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| Me and my Bushwackers |
We had come to the last day of Christmas break and I had time for one more ski before heading back to town. With my ski legs back in gear I was ready to take on the hills.
Its not as though the hills are black diamond. More like bunny slopes. But because I follow the snow machine trail for a nice glide I can get going pretty fast on the downhill. The fun of that disappears quickly if I get going so fast I can’t get out of the trough made by the snow machine or can’t stop if I need to .
I head for the lake in my bushwackers planning to get there in time for some sun.
Working my way up the slopes I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I’ve taken on more than I can handle. I’m doing a lot of herring-boning and side stepping on steep runs that will be pretty fast coming back. When I get to the top of the hill I can see the sun just hovering on the edge of the ridge. Lower than I thought. I might miss it. In a hurry I take a short cut through the trees where the trail loops around a stand of spruce and come back out on the trail just where it starts a long lovely glide to the muskeg that flows into the lake. Too late. The sun is no longer lighting up the snow. I’m treated instead to the beautiful pink alpenglow shining on far off Curry and Kusegie Ridge. Nice.
With the sun going down its time to head back.
Approaching the first hill I see an easy way around the steep glide. I aim my ski path down hill across the trail at a not too steep angle, the deepness of the snow off the trail and the less steep descent keeping me at just the right comfortable speed. I switch back and cross the trail again and come to an easy stop at the bottom of the hill. That was easy. Back on the trail I head for the next hill and see that this one won’t be as easy to take on. I have to thread my way through trees and then stop short so I won’t go over a berm and into a bowl. That done I turn to scope out my next glide back across the trail. There’s a nice long open path but I notice a deep depression right where I best should go which signals one of those pesky streams under the snow. If I angle my descent a little steeper I should go right by it. Off I go and I see right away I may have cut my path too close. Too late to correct, my left ski is fine but my right ski crashes right into the hole. I’m down a good four feet or more in a space about 2’ by 4’ wondering if I might hear another “Are you all right” like I did the other day when I also went into a hole. Not this time. I’m on my own.
The upside is that I’ve managed to fall in a way that lets me easily get out of my skis. Reaching up out of the hole I place my skis side by side cross slope so they won’t take off down the hill without me. Then I start the business of climbing out. This involves pushing snow down into the hole and tamping it down then standing on the packed snow. In this way you can keep building a higher and higher platform until your high enough to climb out. In pushing the snow from the sides of the hole I came across a small ledge I could stand on. But it was on the opposite side of the hole from where I set my skis so I worked my way around the hole pushing snow off the ledge with my boots as I went. Sooner than I would have thought I’m around to the other side and less than a foot from the top of the hole. Its a big step to get up on my skis but with the help of my poles I manage it. I snap into my skis, brush off the snow and I’m on my way feeling rather smug, the whole episode really not too bad considering what might have been.
Back at the cabin Dan asks if I met up with Will. He had followed me to the lake expecting to catch up with me. Had I sat in the hole for a while I might have heard, “Are you all right” after all. Can’t imagine how we missed eachother.