A Long Trek Home by Erin McKittrick

Author:Erin McKittrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Published: 2011-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

10. HEART OF WINTER

Erin: “Ski bushwhacking in the winter

is like summer with about eighteen extra

helpings of pain.”

WE GREETED WINTER SOLSTICE with a bonfire. On Prince William Sound, beyond the surf of the Lost Coast, small waves lapped on our gravel beach. Delicate cascades of icicles spilled over boulders and cliffs, where forests once again reached nearly to the water’s edge. Cooking finished, we sat for hours, just watching the dance of the flames. Finally, we let the last coals die and stirred the gravel until it was evenly warm, heating the ground beneath our bed.

The bear-proof bags we carried to store our food were filled with warm gravel—transformed into heated pillows for our heads and feet. Our food lay scattered in dry bags around us.

For months already, we’d been sleeping nearly on top of our food—not a recommended practice in bear country. During the long summer days, we had cooked our dinners in the middle of the day, far from where we slept. But on rainy fall nights, we often cooked under the flap of the tent. And the more we traveled in bear country, the more we became convinced that in these rarely traveled areas, avoiding bears at night had little to do with food and more to do with a careful choice of campsite. We simply slept where they would be unlikely to travel. Bears not accustomed to campers don’t seek them out.

Skiing through beetle-killed black spruce in Copper Basin

But the bears were asleep now. And we continued into winter.

At Cordova we had turned away from the open Pacific Ocean, and for the last several days we’d been packrafting the protected waters of Prince William Sound. When we reached Valdez, we planned to leave the coast entirely to follow the inland side of the Chugach Mountains—through the frigid interior climate of Copper River Basin.

In our Valdez host’s basement, we opened the Christmas presents we had mailed to ourselves, eagerly tearing apart boxes containing our thick down quilt, warm mittens, and secondhand skis. I envisioned skis swishing across sunlit fields of snow, mountain peaks lit rosy pink in sunset, blazing fires under starry skies. I pictured myself flying across a winter wonderland, the shiny blue skis strapped to my feet. The half-frozen morass of the Copper River Delta was fading into memory. And the winter seemed full of a sparkling promise.

…

Five days beyond Valdez, and twenty feet ahead of me on a steep and lumpy hillside, Hig was leaning back with his right ski high in the air, trying to fit it between the twisted branches of a snowy alder. I watched him struggle, standing thigh-deep in powder snow with my skis in my hand, debating whether to put them back on. My ski tips knocked against a branch, sending a shower of snow down my collar. The air was still, cold, and unnervingly quiet. Each snowflake settled just where it fell, coating even the most delicate twigs in puffs of white. The snow was dry and powdery—nearly weightless. We sunk nearly as much with our skis as we sunk without them.

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