skistories: BC Hut

Getting into Canada was harder than Conor and I expected. We had our passports and were courteous to the border guard, but we didn't have a plan for being "suspected for American refugees." It was one in the morning and we went through a long interrogation as to our origins, work, etc. It came out that between the two of us, we've lived in 15 states and had dozens of jobs in the past couple years.

"So you don't have a real job nor own a home. You have limited or no connection to the United States. How much money do you have access to?"

"Millions."

"Are you serious?"

"Very."

"OK you can go but you must be out of our country in two weeks."

Mt. Joffre

Keith's Hut is just over the first ridge

Mt. Matier

The Anniversary Glacier

The Kiwi said, "So that's an avalanche transceiver, eh?

Do they set them off or put them back together."

The lunar landscape of the E Face of Joffre

Heading up the Anniversary at sundown

"More mountains in all directions than I had ever seen before."

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

A view down the E Face of Matier from the Col

We'll have to return for these couloirs

At the hut one night, three people arrived at midnight while Conor and I were sound asleep. We were both awakened by the snoring but, not knowing others had joined us, each of us assumed it was the other, inciting a ferocious argument, "Conor stop snoring!"

"It's not me, it's you man. Jesus!"

Meanwhile the snoring continued through our argument and then the perpetrator awoke and became self-conscious enough to stop it for a bit.