My Birthday Telemark Ski Adventure

Well, I have yet another "Kath" story to tell which happened to be on my birthday to boot. I took a learn to telemark ski clinic on Sat with the Alpine Club of Canada. I took "tele" lessons a few years ago, but have never gone backcountry skiing. There was this clinic available and a client of mine was leading the group. Thought it sounded like a fun way to spend my birthday out in the snow doing something new.

There had been a bunch of new snow and it was a clear day when we left for Squamish to head up towards Elfin Lakes. I was very excited going up there. One of the cars broke a chain part way up the hill so had to be left down lower on the road. We finally got started on our trek up to the Red Heather Hut which took about an hour and a half hiking up the hill. We stopped there for lunch and to re-group everyone. Some people had had enough and just wanted to ski out. A few of us went up further and did a couple of runs. The powder was so thick and I hadn't skied in powder like this before - let alone with telemark skis that I wasn't very good with. So I wasn't the most graceful getting down the runs, but I got a sense of what it was like to ski in "fresh tracks". It was awesome!!! Wanted to do more, but we had to get back to the vehicles before it got dark.

Once we got back to the cars, we were told that we couldn't get out since there was a 5 car pile up part way down the mountain. Noone was sure when it would be cleared out. Then, we got the idea that I would hike down with this guy, Ian, who had the car which had broken the chain earlier, was down below the accident so that I could try to make it to my birthday party. It was very slippery going down the road and I wiped out a couple of times. There were cars all over the place in the ditch, etc, but no major damage and no injuries. We passed a tow truck which was tied with a rope to a tree since it was that slippery!!!! I wasn't sure about this road, but it was supposed to be better down where the car was. With one chain on, we kept pulling to one side and it was like a sheet of ice so after a half hour of not getting very far, we had some help getting the car off the road so noone would hit it. For those who don't know this area, the road is narrow with a steep dropoff the side of the mountain so one wrong slip could have been fatal. I was so glad that we stopped and a local couple drove us out to a hotel. It sounded like everyone was going to have to be evacuated for the night to the hotel where we were at!!!

When we got to the hotel, and finally some phone reception, I called my friends who were at the restaurant waiting for me. I had to bail out on them!! I've never missed my own birthday party before!!! Anyways, what could I do?? We were starving so we had dinner and thought the others would be around shortly. We called them after dinner and found out that they had got out with their vehicles and were back in Vancouver!!!! So here I am on my birthday in the middle of a snowstorm, missing my own party with some guy I don't know or with any romantic connection there!! He was a good guy and did treat me to dinner since I think he felt badly that I missed my party. Unbelievable! It figured that a good friend who lives in Squamish happened not to be in town that night also. So, anyways, we crashed at the hotel. Bought more chains in the morning. We got so lucky that the couple that drove us out happened to be at the Canadian Tire when we were buying chains and drove us back to the car which was 8-10km down the road. We finally did get out and back to town Sun around 3pm!! I was exhausted.

It certainly was a birthday that I won't forget. It was a great lesson in safety and what could happen out there. I learned how to put chains on tires which I'd never done before either. Wow - and we are supposed to have another clinic ski day this Saturday. I'm really not in the mood for it yet, but I have a few days to get psyched up for it. I'm going in the trip leader's vehicle and not changing cars for anything this time. Oh well. That's my birthday saga and I hope people will still come out next year since I will definitely make be there.