MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2018

100 MLCM FALL/WINTER 2018 days and requires winter camping in tents, bivy sacks or snow caves (the Himmelsbach hut is there, but it’s quite old, a bit drafty, and fills up quickly.) The new hut system aims to bring people out of the cold, protecting and inspiring future backcountry shredders, hikers and mountaineers for the next hundred years. And the opening of the Kees and Claire Hut (currently set for late spring/early summer 2019) marks the beginning of a new chapter in the Spearhead story. To start that chapter properly, it’s important for the Sea to Sky backcountry community to know two of the most important characters—the ones whose names grace the hut itself—who were Kees and Claire? Cornelius ‘Kees’ Brenninkmeyer grew up skiing and first came to Whistler in 1994 to attend Dave Murray Ski Camp. “He was 14,” recalls Whistler legend Peter Smart, who was coaching at the camp that summer. “It was a race camp but he didn’t want to race. It worked though because I didn’t want to coach racing, so we’d sneak away and ski the Saudan Couloir then catch the busses back with the snowboarders coming up for the afternoon. Eventually they caught us and put us back in our lanes.” But Kees (pronounced ‘case’—it’s Dutch) was hooked. He came back the next three summers in a row. “He was so congenial,” remembers Smart’s wife Jill Dunnigan. “He loved the social aspect of skiing and he loved being in the mountains.” But in school back home in Toronto, Kees struggled. “He was an active kid, always doing something, the kind of energy that couldn’t fit behind a desk,” says older sister Julie Brenninkmeyer. “School was tough for him but he finally came into his own at boarding school in Connecticut. Somehow he convinced his house master that taking the bus to the ski hill and getting his ski instructor’s certificate should count as school credit. He found his calling.” As a graduation gift, Kees and a friend joined Smart on a private ski trip to Portillo, Chile. “It was a tough trip for them,” Smart laughs. “The US womens' ski team was staying in our hotel so the boys were in the disco all night chasing girls then up early hiking laps all day.” While in college, Kees set up his classes so he could come to Whistler from December to March and work for Extremely Canadian, Smart and Dunnigan’s ski guiding company. “We had him chopping firewood, tuning skis, driving the van, serving food, and shoveling snow,” Dunnigan recalls. “He was terrible in the office but he was great with the guests. He could deal with the tough ones because he was a tough one too. But he was the kind of guy who had time for everyone. He always showed up with a gift, he could ballroom dance… the ladies loved him. Everyone did.” Although Kees had always dreamed of being a ski guide, his family owned a large clothing retail business in Europe. He spent a year in The Netherlands to see how that life would fit. “It didn’t,” Julie Brenninkmeyer laughs. “Every weekend he would drive to Switzerland or France to play in the mountains. It was like a 10-hour drive each way and he’d still make it to work on Monday. He was driven that way, and when he finally did choose to pursue a career guiding, he was not torn at all. He made a deal with our mom that he’d only be home every second Christmas. With guiding you have to be committed. You have to be in the mountains.” And it was in the mountains, on an trip up Denali, where Kees met Claire. Born and raised in Kamloops, Claire Dixon grew up ski racing with her father and brother, both siblings eventually reaching the FIS level and getting into backcountry skiing together around the turn of the millennium. “I always did it as a hobby but Claire really took things to another level,” says brother Paul Dixon. “She did a lot of iconic BC trips—Aussie Couloir, Rogers Pass, the Purcells, Selkirks and then Denali. If she hadn’t gotten ill on that trip I think she would have been the first woman to ski off the summit.” “Every weekend he would drive to Switzerland or France to play in the mountains. It was like a 10-hour drive each way and he’d still make it to work on Monday. LEFT Claire and Kees,their spirits will inspire as their hut provides shelter. RIGHT Featuring big views and lots of space,the hut is constructed using Passivhaus technology for optimum efficiency. SPEARHEAD HUTS COMMITTEE