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.
