad that this experience is still novel and not the norm. Fine day for a gondola ride A hungry snafflehound I headed out quickly on the trails. I knew that my time was limited. I had been tardy and it was already close to noon and the last gondola down the mountain was at 5pm, and I wanted to be on it. I could of course...
