2009, by snowNinjas

Mules, I mean Men

Since Ken and I have a shared passion for backcountry skiing, hauling enormous loads of stuff on our backs like pack mules, and buying stuff off of Craigslist, we decided to make our latest trip into the Sawtooths a trifecta and tote our new wall tent & collapsible stove into our favorite ski spot. Not being entirely stupid, we enlisted our sturdy friend Quintin to come along and tote stuff, too. To our enthusiastic surprise, Quintin hauled even MORE stuff than we needed him to, including some frozen elk steaks for a truly gourmet apres-ski dinner, and a really handy woodsaw.

Gotta Get Up to Get Down

Unfortunately, we only had a shared three-day window to make our epic ski-camping adventure, but we decided it was worth it to field-test our new 10x12' canvas beauty with it's cute little collapsible woodstove. The first day of the trip, we made the epic three-mile, 2,000' vertical climb to base camp. None of us had done a big trip since spring, and we were all sweating like pigs before we crested the ridge into camp. At one point, we were laughing about just HOW much it hurt, and someone commented that "pain is just weakness leaving the body". Since every voyage into the wild is an exercise in self-discovery, I gotta say - I discovered that I might be entirely composed of weakness. Good to know.

Let the Digging begin

However, the work didn't end when we got to camp and shucked our ridiculously large packs. With two hours of dayllight left, we had to dig a pit down to bare ground that was slightly larger than our tent dimensions, cut firewood, erect the tent and set up the wood stove. Luckily, we're all good workers - as an old acquaintance used to say "strong like oxen, smart like dump trucks".

Yep, we're still digging

With the sun fading on the horizon, Ken was coaxing the first wisps of smoke out of the stove while Quintin & I were spreading a tarp over the canvas roof of the tent. Within the hour, snow was melting into drinking water, the whiskey bottle was being passed, dinner was cooking and none of us was willing to get out of our camp chairs. Our new Black Diamond Orbit lantern provided the perfect amount of light to eat by, so that we didn't have to plunge ourselves into darkness whenever we wanted to take off our headlamps. Did I mention that it weighs only five ounces, making it the perfect companion to 60 pounds of stove, tarps and wall tent?

Home Sweet Home

The next day dawned cold and dim. We lingered over coffee, letting the aches of yesterday dissipate with some hot beverages and leftover au gratin potatoes- breakfast of champions! Happy in the knowledge that whatever we did during the day, we'd be toasty-warm and dry by evening, we set out for some stellar skiing. Although the Sawtooths haven't seen much new snow lately, above 7,000' or so there's a well-consolidated base layer and plenty of fluffy powder on top of it on the north aspects. We skiied moderate slopes through fire-killed timber and whooped it up all day - the shots were long and extremely stable where we chose to ski, and it was truly delightful to slalom through kilometers of dead spruce trees. Skiing the ridge back to camp provided some great views and more sweet powder shots, and was downhill all the way....a great way to end the day.

Im not lying

That night, we really pushed the boundaries between "winter camping" and "wallowing in luxury" - if we hadn't had to carry it all in, I'd hardly have believed it was camping. We didn't quite strip down to our t-shirts, but while Quintin was delicately cooking his fabulously tender elk steaks, we did get to watch the thermometer on the ridgepole of the tent hit a high mark of 101.3 degrees - wow! Although it wasn't quite so toasty down on the ground where our chairs were, standing up made us all bust a sweat - we considered going outside to do jumping jacks to cool off, but nixed the idea as too much work. Later that night, stuffed with elk steak, rice and veggies, we lay warm and dry in our mammoth down sleeping bags while thefire went out and the ambient air temperature plummeted to eight degrees fahrenheit. Delightful!

Beautiful Sawtooths

We only had time for a short tour the next morning while we let the stove go out and cool off, but the snow quality remained excellent. Having the sun finally come out of the clouds was a sweet bonus as we made our final laps. Back in camp, tearing everything down took less than an hour - despite being a bulky load, it was really easy to get everything packed up and strapped down again. Luckily, that well-consolidated base of snow made for some easy, even fun skiing down to the river and the trail back to the car. In bad conditions, the ski out can be a steep, crusty, pot-holed nightmare, but we were spared the horror and made it back to the car with a little daylight to spare.

What a life

Was it worth it haul that much heavy canvas and metal up into the hills when we have perfectly good light(er) weight gear? You bet! But next time, we'll stay MUCH longer, and bring more snacks for cocktail hour around the woodstove.

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