(CLOSE WINDOW TO RETURN TO WRITINGS MENU)

Finding the Red Line
By David Huebner

From October to June, I live in a small wood cabin several miles from the nearest town. Last year I was snowed in from November 7th to May 28th, skiing and hiking to and from town; a trip I made once every seven to ten days. In town I would buy food and beer, enjoy the company of friends for a couple days, and then head back over the shoulder of a dormant volcano that receives an average of 400 inches of snow a year, lugging usually a 60-80 pound pack down well over 2,000 vertical feet of turns to my cabin. I was almost always alone down at the cabin. A few friends visited throughout the winter, but generally I had to make the trip out to town if I wanted to talk to anyone in person. I did have a phone, the internet, electricity, hot and cold running water, a sauna and a natural hot spring. I was paid to be there.
In December I received 130 inches of snowfall, often entranced during breaks in the storm by the heavenly smooth robes of the alpine range several miles to the west of my cabin. Though I reveled in the magical, long descents of my immediate backyard, the open bowls were staring back at me seductively, like a beautiful woman showing some leg. So when the storm cycle finally broke in January and the low winter sun stabilized the snowpack, I decided to make a two night trip to heaven's door.

At the mouth of the canyon that leads up into the range, I was presented with the skyline I had been admiring from the cabin, now close enough I could almost feel the powder being blown lightly off the different round and jagged summits. Crossing a meadow, I headed into the woods. After a couple hours of navigating under the canopy, I entered a little basin that sits a quarter mile or so from the cirque I would explore the next day and quickly found a flat spot nestled in the trees, a small creek trickling out of the snow nearby, and a 600 foot north facing slope rising nearby.
The slope had the same aspect and a nice little cornice like I might find in the cirque, so I decided to check it out. I guessed that the layer of new snow would still be dry, but also would have settled some and bonded a bit to the windboard underneath. Sure enough, I kicked off the small cornice that lined the lip of the slope, and got no response from the slope below, so I ski cut the steepest section a couple times. The windboard was there, but the snow lying on top was complete dust, and would not slide cohesively at all, so I began sweeping down the bowl, occasionally setting an edge against the windboard underneath but trying to play light-footed and dance in the dry fluff eight inches deep. Perfect snow with no signs of instability gave me confidence for the following day.
Watching sunset, with down booties pulled up high, fleece pants pulled down low, wool hat snugged tight, down jacket zipped to chin, and mug of tea in hand, I chuckled silently at my crazy lifestyle. Already skiing incredible backcountry runs everyday from the comfort of my cabin, I now had pushed out to the foot of this grand alpine range, furthering my isolation to maybe a dozen miles from the nearest road. I had skied only a few days all season with anyone else, almost always travelling and deciding for myself, with no beacon and no partner to dig me out if I misjudged the stability; something people usually avoid doing like the plague, but what choice did I have? I had grown comfortable with solo travel, loving the exploration of new places rather than just the close to home shots. Such a fine feeling exploring a new area, unsure of how the terrain might be, where the best uptrack might go, studying the map at home and going on feel and memory in the woods. How many times in life do you get opportunities like that? To be at home exploring something totally new, watching the terrain unravel before your eyes and skis, the featureless carpet of forest opening to perfect glades, and high open bowls. Swallowing the last of my tea, I crawled into my one-man tent and barely adequate sleeping bag dubbed The Nylon Sheet by my friends, smiling at the ease and quality of this latest journey.
I waited for the sun to hit camp before starting breakfast, but noticing the sun's low, quick march across the horizon, I hastily downed the last of my coffee, pulled on boots and bibs, skinned up the boards and headed out nervous with excitement. Drool was practically running down my chin as I topped the ridge and headed along the crest for my first run: a steep face that led quickly into a broad moderate gully. The snow was good at first, although variable, but then it quickly turned into awful firm windboard and variable breakable windboard. Disappointed, I struggled down the run before hitting a final section at the bottom of the bowl that was all soft powder. This cheered me a bit so I surveyed the texture of the snow in each area of the bowl, deciding that the best snow was in the very center: an area of gigantic cotton ball rollers that pitched over into a very steep fluted face of small chutes, cliffs, and scattered trees.
