Don't Do This, Early Season Dramas

Even with something that is as innately familiar as skiing is to many of us, the early season can to lead to uniquely great and often humbling experiences in the backcountry.  The following is a realistic scenario of an early season day ski touring. Humbly, I will say that I couldn't really make this shit up; it includes some truths of some antics over the years, though not all of these truths occurred at any one time as stated below. Enjoy and try to avoid getting into these situations, avalanches aren't the only thing that can ruin your ski day!

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Imagine This:

After months away you click into your old reliable ski set-up and shortly after you start wondering how you ever skied every day on these things.  They are noodle boards now, with rusty edges and with spotty patches of petex remaining; relics of once greatly civilized equipment. Memories stir.

You start out with a friend on an ambitious canyon to canyon ski tour; thumbing a ride out from the other side should not be an issue now as a ski area has opened for the season in that canyon.

The ascent seems like more effort than it should be and now it’s already the afternoon; finding batteries for a transceiver caused an earlier diversion. Some clouds roll in and the light is very dim under the thick pine forest canopy. Coming up the trail your head sags as you try to catch your breath, your legs seem heavy. Rounding a turn a moose’s head suddenly appears right in front of you!  Motionless it stares at you, lips sagging as it chews on a tasty branch. The moose doesn’t seem amused and smells quite earthy. You are frozen in your tracks.

You divert off the main trail to get around the creature. Aimed on cleaning up your shorts you struggle through some shrubbery where a willow loads up under one of your ski tips and then releases, making perfect impact with your right testicle or respective area.

At sunset you find yourself on a high ridge with a mellowish slope below. It is a familiar and beautiful sight. You would have preferred skiing something steeper but you fear the additional rocks you might hit and potential for avalanches on the steeper slopes. Just before you start to ski you remove your goggles because you can’t freaking see anything with them on any more. It’s getting dark and it’s really cold, particularly on your face. Your partner is still working out putting his old split board together, one of the attachment points is missing but he should be alright getting down with some finesse.

Your first couple turns feel great, the sound of crystalline snow echoes each turn. The light is flat but you go faster anyway. You clip a small rock before accelerating over a blind roll that you couldn’t see, hitting several rocks with great force. Sparks fly quite noticeably off your edges in the dimming sky. At the bottom of the run you regroup after some nice turns.

You continue on and after ten minutes of log hopping and traversing through a lower elevation thicket you stop to catch your breath and evaluate your route. Suddenly, you hear some loud yelling from somewhere around you; it is coming from the tree, the one above you, huh? A bow hunter perched in his tree stand isn’t amused. You keep moving and then stop to grab some water, a quick bite and to evaluate the condition of your shorts, again. Your water bottle is frozen, the candy bar seriously stresses your jaw with its new-found diamond like hardness, and your pants are thankfully still clean but one pant leg is in fact a bit torn.

It’s cold, colder than before, and dark, completely dark at this point. You have one head lamp between you and your partner and it’s really dim as the batteries are nearly dead. You take your jacket off to put on a fleece, your final article of clothing in your pack. In the process you notice the flashing light on your transceiver, an idea strikes you. Mostly out of avalanche terrain at this point you sacrifice the functionality of your beacon for the commodity of light. The batteries that were purchased only five hours ago prove to be dual purpose.

At 6pm you reach the road with your partner, reasonably unscathed but with cold fingers and colder toes. Wearing your black jacket and black pants you stick a thumb out on a dark stretch of road in hopes of getting a ride, any ride. The ski area up canyon has closed hours ago and there aren’t any cars coming this way anymore; it’s going to be a long walk to the valley you think. You joke to your partner that the only person coming down canyon is going to be some drunk spilling out of the ski area bar, as those were the only folks still left in the mountains this time of day.

Twenty minutes pass before a car is sighted, this one driving UP the canyon. Ultimately you need to go down the canyon but with the thought that there may be a greater chance for a ride leaving from the bar up canyon you decide that any ride is a good one. Plus, there is beer and warmth at a bar, an improvement of your current situation. The car stops and helps you make it to the bar without any issue. In the parking area a man walks to his car and happily agrees to give you a lift.

On the way down the canyon the driver, already heavy with booze and drinking a tall boy asks you whether you have any green. You tell the man that you are fresh out but this doesn’t ease his paranoia.  Every so often he asks in a loud raising voice, “Is that Johnny?” He is hyper-paranoid about getting pulled over and slows every now and then to allow cars from behind to pass. On one of these courtesy maneuvers he succeeds in getting stuck in the snow bank off the side of the road.

It is dark and cold, really cold. You have your avalanche shovel assembled and are shoveling some drunken asshole’s car out of the ditch, somewhere in the wilderness. You ask your friend, “So, do we just keep hitching now or what?”  Before long you are underway again, still with the drunk jackass. He drops you off at your car and you look at your friend and laugh at the end of a fine day.

What was the most dangerous part of your day?

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