I Took The Path Less Traveled By: February 2019

So since the Waterton fire of 2017 I have wanted to get back into Waterton to see the affects of the fire. So when the ACC (Alpine club of Canada) announced they would have open for use the hut back at Cameron Lake I was excited to check it out. Unfortunately the Park only allowed non-vehicular travel up the Cameron Lake road. So you have to either walk, hike, snowshoe or ski up. So some friends decided to book it and to back country ski up there and then to do some back country skiing up Forum ridge while there. So we booked it and I had to go shopping for some skis. Well we got all ready and made the grueling 16 km trek into the hut on Valentines day, what better way to spend Valentines day than with a bunch of men eh! Anyways I had never skied with skins on before and had only cross country skied. Well totally different experience. I figured you would glide like on the cross country skis, but not with skins on. They are great to use when going up hills but on flat and down hill portions they are much more difficult because of the drag effect. Anyways I thought the ski up would only take about 4 hours. Well it took me like 6.5 hours. When I reached the cabin I was ready to collapse. My feet were sore, every muscle in my legs were sore and my left boot had been rubbing funny on my shin and it was really sore. Lets just say the bag of mini-eggs I had carried in were exactly what I needed. We relaxed at the cabin the rest of the night and prepared for our next day adventure. So on the Friday we got up and headed out to Forum Ridge. This is what the back country skis are for, it was quite easy to get up on the ridge and from there things seemed to be great. Then we checked the avalanche conditions and everything was ok and so we started down the ridge to Cameron Lake. Well this is where things got interesting. Seeing how I haven't skied in a few years this probably wasn't the best place to start. Well I fell a couple times at the beginning and got back up but then at one point turning in the waist deep powder my ski fell off my one boot. So we stopped and got it back on then headed again. We got to a fairly steep point and I waxed out pretty good and lost my ski again. Anyways this time it was a little harder to find. We found it but in the process of trying to get it back on the ski started down the mountain. I watched it as best I could thinking to myself...."that can't be good." Well we headed down that direction. When I lost the ski we were only about 1/3 the way down the ridge, and the ski probably ended up buried in the snow about 2/3 the way down the mountain. Well we searched, but found nothing. So we had to get me off the mountain with one ski in waist deep powder. I'm not sure how long it took me but it felt like forever. I tried riding the one ski like a sled but the powder was too deep. I tried walking but seemed more like swimming in the powder. I eventually got down to the lake after many minutes of struggling and realized it wasn't going to be much easier from there either. Once on the lake my a couple from our group took my one ski and lightened my back pack best we could and I started my trek back to the cabin on foot wearing my heavy ski boots. I've post holed before but this was ridiculous. At one point the snow was so deep I was up to my waist and the only way to move forward was to crawl on my hands and knees. I eventually made it back to the the cabin and was content to relax the rest of the day while most others went for another run down the ridge. The next morning I constructed a contraption to tow my ski and boots back. So we all headed out from the cabin about the same time but my trip back didn't have a detour for more skiing. The rest of the group climbed up to the Rowe bowl and skied down it. I just slowly made my way back to the vehicles. A lonlely 16km hike home pulling my one ski. Anyways I made it and have the story to tell about my first experience back country skiing. I'll just have to go find my ski in the spring!