I memorized necessary features I would use to avoid dead-end chutes and cliffs of which there were many. After entering the top of the bowl, I began traversing under the giant cliff which comprises the summit of an unnamed peak along the crest. Hugging the base of the cliff, I felt the snow turn from windboard into boot deep fluff, and my heart began racing. Slide paths and debris from during the last small storm cut swaths down from the ridge into the rollers. Excitement about snow quality mixed with nervousness about snow stability. Afterall, I was way out, and all alone. It felt great underfoot, the same as what I had skied on the small slope above camp, even slightly softer and less wind effected. It would not slide at my switchback triangles as I started to cut up towards the crest. Edging through the old slide paths, I was gripped to the firm bed surface wondering if I was completely crazy, but when I entered the soft snow swaths that hadn't slid during the storm they wouldn't go, so at the highest point I could reach, about 25 feet under the crest of the range, I stopped and pulled my skins in one of these fine, foot deep swaths of soft snow. With two old slides running parallel to the good snow I was in, I certainly felt strange, my heart climbing towards my throat, but there had been no other indicators of instability in the two runs I'd already done. So, after looking out at the amazing view, buckling my beat up old plastic boots, which were incidentally both missing a buckle, I dropped in.
Soft, amazing powder turns. I stopped every few hundred feet to shout and scream and rest, not wanting a single turn to be tired or skewed, savoring every moment. It was a dream, that fantastic dream I seem to have held since I realized I loved skiing: experiencing remote, alpine, perfect powder. I spotted the lone tree and rock that were my markers for a line down the steep face to come.
Standing perched on the lip of the giant wave of rollers cresting the steep reef of ragged chutes, I caught my breath, waited for the lactic acid to drain, and kept going. The terrain pitched over to a euphoric 45-50 degrees, so I made a few ski cuts to double check my feelings about the stability. It felt perfect. Making steep fall line turns in a foot of powder past some trees, I went into a short rock lined chute before hanging right into the next rock lined chute which led me into a hanging snowfield until I had to cut right again into the final rock lined chute which dropped me onto a steep face right to the floor of the cirque. What a feeling! What a run! Absolutely exhilarating! I felt like I was literally hanging onto the face of the mountain, the flats far below between my ski tips, with a strange gravity keeping me against the slope while madly pulling me downward, each turn a drop of air, each choice of line a prayer for continuity, snow sluffing past at every movement. I laid out long graceful arcs to the lake before turning around and looking up at my tracks. I had to do it again.
I kept replaying every moment, every turn, simultaneously reviewing the terrain features I would need to stay on my next line down the steep face. Rather than traversing with skins up into the powder rollers of the last run, I eagerly pulled the skins and angled my way for the two trees that framed the entrance of my next route. Once again perched on the lip, I caught my breath, rested my legs and tried to calm my wildly beating heart, which now felt like an apple jammed in my throat. Dropping in with a string of tele turns through steep powder, trees flying past on both sides, wonderfully locked into a clear chute straight down, I eventually had to switch over to the stability of parallels as the terrain steepened further and I had to choose among different short rock chutes.
Entering a particularly narrow constriction, my hip dragged in the 50-degree powder and sharply snagged a rock. Stopping, I saw a small fin of jagged rock sticking out of the powder, and felt the painful spot on my leg where it tore through my bibs, my long underwear, and left twin parallel red lines on my ass: thin beads of blood. Fortunately I wasn't leaning into the mountain with all my weight or my butt might've been hanging out of my pants like a slab of beef. Grateful to the gods of Fate, I continued down the steep face, clinging to hanging snowfields, and connecting the final chutes to glide out to the frozen lake in a state of pure bliss.
On my way back to camp I cut over to the top of the 600 foot slope above camp and made another run down the powder to my tent. As I ate dinner, sipped tea and munched on some homemade fire-baked bread, the turns of the day replayed in my head, leg muscles almost twitching in response. Two of the finest, most thrilling runs of my life, and I still had tomorrow to ski the lines off what I call Fern Peak. How did I end up here? I used to be this young professional cellist, growing up in the smog of Los Angeles, the din of concert halls, suits and tuxedos, dreaming about the mountains, just dreaming about a dream, but here it is, in front of me, it has come true. Smiling as the stars swirled overhead, I crawled into my bag and passed into a wonderful sleep.

Looking back on my first season as a winter caretaker, it seems every day was a fine backcountry journey, some farther out than others, all equally sublime. Even the warm afternoons spent dialing turns in leather boots on waxless touring skis strike me as almost equal to those wild powder days in the Cirque. My winter as a whole seems like a crazed red line, an engine burning, overheated blast of pure effortless experience. No work, no time, no responsibilities for seven months, and a 130 days of beautiful skiing. I don't know if I will ever be able to accept the rest of the world again, I really hope that I just won't have to. I'll be caretaker again this winter, and I have found a sparkling diamond of a girl to be there with me.

(CLOSE WINDOW TO RETURN TO WRITINGS MENU)