Stanley Mitchell Hut- Yoho Park- Cross Country Ski and Snowshoe

Sometimes I question why we do the things we do. You take three days off, and throw yourself into the cold, amenity free wilderness. If it wasn’t for my sister Emily’s enthusiasm for the extreme, I do not think I would find myself out there to the extent that I do. I call her the energizer bunny, she just keeps going and going. She doesn’t need to eat or sleep, and she doesn’t get cold. She is well known in our hiking community for her “trail pounding” abilities.

                On this particular occasion, Emily planned a three day backcountry trip to the Stanley Mitchell hut in the Little Yoho Valley. I have always said, one night in the winter is enough for me, but we have run out of one night trips to huts, or so was Emily’s convincing logic, so we had to do two. We started at 12:00 at the trail head, which in winter is actually the road into Takakkaw falls. What was meant to be a fairly easy 10 km ski in, quickly turned into a fairly difficult 13 km ski. Difficult due to wet sticky snow, that neither wax or waxless skis could take on. Not only did we find ourselves just walking in skis, it was worse than walking because you had wads  of snow sticking to the kick-zone and making it extra difficult to push forward. The 13km took 4 hours,  which was more than I had anticipated. I was very relieved to see the cooking shelter we were going to stay in at the Takakkaw falls area, was completely enclosed, windows and all. I had been envisioning an open air kind of shelter and dreading sleeping there. Pleasantly surprised to find even the outhouses were accessible to us. Emily opened the shelter door and happily told us “There is tonnes of firewood in here!”. I pretty well squealed with delight and did a happy dance. I was, yet again, very relieved we would not freeze that night! Little did I know, there were still twists in our story to come.

                Upon arrival at the shelter Emily decided to go see the waterfall. Susan and I were more interested in getting a fire going and boiling water so we could start re-hydrating. Starting a fire turned out to be a three hour event. Susan chopped kindling off the logs for two hours, with multiple attempts at getting a flame to catch to the larger logs. The fire continued to burn out. Meanwhile, I had three attempts at keeping the whisper lite stove going. It would run for a few minutes then just die out. By this point I started to think of what our demise might look like. Three girls, found frozen and dried up in Takakaw cook shelter.  Susan and I said a prayer together over our stove and the fire just as Emily returned. She then took her hand to chopping wood for another hour. Eventually, a fire was successfully started. The stove we had to accept was just plain broken. This is our third  broken whisper lite in our family this past year. I think we have a curse.

                Survival needs breed ingenuity. Emily cooked our dinner in a pot directly in the fire. She melted her mitts using them to pull the pot in and out, but she got the job done! We boiled water on top of the wood burning stove in metal bowls we found in the shelter. The next day I discovered my water tasted like ash, but it hydrated all the same. Another unfortunate discovery was “the drip”. This is what we nicknamed the dirty water that started to drip down upon us from the ceiling. It was brown from the smoke fumes that in past days or months had filled the shelter. When we arrived there was frost on the ceiling, but our fire brought down a kind of acid rain. We shuffled ourselves about the shelter trying to find a spot safe from “the drip”. Then it occurred to us to put a tarp up to create a drip free zone. This served us well until things dried out and “the drip” was no more. Our sleeping arrangements were comical. It was picinic tables pushed close to the wood burning stove, that became our beds. Each had their own picnic table to curl up on.  Then I set my phone alarm to ring once every hour. This was the alarm for someone to get up and stoke the fire so that it would not go out. We knew as soon as it went out, we would be having the real winter camping experience we didn’t want. I highly recommend this fire stoking system. Each individual only had to get out of their sleeping bag once every three hours to tend to the fire, and we stayed very warm. I slept incredibly well, in one hour intervals. Emily and I took our inspiration from a documentary we had just watched, where three mothers crossed the Atlantic in a row boat, taking two hour shifts rowing, then two hours off to rest,  24 hours straight day after day. If they could do that, we could do this!

                Compared to that first night, the rest of the trip was uneventful. We skied and snowshoed into Stanley Mitchell hut on day two. It took us 6 hours. We used the snowshoes for gaining most of the 500 meter elevation of the day. I have coined a new name for our mode of travel, “skioeing” . It’s alternating between skis and snowshoes as terrain dictates. I think we are the only people that do it, but it should become a “thing”. 

                Stanley Mitchell hut is far from the warmest set up for winter camping. As we all know, heat rises, but the loft for sleeping is almost completely closed off from the stove on the main floor, except for a two by two foot opening with a ladder. My desire for a warm nights sleep, led me to set up tarps around a small area about the opening. The idea was that the warm air would better funnel into and stay in our cozy little sleeping spot. We squished three people into the sleeping space designed for two. There were two other people in the hut whom chose to sleep down by the fire. They stoked the fire a couple of times in the night, which helped our cause as well. I was able to sleep in a t-shirt in my sleeping bag, and slept a solid 7 hours without waking once. That is a record breaking streak for me. I am not one to get much sleep when I am in the backcountry.

                Day three we went “skioeing”  the entire 23 kilometers back to the parking lot. Day 3 was absolutely the most pleasant and beautiful to me! Even the wipe outs on the steep bits were fun. I ended up face planting in the most pleasant patch of powder, and it was so refreshing! The sun was out and we could see all the mountain peaks. I got to stare at Cathedral Mountain as I glided over perfect cross country conditions. That’s one thing cross country skiing on flat is good for, you can look up at the scenery rather than having to look at your feet as you often have to when hiking. On this last day of our journey, I loved to see how the sun would peek out over the mountains and through the trees all heavy with snow. One particular clearing had just the prefect lighting, and all the trees looked like they were iced ready for a gingerbread scene. I saw so many of my winter favourites I have coined “puff puffs”. The easiest way to define the term is any untouched, domed build up of snow on river banks, rocks and trees. It makes the world a Doctor Zuess winter wonderland.  Winter sun is my favourite kind of sun. In the summer, we take the sun for granted. We have so many hours of it in a day, and in Alberta in particular, most summer days the sun is out. When doing activity outside the sun can become almost a burden, making a hike more difficult, and the hiker seeks shade. Sun in the winter is the opposite. In the winter, the sun warms a frost numbed face, and frozen fingers. The sun rays create long shadows across the smooth, sparkling snow drifts. One can stand amidst that sun and feel the silence of the winter air, as the sun wraps around you. That is what I love about a winter sun, and on day 3, we enjoyed many patches of it.  Our return journey took us 6 hours. We hobbled into the car, and hobbled out again back home, smelly, headachy, tired and hungry. Another successful adventure completed.