Wednesday was another beautiful morning with clear skies. It was also warmer with the temperature at 7 degrees. Tom and Dave wanted to just ski out so they could get back early. I thought it was a shame to waste such good snow. Matthew wanted to do a run too and David was fine with hanging out at the hut while we went.
First we skied down to the southwest saddle. It’s fairly open getting down to the saddle and it also gets quite a bit of sun in the afternoon. There were a few spots that were starting to get crusted and I’d guess another sunny day probably made it not too much fun to ski. Once we got to the saddle we put out skins on to go up the ridge. We then dropped down all the way into the drainage. It was one of the best runs of the trip. Even on the drop from the last old logging road, I found a nice open slot through the trees. I didn’t do it justice and nearly fell but it was so much fun. All to soon we were at the bottom.
The ski back up was good and I enjoyed the great views. All too soon another Eiseman Hut trip was coming to an end. On the way back up, I noticed 2 snowmobiles parked on the road quite a way down from the hut. It looked like someone had skied up our up track with a dog. It only took 45 minutes to ski back up. The night before it took a little over an hour when I was tired.
When I got to the hut, the cleaning and maintenance couple were there and they had 2 search and rescue dogs in training with them. Normally dogs aren’t allowed at the huts but they were trained to lie down and stay in one place. Outside they were supposed to be under control and be taken away from the hut to do their “business” because we melt the snow for drinking water. David said the dogs were running around outside and didn’t look very controlled.
The cleaning couple told us that they’re having problems with the hut because so much snow piles up on the backside. They said it is pushing the hut over. One year it moved so much one of the windows broke and in the summer they had to bring in a front end loader and push the hut back. The vertical walls were out of level by an inch per foot! They are working with the architect to possibly extend the woodshed back into the hillside to help anchor it. They also said this winter the snow piled half way up the windows on the deck and they had to bring in extra people to shovel the deck. Normally people staying in the hut keep the deck pretty well cleared but there’s been so much snow this winter they didn’t keep up on it.
Matthew and I had pretty much packed up before we went and skied so it didn’t take long to pack up when we got back. We enjoyed hanging out on the deck for a little while before heading out. As we dropped down, the snow got pretty heavy and wet. We had an uneventful ski out to the trailhead and thankfully the drive home was much better than the drive up.
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