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| Kitchen/Guide Tent |
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| camp |
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| morning beacon check before heading out for the day |
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| Low avalanche danger determine - we proceed down one at a time |
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looking back at our lap tracks |
At the end of March I am heading to France to do the famous ski traverse; the haute route, more on that later. While I have put in a lot of ski days this winter, I have not put in any multi days of climbing and skiing and I was starting to get nervous about my upcoming adventure. I called CB at Wallowa Alpine Huts who was happy to help me out with a few options. I signed up for a 6-person exploration trip. Turns out that CB/Wallowa Alpine Huts is in the process of buying Wing Ridge Ski Tours and they are exploring the areas that are new for them to be guiding in. The purchase of Wing Ridge Ski Tours gives CB a monopoly on the huts in the Wallowas.The trip began Thursday morning with a huge breakfast at Chandler’s Inn in Joseph, OR. After filling ourselves up with food and caffeine, we got our stuff together, checked beacon batteries, then loaded into our cars for a 30-minute drive to the parking lot where we would begin out skin up from. The weather was beautiful – cold and sunny.
A beacon park was recently built near the parking lot and warming hut;we were able to test our beacons out before we set off over Wing Ridge. We skinned up over Wing Ridge and did a few laps on a south facing ridge that we could ski right to the tents from. The tent camp consisted of 4 tents; an A-frame wood shed; two guest tents that slept 5 + people, a cooking/guide tent and a sauna tent.
A beacon park was recently built near the parking lot and warming hut;we were able to test our beacons out before we set off over Wing Ridge. We skinned up over Wing Ridge and did a few laps on a south facing ridge that we could ski right to the tents from. The tent camp consisted of 4 tents; an A-frame wood shed; two guest tents that slept 5 + people, a cooking/guide tent and a sauna tent.
We quickly settled in; got a fire going to dry our clothes,
then met up in the cooking tent to exchange adventures and to get to know each other. This group was primarily from Seattle; 4 lawyers, 1 doctor, 1
chemist and me, a land use planner.
I did a lot of listening.
The group from Seattle was a close knit activity group - they did many
b/c ski trips, and skied at Alpental every Wednesday night. This was their annual guy trip, but they were very accommodating to have me crash their
trip. We all settled easily into
the routine of camp; 7:00 am coffee, 7:30 breakfast, out of camp with lunches
packed by 8:30, skin, ski repeat for the day, return for happy hour around 5:00
pm, dinner around 7:00, early to bed repeat, repeat. Good living!
This trip was an excellent preparation trip for my upcoming
adventure – I left with having to figure out my boot situation and blisters
that need to heal.
Luckily I have
enough time for both.
RESOURCES:
Big Sheep huts
Wallowa Alpine Huts
Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center
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