The teepee doesn’t feel like a home without
visitors. My girlfriend Diane wakes sometime
aroundmidnight, “There’s someone outside.” In
my frozen state of waking confusion, I realize it’s
our good friend Rory “Bushy” Bushfield and his
adventure dog Dextor. I also realize that there is
heavy snowfall coming in through the teepee’s
smoke holes. Bushy comes in and hunkers down
for the remainder of a cold night. It’s puking
outside, and I still can’t believe he made the
35-kilometre sled ride in the dark.
We awake to find everything buried. My
snowmobile is almost invisible, Dex is literally
swimming through powder. Bushy’s sled had
gotten stuck on the way up in the night and
he’d been forced to finish the journey on foot.
It’s white out, bottomless, and almost too
deep, but breaking trail is much easier going
down than up and cold, dry pow billows over
my handlebars as I descend to go dig out
his ride. With his sled recovered, Bushy and I
proceed to trench out a new ascent trail then hit
bottomless runs until dark.
The next morning brings bluebird skies and beauty
that is almost baffling. Overnight, the snow has
settled into absolutely perfect pow-shredding
conditions, literally right outside the teepee’s door.
With pillows as far as the eye can see, we name
the new zone ‘Burke’s Bumps’ after the late
Sarah Burke and proceed to pump and pop our
way down run after run. It feels like we are in
the air more than we are on snow. It’s heaven
and it’s exactly the kind of day I had dreamed to
wake up to inmy canvas mountain home.
The shift from powdery paradise to the devil’s
wind tunnel comes quicker than expected. Once
again, the ‘rare’ Arctic outflow surges from the
North. Our firewood supply is questionable at
best—wood pulled from under a logging slash
pile that is not nearly as dry as we’d hoped.
Wet wood and frigid temperatures mean our fire
makes more smoke than heat, and the winds
keep pushing that smoke right back down on us.
Even worse, our beer is as frozen as our water.
Rory is ready to abort themission and crawl into
a snow cave but I convince him to stay. If we can
withstand these harsh conditions, any night in
the future will seem balmy by comparison. We
give up on the fire, crawl into our feather down
nests and curl up for what I now consider the
coldest night I’ve ever spent outdoors.
44
MLCM
WINTER/SPRING2017
TOP
Apocalypse Pow.The author samples some double overhead
powonBurke's Bumps, SquamishBackcountry.
ABOVE
To keep the teepee floor clean, just add fresh snow!
