Idaho
It was quiet out there in the cold. It was a deafening quiet though, that surrounded you and filled you up, covering your ears, filling them with the cold, white, stillness. We were back at the pass on highway 31. We had come out here on the second day of the trip, with our shovels and tents and cooking gear, bundled up but still warm from the cabins we were staying in. That afternoon, we had learned how to set up our green tents, digging out a two foot deep square, long enough and wide enough for three of us to lie down to rest, our sleeping mats spread out with our thick sleeping bags spread on top. The sleeping bags were different from ones I’d used in the past, thick, puffy, filling up more than half the duffel I set on my sled to pull along. The puffy jacket they gave me matched - red, thick, swallowing me whole, even with my wool long sleeve, my pullover, my smaller orange puffy, and my shell underneath. We were a shock to the environment, bright reds and blues and greens. Even when we were at our quietest - moving in silence in a single line, following tracks left before us, breathing heavily, focused on the ache in our muscles to move forward, pushing our skis through the snow and pulling our sleds behind us - we were still foreigners to that great white world.
That first afternoon, we started digging, each group practicing setting up their tent. We had to set those shelters up for more than half the nights that we were in the backcountry. We would get to ‘camp’, which was really just a latter section in the mountains, off the trail, surrounded by trees, and we’d unclip our sled waist belts, leaving our skis on so that we could pack down the base of the shelter after we had dug it out. It wasn’t easy, in fact, it was really awkward. While we dug, we’d kneel, our boots popped out of our bindings, balancing on the thin wood, trying not to fall into the snow, where our knees would sink, our hands trying to keep us afloat above the powder. Once we had dug out the square we would click back into our skis and negotiate the small space, tripping over our own skis, the middle of the shelter a clump of snow we’d left to prop our tent pole on. We would stretch out the dark green fabric, tying it off on all four corners, pulling it taut so snow would fall off easily throughout the night. Finally, once that was all done, we’d unclick and prop our skis up, pulling the skins off to keep them dry. Switching from our ski boots into our dry socks, and two layers of puffy boots, less worried about post holing after our skis had packed down routes between our shelters and camp.
And then in the morning, we did it all in reverse, tearing down the tents and stomping down the sides of our shelters, pushing the snow back into the cleared space, our presence so evident but hoping the falling snow would cover our tracks, returning our site to the still beauty of before. We knew we weren’t permanent, migratory figures moving through this space, hovering on the edge of uninvited, recognizing how changed the environment became even after the short time we’d spent there.
The other activity we practiced that first afternoon was setting up our kitchen. We only really needed one kitchen area but we had four small groups cooking together each meal and we wanted enough space for each group to prepare and cook their meals. The instructors talked us through the steps to set up the kitchen, first choosing the spot, then packing down the snow and using our shovels to mold and shape counters, benches, a stove area, and our insulating “fridges”. They encouraged us to be creative,
“this can become the kitchen you’ve always dreamed of!”
and so we grabbed our shovels and one of the boys got on top of our kitchen, stomping his skis above us, while we carved out counters and slapped the snow with our shovels. I want to say we got better at building our kitchens but I’m not sure it's true. We’d set up our shelters and then build the kitchen and it was always what we needed. Usually we all gathered close, drawn in by the WhisperLite stoves and the couple of lanterns we set up, probably hoping for warmth.
In the morning, we would crawl out of our shelters and walk the short 50 or so steps to the kitchen, our puffy jackets zipped tight, pulling on our hats and gloves. It felt like it never stopped snowing that trip so we would have to brush off the bags of food and the stoves, snowflakes falling into our pots as we cleared the snow from the night before. We’d stand at the counters, our gloves still on as we pulled out the stoves, the metal threatening immediate frostbite if our bare skin touched it. Because of the cold, we would have to pump the fuel canister at least 50-60 times before lighting it, each of us taking turns, turning the fuel into gas. We would finally pull our gloves off for a brief moment to trace our thumb on the lighter, bending forward, catching the gas and then soon our frozen eggs, potatoes, and bacon were sizzling, steam rising and inviting the rest of the group closer.
