Brew Hut – Couldn’t ask for more

Date: March 21-22
Participants: Spencer Rasmussen, Boris Dalstein, Virgile Aime, Agnieszca Grabowska, Oscar Ramos, Jane Wang, Matteo Agnoloni, Natanael Villarreal

What a great trip indeed! Even though we did not end up doing the Neve Traverse through Garibaldi, this trip reached my expectations. We started the day by heading to the logging trail to start the trip. Matteos car had a few problems travelling through the logging trail, but after passing through all the rough patches, we were on the trail head ready to start the hike to Brew Hut. Mist had overcome the scenery and we were just walking with a few meters of visibility. The entire hike up to the alpine territory was quite normal, no need to describe it. But as we started reaching the alpine territory and all of us had our skis/snowshoes on, the white-out welcomed us. We could only see each other, and if you tried to look at your surroundings, complete whiteness was all you saw. But with the help of Spencer, and his navigation skills, we reached the hut all right.

For me, I had never experienced so much snow. I am from Mexico so its not very common. I was extremely excited and just amazed by how all the trees were completely covered by ice. It made me realize how resilient the trees are, and made me wonder, “Which other organism endure such hardness for months without end?” I was constantly checking how much new pow was around us, and by the time we reached Brew Hut, there was more then a meter of new snow. We left the white world by entering this little hut that was completely new to my eyes. I found it quite cozy and just loved how from 3 pm and onward we had absolutely nothing to do. Don’t you just love that feeling? It’s something I cannot get anywhere else, only when I find my self immersed in nature, in a completely new life.

We settled ourselves in the hut and ate and shared food, especially chocolate. Lots of chocolate! Once we were all full, some people went off to take a nap and some other people, counting me, got into their sleeping bags and read the only books that were available in the hut: VOC journals. I just loved the experience and it had been a while since I had read a book just for entertainment. Most people dozed to sleep and once night approached we all woke up to have dinner. For dinner, as every camping trip I have gone to VOC, was so filling. Sleep, was what came next

All of a sudden, we hear voices outside the hut and Spencer, who was downstairs, opens the door to our fellow VOC’ers. All of us who where upstairs just heard their story of how they were lost in the blizzard and Piotr accidentally fell into a cornice and thankfully did not get hurt. Sleep eventually rolled in again and I dozed back into nothingness.

The next morning was a beautiful, visible, partially sunny day. We had breakfast and headed outside to have some fun! Before leaving Spencer taught us some navigation skills, regarding reading the compass and using the map to locate where you are and what is in your surroundings. I am definitely going to buy a compass next time I go to MEC. We headed up to ascend Mt Brew and after going through a relatively steep slope, and in between the trees we got to the top and enjoyed the fabulous view.

The skiers were supposed to ski down to Brew Lake, but in the end they did not do so. All of us instead found a nice jumping area where the skiers would repeatedly try jumping a 1-2 meter high drop. We were extremely happy and just cracked up laughing when somebody ended up face planting into the snow. Spencer kept the VOC tradition and did the jump naked, like a pro. I loved this moment we all experienced since we where full with life.

After this, we headed back to the Hut, packed our stuff and descended back to the logging road. In Squamish we stopped in a place to eat some delicious samosas. Never had tried them before! Loved them!
Well this trip ended up being awesome, met new friends, created new memories, relaxed and enjoyed the present.