prAna: Sustainable Clothing

As if we could magically control the weather, last week’s cold snap gave way to 0 C/32 F-ish temperatures here in southeastern British Columbia (BC, Canada). This seemed a good portent for our anticipated three-day adventure into Top of the World Provincial Park, where my boyfriend, Kevin, worked as backcountry ranger every summer for a number of years—a place special to him, but one that I hadn’t yet seen. We spent our New Year’s Eve packing up and barely made it awake until midnight, wanting to get a good night of sleep to start things off the next day.

At around 10:30 a.m. on January 1, our friends Kelsey and Jesse arrived in Kelsey’s jeep, with the snowmobiles in tow. We tossed in our packs and hopped in, heading off through the snow to the parking area where we would start our adventure.

Though excited, I was a little bit wary and nervous, too, being the only one unfamiliar with winter sports in general (though I have skied and snowboarded, but not for a decade at this point), and with snowmobiling and snowshoeing in particular—I’d never done either one before, actually. But it wasn’t so much the new activities that concerned me, because I was pretty sure I’d like ’em…it was the fear of the coldness and of what it turns me into.

Simply put, I hate being cold. This is the biggest reason why I don’t ice climb—I can’t handle standing still and belaying at all. Actually, my dislike of cold goes beyond “hate.” It’s more like, “cannot tolerate and turn into a shivering whiny baby who’s no fun to be around.” Which is why I generally try to not put myself in such positions: It’s not only for my own sake, but also, for the sanity and comfort of those around me.

With this in mind, after we arrived at the parking area and unloaded the snowmobiles, I bundled up until I resembled a cross between a football player and a yeti, and declared myself ready to go. We hopped on the snowmobiles, two people and two backpacks to a sled, and took off through the snowy landscape, bouncing and bobbling our way some 20 kilometers to the trailhead. By the time we got there, I realized that I was not only warm enough, but I was actually overdressed—despite the snowy landscape, it just wasn’t that cold outside. Yes!

We donned our snowshoes and set off on the 6.5-kilometer trek to the ranger cabin that Kevin used to call home every summer, with Kevin in the lead breaking trail. I followed along, tramping and tromping my way through the snow, enjoying the unfamiliar wintry scenery, the utter silence surrounding us, and the feel of the snowshoes squishing through the powder beneath my feet. Even with snowshoes, and even though there were some two-week old cross-country ski tracks to help pack the trail down a little, the hike in took some time (three hours?) and energy.

By the time we arrived, everyone was sweating, and the interior of the ranger cabin was absolutely freezing. Despite our best efforts to instantly shed all of our sweat-soaked clothes and get the propane heater going, this was the one time on the trip that I plummeted into that body-chilling realm of interior coldness that I loathe so much. Still, I kept the whining on low and kept the helping get warm water going on high, and it all worked out. We fried some steaks and cooked up some other grub, then all tumbled into bed worn out.

The next morning, I got up at 9 or so, thinking proudly how much I’d slept in (my pride at this accomplishment diminished significantly during the next three hours as I waited for everyone else to wake up, which they did, finally, at noon). I drank two cups of coffee, meditated, read probably 100 pages, and just enjoyed the sound of silence (aside from the occasional burst of chainsaw snoring from Jesse’s room) and the feeling of solitude as I awaited their awakening.

It’s amazing to be in a place that has no motorized travel anywhere nearby—it makes every plane that flies overhead seem like an “ear-sore,” an interruption of the absolute nothing that’s reigning supreme in the snow-dampened landscape surrounding you. Even the animals and birds were, for the most part, invisible, though I did see one Western blue jay, plus a bunch of rabbit tracks, when I went on my adventure later in the day.

With everyone up and outside to play, I started to wander back down the trail we’d hiked in on the night before. I then decided to turn to the right and experiment with my snowshoes, to see how they worked breaking trail in untouched snow. I’d already developed an instant and strong appreciation of them when I took them off after the hike in the day before: Even though they’d been sinking a good ways—maybe six or eight inches—into the light ‘n’ fluffy snow, I didn’t quite get how much they were helping until I took them off after the hike and post-holed into the snow up to my waist. Yikes! And I won’t even really go into great detail about my special, private “bottoms-up” moment that I experienced sans snowshoes when I went outside to relieve myself one time. Suffice it to say, “Lesson learned.”

Today, then, it seemed like it might be a fun way to spend the day just learning all about snowshoeing on my own. I catcalled to the rest of the crew to let them know where I was (since you should never head off hiking, especially in the winter, on your own without letting others know where you’re headed, even for a short while). I knew I’d be in earshot of them the whole time, too.

At first, I was really enjoying the process, learning to step and adjust and pick my foot placements carefully—it was kind of fun, though hard work. But then, at the back of the cirque, the snow deepened, and the going became gradually more and more precarious, especially the narrow little foot bridges that I’m sure are fine in dry hiking boots—but not covered in a layer of ice and 18 inches of snow.

My resolve to make it all the way around the lake dissipated, in fact, upon my encountering one of these obstacles above a rocky, running stream of water. No, thanks, I’d rather not plummet 10 feet into those rocks and ruin my climbing season just to prove to myself that I can snowshoe all the way around a frozen lake. Plus, I was getting tired, hungry, and thirsty, and soaked (again) in sweat—a good time to rejoin the group and head back to the cabin for dry clothes and water, along with elk steaks, tortellini, red wine, and plenty of laughter to go around as we played cards, unplugged from the outside world and loving just being present in the moment and sharing time with each other.

Then next day, we spent a leisurely morning packing up, getting the cabin closed down, and hiking back out to the snowmobiles (a much shorter journey going downhill and with the trail packed in). We hopped on and booked our way out, and since it wasn’t snowing, I got the chance to take in the awesome, breathtaking scenery of the impressively craggy mountains and deep river valleys surrounding me. After loading everything up, we finished our trip off in style with a much-needed stop to soak our bodies at the White Swan hot springs…the perfect finish to my first (but probably not my last) backcountry snowshoeing adventure... Alli