I started this a month ago, gave up and started again recently. Here it finally is.

Back when I was staying with my uncle in his shack north of Pemberton, we walked a little way up the river and talked about what a good hike it would be to follow it up to Birkenhead lake. I didn’t know it then, but from Birkenhead you can go north up Phelix Creek into the higher valleys and summits. There’s a little lake way up there too, and the VOC built a shelter on the edge of it.

That’s where I ended up for new years. A group of back-country skiing folk organized the trip and I tagged along. Apparently the group started out smallish, but by the time I got into the MEC rentals department to pick up some gear the day before, the staff were asking everyone in line if they were part of the Phelix Creek group, and most of them were. I was mistakenly under the impression that my group was going to Red Heather, so I felt pretty smug about us going the less crowded route. Then I recognized the guy at the counter from the singles party, and he set me straight. Ahem. Interesting when the staff at MEC are better clued about your travel plans than you are. As it worked out, I’m glad we went with the larger group. It was new years after all.

The ski in was my first time on skis in years, and my first time on climbing skins ever. The logging roads and clear cuts were uneventful, except they gave me chance to try and remember how to cope with having planks strapped to my feet. Once we hit the big climb up things got more interesting. Back country skiing is different than hiking or even winter hiking. You don’t try to stick to any particular trail, just find the most logical, safest route to where you are going. We threaded our way up through the woods on a steep up-track that had been laid by earlier groups. I relearned the kick-turn and managed to mostly stay out of the snow, but it was struggle to find traction on the skins. The trick, as it was explained to me early and I eventually learned through trial and error, is to keep your weight directed down rather than back. So instinctivley leaning forward to keep yourself from falling backwards is all wrong.

I already had a chance to see what the subalpine forest looks like in winter on my snowshoe trip, but it was still impressive. Jen calls the swollen growths of snow which form around protruding branches “snow dragons”. Chris takes great satisfaction in pricking them and watching them cascade off. It was already clear that the snow conditions were good, but these BC types seem to take that largely for granted. This seems to be the place to be a back country skiier.

We had left the cars around noon. By the time we got within a hundred vertical meters of the lake we had lost the sun. The decreasing slope of the ridge we were climbing gave the constant false impression that we were almost at the top and that the clearing was visible through the trees. Which was encouraging in a way. Although the moon was only 3/4s, the night was clear enough that I could see my shadow in clearings and even a little colour. Stars came out. When we finally reached the alpine valley, it was almost as full dark as it was going to get, and we could see the yellow lights glowing in the windows of the shelter at the far end of the lake. A dog announced our arrival as we crossed the valley. Somebody swore about dogs in the back country. I felt like I had used up a lot of energy backsliding my way up the hill and didn’t look at much more than the shifting skis of whoever was in front of me, but the valley was clearly a good place.

Although I’ve seen a small one at Wedgemount and a colossal one at Elphin Lakes, back country shelters still seem strange and a little wonderful to me. The Bruce Waddington hut was no exception. At the far end of a full days climb into the hills, with no roads and no power lines and no normal reason to be there, here again was a solidly built cabin with an unlocked door. Stick your skis in the snow in line with all the rest, turn the doorknob, and you’re in.

The shelter at Phelix could accomodate 10 spaciously, or 20 snugly. We were the last group in that night. Except for Chris, who had his tent set up before he even looked inside, I was the last one in from our group (figuring out bindings as well as skis). Cheers and steam emerged as my companions went in. I followed them into the heat and light of a 30 person celebratory alpine pot-luck. From the door, the two tables looked like nothing so much as the Last Supper in steaming polypro and touqes. Someone had trucked two new Coleman lanterns up for the occasion, and there were bags of tea lights going. The bench spaces were lined with people tending lines of pots on lines of campstoves, working up delicacies and stomachstickers. Appetizers were on the go. People danced around in bear hugs with the newcomers. I recognized faces from parties, and the MEC line up, and pictures. There wasn’t much space. A yellow sign on the wall warned in red font that the hut was airtight, and unless a window or vent was open “carbon monoxide will kill you”. I figured a window must have been open somewhere. They build these shelters the way I would be tempted to build everything: heavy wood planks and beams meant for walking on with boots and cooking on and spilling on and dancing on. Everything is thick and wooden and beefy and meant for use. Two galley ladders near the door lead steeply up into the sleeping lofts, and people sitting on them and hanging on them and down out of the trapdoors. At some point someone must have schlepped a nylon string guitar up the hill, or maybe it was helicoptered in when the hut was built. There were also harmonicas and tin whistles, and the water barrels had been commandeered as drums. Every synthetic fabric known to man in most of the colours was present and mostly steaming in the lamplight. I was exhausted and slightly stunned and figured things were well. After standing around in quiet glee for while (and worrying people who kept checking to make sure I was okay) I went out to set up my own tent – last ones in and the loft long since carpeted with bed rolls and sleeping bags.

