It hadn’t snowed here since I got back from Asia. The mountains were cold, icy and rocky. You could climb pretty much anywhere but it was pretty damn sporty and not very pleasant going down. When you get stability like that, you can get up virtually anything without worrying about stability, if you fall however, there is a chance you won’t stop until the bottom.
On Thursday, my friend Greg and I sledded from the house up a mine road and went for a couloir that we called the Rutecki. The climb was pretty great. All the forest part was done via snowmobile so it was all kick stepping and rock climbing to the top of this sub peak in the Silvern Lakes area. Halfway up, it became quite apparent that it was going to be an exposed climb because of the conditions.
After an hour of climbing, complete with a few “I wish I had a rope and crampons” moments, we got to the top. You could see the Babines, the Nipples and the massive Toboggan glacier looming to the east. Below us lay the Rutecki: a chamber of radness in a cliff wall, which shot down about 800m. After a quick transition, beverage and ro sham bo, I dropped in first. It was variable wind crust and ice. We had hoped for perhaps some wind sheltered snow but there was none of that to be found in the mountains. Luckily, I love hop turning down shitty, steep snow. I got down to the bottom to watch Greg. I waited, waited some more and then climbed to a better vantage point.
Greg had bailed, and in the process he had dislocated his shoulder and lost his ski. Luckily, he had managed to arrest himself after about 50 meters of sliding and tomahawking. The tomahawk had popped his shoulder back in too! Lucky us. I realized that Greg was in a rough way and stashed my skis and started bootpacking up. I motored up to Greg, collected his gear and then put in a bootpack for him to get down. He was shook up but able to get out which was a huge plus. We bootpacked down and during the descent, Greg realized he was getting frostbite on his fingers. I had a spare pair of gloves which were a little thicker. We made it back to my skis and we were able to traverse and bootpack for another hour to get to our sleds. We fired them up and got home in the dark.
It was confirmed by both of us as type 2 fun.
Greg was out, but it was the weekend and Alfred, a weekend warrior these days, had sent me a text.
“Galleon line?”
I gave him a call and he wanted to go for it from the parking lot, a massive day. We would have to tour the mine road for 8km, bushwhack for 4km, climb a peak then drop behind it and climb up the couloir that you can see from town. It was just the type of hair-brained fantasy picnic that I was into. I guess that’s why Alfred and I ski so many lines together.
At 5:30 am I left the house, it was a tour not a sled so I was stoked to bring the dog. I was also pumped to be going back into the Babine range; a range which I have always had a soft spot for. Grabbing Alfred and a McDonald’s breakfast we were at the trailhead by 6:30am, bushwhacking by 8:30, kick stepping up the mountain by 11:30 and on the summit ridge by 1pm. However, the weather was changing, a big grey cloud bore down on us and the winds picked up. The temperature was pushing -40, winds were gusting at 70km/hr and I had to keep a constant eye on Achilles because there were goats everywhere.
That dog and his bloodlust for mountain goats would be the death of me.
With the change in weather, my stamina felt sapped. My feet hurt a lot from all the kick steps into icy chutes and I could feel multiple blisters and one numb toe which could be frostbite. I started to lag behind Alfred. At 2pm we were at the summit of Mount Elmore and the couloirs of the Galleon were mired in an angry storm cloud. We could bag a really nice line off the summit of Elmore and call it a day. We transferred over and dropped in, skiing towards the mine road and cabin area. The dog had been lying down as he had been told but had been glancing over at a herd of goats which were hanging out by a cliff band about 200m away.
Alfred dropped first and I clicked in, minutes later I was skiing 10cm of dust on crust down a massive face. After 100m I stopped and waited. Calling the dog. He didn’t come. I looked to where he had been lying. He was gone. He had run off after the goats. I called and called with no reply. The clouds thickened, the wind picked up. Alfred was far below me unseen. Darkness was coming.
Eventually I realized the only option was to trust the dog and his ability to find his way back to the truck. The number of times he had ran off is unbelievable but he has always made it back to the truck. After yelling myself hoarse I skied down to meet Alfred and let him know that my dog was missing and the only thing we could do was retreat before the storm and the darkness fucked all of us over. I took one glance at the now distant mountaintop and saw a raven circling the peak. My stomach twisted into a knot and dread filled my heart.
