The Club sure could use more trips. There are lots of Interested people, but often no cars. So we were happy when Sam V decided to lead a trip to out Phelix Hut. But then Sam had to bail on his own trip because he had to work. Brandon took up the slack and became the trip leader. By then I had decided that somebody should clear out the avalanche debris between bridges 2 and 3, and I had the time, I could operate a chain saw, I had the Jeep. Andrew offered to be the saw operator if I did the transportation. We wanted to leave Thursday to get the avalanche taken care of before the crowds arrived. So we found ourselves leaving Vancouver at 4pm, which is apparently the same time everybody else tries to leave Vancouver. Careful driving put us at Pemberton Macdonalds for dinner at 7pm, and we were near the avalanche debris well before dark, put up the tent (Andrew slept out with the bugs) and went to sleep.
Friday bright and early we headed up to the avalanche debris
and started sawing; actually we spent about half an hour taking the saw apart and putting it back together, then we started sawing. Mostly, I did the sawing
and Andrew threw the pieces off the road. We found about five full-sized logs that needed to not be there. Underneath the log-pile there was a big chunk of avalanche ice, so we diverted the road around this. In a month or so, it should be melted. By noon the Jeep could get by so we drove up to the one-log bridge, where driving usually ends. Here Andrew slept and I worked on my tan until it cooled down a lot. By 4pm we were both pretty bored and it was cooler, so we had an early car-camping style dinner and then headed up for the hut. All rivers were in flood, the lake was about 2/3 covered with ice. The bridge at the lake outlet was in fine shape, because of the crew that had tied a couple of logs to it last year. We punched many holes in the snow to get to the hut, and I had one full-on boot immersion experience. Somebody showed up and asked me if I could open the cash box to make change as he had only $20 and wanted to leave $10. He signed the logbook as Clark Kent, and he made it all the way up in flip-flops. That night the three of us had the whole hut to ourselves and it was very peaceful.
Saturday I was inclined to putter around. I dried my boots in the sun. I re-hung the outhouse door so people could choose between scenery and privacy. I re-built the bookcase so the books don’t fall out (somebody should haul up the two most recent VOCJ’s.) I drained the cash box. We plugged a hole to keep mice out of the hut, but I don’t know if we succeeded. We re-strung the rope that is supposed to stop people from falling off the top floor. Andrew got bored and climbed Gandalf. Some people arrived, first the “gang of four” who went off to find a campsite that wasn’t under snow. They came back to ask Andrew about the route up Gandalf. Then, bit by bit, Brandon’s VOC gang of five showed up. Various people from the gang of 18 arrived. Some tented. Saturday night was not very nice. It seems that university students need to experiment with alcohol toxicity just to find out what it’s like, but I wish that they would do it at home. A lot of giggling, shrieking and later snoring, and cell phone alarms going off. It was too hot upstairs. I got a couple of Attractive Young Ladies sleeping beside me but I would have traded them in for a decent night’s sleep. I decided that two nights without much sleep would not make me a happy camper for the drive home so -
Sunday morning, bright and early I put on my nice dry boots and my light-weight pack and headed back to my tent at the Jeep, where it was nice and peaceful. Most of the rest of the people up there, having depleted their liquor supply and having wet boots so not wanting any more walking in snow, came down somewhat later Sunday. Andrew would come down Monday morning for the drive home, which was accomplished mostly without incident.
Animals seen by various people, or so they claim: A bunny, two deer, a black bear, a grizzly bear, a wolverine.
For the Management Too bad that there is always this conflict between those who want to party and those who want to sleep. I don’t know what to do about this except avoid weekends. I am not much into getting on top of pointy things, but I like to feel that we accomplished something. There are things that could make the place nicer, simple things like cleaning the windows or sweeping up the mouse shit, but that’s really just “low hanging fruit”. The more serious issues are heating, and it’s friend, mold, but I will leave that to others. I should mention that while bridge #3 officially holds zero weight, three sturdy vehicles + a Subaru made it across OK. If somebody wants to spend a couple of days with the brush saw, most of the bad brush is between 2.5 km and 5km on the road.