We had to build one more structure on the trip, but we didn’t practice until we were four days in, already deep in the backcountry and finally in the routine of setting up our shelters. On the third day, we arrived in a large opening, two main slopes above us and a small indent in the hill ahead of us. The snow had been pouring down the whole morning and the wind had picked up in the last few hours. The last hill we’d gotten through had been difficult, with most of us getting our sleds stuck and all of us struggling to keep moving. We all sat down in the clearing, waiting while our instructors stood talking. Looking back now, I realize they had intended for us to go further, but every step we took was a push through a few feet of snow, the person at the front struggling to make a path through the deep powder, all of us squinting against the falling snow, cold, wet, sore. We started snacking, or maybe eating lunch, starting to get cold. The instructors finally came back over and told us that we were going to set up camp and stay there for the next few days, a basecamp of sorts, where we would build our snow shelters and skin up higher to ski without our sleds.
We still had to set up our tents that afternoon, creating a row of shelters further down the slope, practicing the same routine we’d become accustomed to. But then, instead of making dinner and going to bed, we had hours of light left and we pulled our shovels out to start on the snow shelters. We did the first snow pile as a group, all of us circled up around one of our avalanche probes, and then shoveling snow from behind us into a growing pile around the probe. I hadn’t ever shoveled like that, my muscles burning and my hands freezing. We kept waiting for our instructors to say it was enough, but instead we just kept shoveling, watching the snow pile up until we couldn’t see each other on the other side, higher still until only a foot of the probe was visible. Halfway through, I was so cold I started singing “Girl on Fire” to warm myself up, or maybe as a psychotic response to the chaos that I had somehow found myself in, a group of twenty somethings flinging snow into a pile, while big snowflakes fell onto us, our feet and hands freezing and our only options to stay or hike all the way back out. Singing didn’t really make me warmer but it did something for my mind and kept me going that afternoon. Once we had made that first pile big enough, our instructors told us to each work on our own, the groups that had been sleeping in shelters together splitting away and setting up the probe and then once again, shoveling until the snow was piled high above us. When we were all done, we moved toward our kitchen area, setting it up so we could start cooking as the sun moved lower in the sky, down towards the hill across from us. We had to leave the snow piles overnight to solidify, packing down so they would be stable enough for us to clear out. So we slept in the tent one more night and after breakfast the next morning, we started another long day of shoveling, this time taking turns carving out a tunnel into the snow pile, creating an uphill ramp and then slowly shoveling a room for us to fill. We took turns digging into the snow and sitting at the opening we’d created pushing the snow away. I felt claustrophobic when we were digging into the pile, the space starting out just small enough for my shovel and growing until I could actually sit up and then slowly emerging into a full room - but I still felt claustrophobic, the heavy snow right above my head, the only light coming in from the low entrance that we had to slide down to get out. But these snow shelters, called Quinzhees, were warm and slowly began to feel like a real shelter.
The night before we finished the quinzhees was one of the hardest of the trip. We were nearing the halfway point of the trip and we were setting more permanent shelters, reminding me of how far into the wilderness we had gone. I remember thinking about pressing the red emergency alert on my instructor’s satellite device, knowing it would call someone for help, maybe even a helicopter that would take us back. Sometimes I thought about getting a minor injury, twisting or rolling something, or getting dehydrated so they would have to take me back - an accident, of course, but one that would rescue me from the cold. Those were the thoughts I was having that night as I went to bed, freezing cold, sore, still scared, but of what I wasn’t sure. Then I woke up around 4am, shivering and wondering if I had started my period. I didn’t want to believe it so I stayed in my sleeping bag, trying to fall back asleep for another 30 minutes, and then another hour, until finally, I knew I had to get up and take care of myself. I was so frustrated, the feeling building up in my chest, heavy and thick, angry at my body for forcing me through this each month, upset that it was happening now, incredulous that it was still so, so, so cold. And then I stepped out of the tent, and tears filled my eyes, uncontrollably, spilling out as I looked up at the clear sky, the stars and moon illuminating the snow, like I had stepped into a glass ball, a perfect picture, the goodness of the world close enough for me to touch. And I cried. I stood there for a moment, staring in disbelief and awe and letting the wonder fill my chest, even as the tears spilled out. And then I cried as I found a tampon and as I postholed my way down the slope away from the shelters, not even wearing my headlamp because the night was bright enough, and I cried as I squatted in the freezing cold, feeling my heart split at the devastating beauty of the world and the inescapable pain of living here.
