A Game of Chances: Not in Our Favour

Part 1: Birth of a Ski Trip

It is a dark and stormy night. Raindrops rap on my windowsill. My eyes have glazed over, centred on my tattered notebook. My hands scribble down the last question of my homework. I must complete it today if I hope to go skiing tomorrow. My dad, Jonah King and I have been planning on going to ski the revered Frosty Mountain for a week already, and I am not going to let some stupid statistics homework squander my chances of a good day.

All of a sudden, my phone rings. Nelson Fretenburg’s name is prominently displayed on the home screen. “Would you rather own a horse the size of a cat or a cat the size of a mouse?” it reads. Has this guy lost it? How much glue has he been sniffing? Of course I would choose a horse the size of a cat. Imagine how cute that would be. No one in their right mind would choose a cat the size of a mouse. I take a second to formulate my response.

Me:

“Obviously a horse the size of a cat”

“It’s not even close”

Nelson:

“First of all a horse the size of a cat is way less practical”

“Imagine how many pests a cat the size of a mouse could eliminate”

“It’s like a secret agent working behind enemy lines”

“BTW what’s the name of that mountain with those bowls you were scouting out the other day?”

Marko:

“Skyline ridge”

“Also I’m going to Frosty tomorrow”

Nelson:

“No way I’m going up there with Reece Hately and Mait Davis tomorrow as well!”

Marko:

“Hahaha that’s crazy”

“What are the chances?”

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then”

Part 2: An Amazing Day

My party of three left the house at 5:40. A whole ten minutes tardy due to Jonah being late as usual. I do understand it however. The trek across the street (he is my neighbour) was particularly daunting this morning due to his bed being extraordinarily comfy. Nonetheless, his late arrival did not inhibit us too much, and before we knew it we were parking our car at the Lightning Lake Day Area.

Outhouses by Lightning Lake – My first objective of the day

Just as we put on our boots, a hot pink lifted Toyota Camry came screeching to a halt beside us, Teenage Dream by Katy Perry blaring from the rolled down windows. “Whats up pussies!” Nelson exclaims, clambering out of the passenger seat.

At this point you, the reader, are probably thinking “where is the skiing? When does the real trip report start?” To those assertions I would probably say “Fine, I guess we can go straight to the actual trip report, BUT you are missing out on some stellar exposition and completely made up scenarios.”

Due to legal reasons I must inform you that Reece’s Camry is neither pink nor lifted, and Nelson does not use such vulgar profanity to greet his friends. From now on I solemnly swear that the rest of my trip report will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Jonah rocking his new stache

The skin up was as standard as a skin goes. After blowing by the first possible turn, we took to the forest, because who wants to retrace steps when you don’t have to? In no time we joined the compressed track going up the summer route. Like clockwork, our two groups would pass each other every half hour with both groups taking rests at different points. To occupy our time, me and Jonah took to calculating the probability that our group and Nelson’s group chose the exact same place to go touring on the exact same day. We derived that the chances of this happening were 0.0167% – Amazing!!

As we reached the meadow below the summit our view opened up through the sparse larch trees. Beautiful bowls and chutes tickled our imagination. Ahead of us, there was a beautiful alpine bowl, ripe for skiing. Coincidentally, we had caught up with Nelson’s group and decided to talk strategy. We decided that bootpacking up the north ridge would be our best bet as nobody wanted to deal with the rocky east ridge.

About 100 vertical metres from the summit we stopped again. Jonah and I were keen to dig a pit to test the snowpack. Unfortunately, the results were not quite what we were looking for and with the route above being more and more exposed to avalanches, we called it there and decided it was time to come down. Reece plodded on about 10 vertical metres higher while Nelson and Mait made it a whole 20!

Although we were sad that the summit odds were not in our favour, those feelings were quickly washed away as we skied the pristine and powdery snow down. Hooting and hollering, our now group of six raced down the slopes. Not wanting to have to take the ridge we came up back down, we decided to roll the dice and ski into Frosty Creek -  an allegedly feasible route according to Mr. Baldwin and his book Exploring the Coast Mountains on Skis.

Looking back on our route

The beginning was nice. Sweet chutes. Open slopes. Soft snow. What else could you want? As we made it further down, the valley got narrower and narrower until we were skiing over the creek. At this point all was still good. “I thought this would be way worse!” Nelson even proclaimed at one point. As we went even further down, the creek started opening up in places.  There were a couple tricky spots that required careful crossing of snow covered log bridges but nothing us advanced skiers couldn’t handle. All was swell and hopes were high that we would make it back to the car in an hour. These hopes quickly evaporated as we stumbled upon a broad, deadfall ridden stretch of the creek. We could not continue on. Our only option was to put  our skins back on and gamble on paralleling the creek down as best as we could.

Part 3: An Amazingly Horrid Day

As soon as I took my skis off to transition, I knew that I had made a grave mistake. The seemingly solid area I was standing on was actually criss crossed deadfall perforated with giant swiss cheese like holes. These holes were veritable booby traps, perfectly concealed by snow. As if caught in quicksand, every attempt to get back to my skis resulted in me sliding closer and closer to the creek. I flailed around for ages until I finally managed to stabilise myself enough to take my skins off and put my skis back on.

Beginning of the creek was not that bad

From here, the trip only got more hellish. The trees, and subsequently deadfall, got denser and denser. At one point, due to unnavigable deadfall, we were forced to exit the creek and head up. Like a maze, the deadfall guided us higher and higher. At points, we were forced to descend, just to have to climb back up. Our heels being unclipped did not help on these descents and were the subject of many gruesome (but comical) crashes. Another caveat to add was that once one person crossed over a log, all the snow would fall off, making it near impossible for the next person to follow.

As we got sucked deeper and deeper into the forest, insanity started to take over. As a coping mechanism we devised a game where we would try to one up each other’s gnarly log crossings. This inevitably led to more falling and flailing about, which naturally enraged the group with maddening laughter. After an hour of being stuck in this forest and with seemingly no progress made, the group felt defeated. Tunnel vision took over and there was little to no talking or laughing anymore.

Each person had a slightly different method. I became an expert on crossing deadfall. In two graceful motions I could conquer all but the girthiest wood. My dad, fed up with his skis, decided to take them off and simply walk down, postholing the entire way. Nelson, after one too many close calls involving a tree and his head, decided to don a helmet. This good idea did not cross the rest of the group’s mind.

After crossing the 1000th downed tree of the day I looked up. Like a mirage shimmering in the desert heat a faint outline appeared through the trees. Was that the lake? “Guys I think I see the lake.” This one phrase seemed to snap everyone out of their trance. Like gazelles we rushed down towards the lake, seemingly unconcerned for our wellbeing. Mere metres from the lake, Jonah took one last tumble trying to jump over a bush, his final hurdle to salvation.

In the end, this 2.5km long and 200m elevation loss trudge took us a little under 2 hours to complete. The group rejoiced. However, this celebration was short lived as there was still 4km to go on the lake in order to get back to our vehicles. Calling this portion a death march would be an understatement. This was an afterlife march.

Once at our cars we enjoyed some fruit and alcoholic beverages before saying our farewells and parting ways. This trip was a mixed bag. Amazing skiing up top followed by the most gut wrenching ski out imaginable. Starting off as two groups and finishing as one collective unit, suffering together. And to think that I would not have been able to enjoy this sufferfest with Nelson, Reece and Mait if we had chosen different places to go. Truly a 0.0167 probability day.