It was dark by the time we made it to the truck, and my back, hip, shoulders, feet and everything else hurt. It had been a 12 hour, 31km, 2400m elevation gain tour according to Alfred’s GPS. It would have been an amazing tour if I had seen dog tracks on the road down coming out of the forest where we had started bushwhacking. But there were no tracks. The truck was dark and lifeless when we arrived, soaked and refrozen over multiple times. I fired up the truck, drove Alfred home, got a sleeping bag and a change of clothes. I prepared for a cold night in my truck hoping that at some point in the evening, I would hear his bushpig grunts outside my door.
Greg said he would go with me the next day, though he had a little while before he would fully recover from his incident. I went back to the Babine parking lot, back in radio silence and tried to read, tried to sleep but my mind was filled by the cold whipping winds and images of the dog, frozen to death, splattered under a cliff. His death haunted my short naps and the night never seemed to end. I kept going outside and calling into the night, only to have the shriek of the wind answer. Each call seemed to take more hope out of me. He always returned to the truck. Something was wrong.
Eventually, my fatigue overcame all worry and discomfort and I dozed off.
I woke up at 7:20 am and was greeted by the familiar dread. The dog wasn’t there and I was an hour late starting the 31km loop again. I had to rip into town to buy duct tape for my bleeding feet, naproxen for my sore muscles and more McDonalds for my empty belly. I met Greg in town, he brought coffee and well wishes from the house. We suited up but upon leaving, Greg’s ski binding broke, it had suffered more damage during Greg’s fall than he had. I would have to go back in alone. I was not expecting to find good news either.
I started the tour and necessity took over. I moved fast, I didn’t stop and I tried not to think about anything but getting up fast. My screaming feet were muted and my brain became dull to everything but the image of the raven and the dog. The dog was on my mind, frozen to death and abandoned. The raven was on my mind, circling and eventually homing in on his body. Feelings of failure and dismay loomed like the storm cloud did the day before. The only way to escape this storm was to move faster. Scenery passed me by and soon I was back up in the alpine. There were no clouds but the temperature was still bitterly cold. I was on my last pair of gloves and I could feel the cold taking over my digits. I thought of the short hours I had spent in this frozen wasteland, what it would’ve been like in the storm last night. How scared he must have been. How could anything live in an environment so hostile to life.
I made it up 2 hours faster than I had the day before with Alfred. It was perhaps the fastest I have ever toured. I had to find him. At the summit rocks I searched the cliffs where the goats had stood, looking for his body. I found nothing. It was a small victory and I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. The storm had removed all of our tracks but after searching I found a faint trace of a goat trail. I followed it. As it went further away from the summit, it grew stronger. Then, I saw a paw print. Emotion grasped me and I yelled with joy, ``good boy!``. As if on cue a frozen apparition burst from behind a rock. I dropped to my knees, eyes watering and held out my arms. He was in them in seconds, licking my face and I didn’t let go. We embraced for a long time. Both of us telling each other our stories, even though we couldn’t really understand each other’s language.
I pulled out my phone, I had reception this high. I called Greg and told him the good news. Then I started the ski out with Achilles by my side. We picked a large open bowl that funnelled out by the mine road. Soon we were on the road and relief flooded over both of us. Fatigue, cold and pain flooded back with every step toward the safety of the truck. By the time I arrived at the truck, my frozen, haggard body was on its final reserves of energy. Even starting it was an incredibly difficult task. Taking off my boots hurt like hell and my feet were frostbitten and bloody with many blisters. But I had rescued the dog and I felt really good about that.
I arrived home and everyone embraced the dog and myself. There was a big dinner waiting for both of us. Moose steaks. After dinner, I went downstairs and was instantly in a very deep sleep.
When I woke up, I couldn’t move. My body was so stiff and my feet looked like they had been put through a meat grinder. The frostbite was gone but I knew that it would take a long time before I’d be ready for the mountains again. Endless cups of coffee, emails and basking in the sunlight streaming through the windows filled the next 3 days. Then came a good old northern bush party with a sled jump over a massive 2 tree fire, the mission to get into some heli ski terrain was suggested and the next adventure began.
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