That night we celebrated new years with each province in turn from our outpost near the top of the south of the the west end of the big country. We accidentally skipped Ontario/Quebec, but I figured Quebec probably did all right without us. Since then I have learned that certain parts of Ontario did okay too. Newfoundland got things started. We cleared a table to the wall and managed a solid dance party with only acoustic instruments. Appropriate, I think, for the maritimes. Eddy from Somewhere knew the guitar parts for “faith” by george michaels as well as “I Will Survive” and James did “I Saw the Sign” and other top 40 favourites. There was a litre mickey of Fireball to match the normal mickey I had scavenged for the trip. After that the time zones ticked by with a will. I stood outside for a while with a couple of others in the coldness and quiteness and openess, looking at the stars and the hills rising all around us and the snow on the lake in the moon and we passed around what was probably the best of a good year’s blunts. Back inside someone handed around copies of the VOC songbook that I know from our living room. Somewhere around Saskatchewan “cows with guns” was requested and by Alberta I had remembered enough of the lyrics to give what I am humbly proud to think of as my best rendition of it. That song has taken on a life of it’s own – again. Somebody started a round of Barrett’s Privateers and it actually seemed not too long. At the other end of the room card players hammered the tables as they dropped aces. More dance music, more dancing. The new Petzl led headlamps have a strobe option, presumably for bicycling, and four or five of them were more or less synchronized for effect. As the new year approached the BC border, a bag of balloons emerged and started filling the hut. Someone had the idea of naked laps around the hut to celebrate the moment. That was cold.

Crawling out of my tent the next morning I felt suprisingly clear headed, maybe because of the cold. The sky was clear, the snow white. From the hut in the vallery there are umpteen routes up into the mountain summits surrounding it. Some of them are named a la Tolkien – Mt. Gandalf, Mt. Shadowfax. The hut itself is known to some as Rivendell. I fell in with a party making their way in the general direction of Mt. Aragorn. Skinning up out of the treeline into the bare, cyrstalline expanse on top took the morning and much of the afternoon. Clouds were filling up the valleys below but we were in at least partial sun all day. With my loaned, worn out climbing skins heavily duct taped to my skis I had to hold off on the downhills until we got to the very top. Even without downhills it was worth the trek. Below the summit we crept across the ridgeline, peering through gaps in the toothy bolders down into the bowl on the other side. Past the bouldery ridge we were blasted by the sparkling snow dust in the crusty clearing under the summit proper. The back country types had some name for that kind of snow, I can’t remember it but to me it felt like being in the solar winds they say you can harness for space travel. It has a heliar, dusty glowing texture and it was very cold. That was when I really started envying the oversized down parkas people were layering up with. I guess puffy down jackets were a fashion fad for a while but they’ve had a good reason for existence on the top of mountains for a long time and probably won’t go away anytime soon. At the very top there was a boulder with a view. The winds dropped and a bunch of people climbed up on top. I walked over the drop on the west side. The view from there was of many, many more mountain summits, all coated in glowing dust. It was as big as the ocean but with a lot more rock and snow and sun and vertical relief. Thats when I cried and the winds caught back up and froze it all over my face. A little reminder of something.

After that it was all down hill. I cut the skins off, tried a couple of alpine turns and realized I couldn’t remember how to do it, gave up and telemarked which for some reason was more fresh in my mind. I did it. I telemarked through virgin powder down the side of a mountain. As I’ve said before, I did it badly, but I did it.

That night was great (I decamped from my tent and spent a warmer night in the lodge). I finally got to see this game “mafia” that i’ve heard people talking about since Guelph. It’s a thriller of the mind, and makes a great soap opera to watch unfolding below you from a perch in the loft. The next morning I gave a rest to the rapidly developing pressure point on my shin while the others skiied. Around noon we set out for the cars. Telemarking in seemingly endless fields of deep powder is one thing. Grand sweeping turns are relatively easy. Picking your way downhill through forests is a little more difficult and I was completley not up to the task. Thankfully I had some skilled and patient guides who all but carried me out. Early on I blew a binding in a particularly ungraceful shower of snow and poles. Chris pointed out that there was no way I was walking out through what was probably waste deep snow, and we managed what I think is the most elegant effective field repair job I have ever seen using nothing more than a camping spoon (I’m still waiting to see the slides). That held beautifully for the rest of the way, once into the clear cuts it was a fast downhill rip out and we were in the car and eating left over chocolate.

I know a lot of people here in BC who do this sort of thing all the time, some of them almost for a living. It’s not hard to see why. Unfortunatley back country skiing isn’t convenient to make a start in, it demands several different sets of skills – skiing ability, winter camping knowhow, expensive avalanche safety training, wilderness first aid, local terrain knowledge – and a lot of expensive gear. The gear part is almost accessible thanks to MEC’s excellent and affordable rental program, and I’d like to say that I’ll be back at it soon, but the fact is I don’t have the knowledge to manage another trip without a lot of help from people who know what they are doing. Hopefully over the next few years, if I happen to be living in this kind of part of the world, I will be able to gradually build up the personal infrastructure to have ready access to the winter mountain tops. Lots of people have and I can easily see why. It’s extraordinary up there.