Tripping On A Dream
It’s only four-thousand kilometers to Whitehorse and we’re making good time. Since it’s not my turn to drive, I lean back and try to envision the perfect trip. They say manifestation works but I usually just wing it. Either way our setup is looking pretty good. Like any great trip, we start with the team; a mixed bag of unique personalities: Walrus, Coco, Diesel, Badger, Kate, and they call me Grub. We are partners and friends from previous escapades around the New Zealand Alps and the Canadian Coast Mountains. Not a single one of us knows all the others, but strong connections are pulling us together. The shared love of chasing our imaginations to far away places and drawing lines on beautiful mountains.
“you guys are crazy” - Rafa, our pilot, as we neared Mount Vancouver.
Building camp on the first evening, Vancouver getting the last light of day.
Silently walking under sleeping monsters.
The Badger will welcome us to Whitehorse, where we can loiter at the library until Sian at the Icefield Discovery airfield tells us the weather will cooperate. Our new friend Rafa will fly us into Kluane National Park. If we’re lucky, he’ll crank down the skis on the 1966 Helio Super Courier and land us gently on the Hubbard Glacier, somewhere near the north flanks of Mount Vancouver. Walrus believes there's a line up this seraced monster, and we will trust his instinct. Once basecamp is set, we might chase each other around the cirques of the King George Massif, catching different perspectives of the Walrus’s vision across the way. The lay of the land will settle gently across our mental planes. The line up Vancouver is going to look good, so a recon party could go work out the lower section of the broken glacier.
Diesel, one step in front of the other. High on the mountain after a cold night.
The north face of Mount Vancouver. King George stands proud on the near left.
Our camp cuisine will be exquisite, the route up Vancouver will begin revealing its secrets, snow conditions will feel good, and the forecasts will sound even better. We could tackle it as two parties of three, camping together on the broad shoulder halfway up. It’ll be a cold and surreally beautiful sunset. Some of us might sleep in the frigid mountain air, some not. The sun will slowly defrost our bodies as we ascend the upper ridge the next morning, but the elevation will surely wrap itself around us. It will weigh us down to a crawl as we reach our highest and kick into our blades of choice. The heavy burden of altitude will unravel with each turn we make down the face. I’ll be so ecstatic I’ll have to force myself to slow down and take photos. The snow will only get better as we reach the sheltered lower ridge. With heavy packs we’ll ski the deep powder we slogged up the day before. Three-thousand meters of skiing might leave us satisfied, but it wouldn't be for long.
The Seward Glacier stretches out beyond. Mount Saint Elias on the left, Mount Logan on the right.
Coco Picking her way through cliff bands.
A steep and pointy unnamed peak near camp will likely steal my attention, so I'll go try it with Coco. The white line I spotted from afar will reveal to be just like we hoped. We would weave through debris, bergschrunds, and cliffs. The lower face will funnel into a steep, narrow couloir providing passage to the summit slopes. The exposure numbing our minds as we’d traverse over empty space. Maybe we wouldn’t summit, a big cornice or maybe some wind slab could turn us around. We could rip it in good snow to the bottom, slogging back to camp with grins and memories.
Kate and Coco Stretching out in the fog.
At this point, a few storm days would be welcomed to give our bodies much needed rest. We will cook our heavy food, trade our books, and stretch until we touch the sky. We could eat mushrooms and stare at the geological wonders around us, we could magnify and collect the light they reflect. The top of Mount Logan sits 40 kilometers away and more than four kilometers above us. The summit plateau alone is 20 kilometers long. Can its enormous bulk be captured by a 24mm x 36mm digital sensor? Maybe next time I’ll pack my film camera.
Looking back at a solo line from camp.
Smiling because it goes!
By the time we decide in which direction we are moving, we’ll know the surrounding terrain intimately—the sleep cycle of our neighboring seracs, the daily habits of our favorite avalanche paths, the tendencies of the wind, the flow of the clouds. It all boils down to one question: Where is the good snow? The untouched faces of our dreams and desires could be tracked out by the expression of our souls. We could drag our pulks in a rough 40 kilometer long arcing line route around the King George and Queen Mary Massifs—wouldn’t that sound regal in words? We could end up directly to the North of our original position. Wouldn’t that look aesthetic on a map? We could glimpse a mind-blowing amount of terrain, and ski whatever looks good from our camps. We could enhance our long walks into psychedelic experiences. It would feel like the ice is flowing past us, like a river as we gradually wade away from the sea. Into the heart of some of the largest icefields that still linger on our planet. As the weeks roll by, we won't see another soul. Isolated from civilization, our own primeval language may develop. Maybe one morning I’ll sleep in and then sneak off for a solo climb. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could ski down and punctually meet the others on the mellows, descending from their own adventures. We would hoot and holler back to camp.
The snow is soft but the ice is hard. We’re looking for the former while avoiding the latter.
The Walrus, surfing.
Dreams would blur into reality as our existence flies by. We will repeatedly condense that existence down into what we can pull behind us, and into the distance we’ll go. Pick a point on the horizon and walk towards it. The further we walk, the more accustomed to this life we become. Time is but a construct. Why can’t I go skiing after dinner? Why can't I eat cheese with nutella? It all goes to shit anyway. We could prance up the Queen’s North Face and ski down together. The crescent impressions we leave in the soft snow will mirror the track we left across the range, reflecting our movements on a scale that blows our sunburnt skulls, 1:2000.
Sharp ridges, steep slopes, insane views.
Skiing on the Queen, in a royal palace indeed.
Suddenly, there won't be much time left. A storm will be moving in and the plane is coming the day after tomorrow and damn I haven't had a beer in weeks. The Queen looks good from every side, so Coco and I would probably go up for another lap. We could poach the previous day’s skintrack, and watch Walrus, Diesel, and Kate skiing on a neighboring peak. We would howl before dropping into the northwest face together, 1,000 meters of powder. It would be a dream! One of the best runs of our lives! But I’ve been dreaming for so long that by now it might just feel normal. In a perfect world, we’d join forces for one last ski. Maybe find some really bad snow, have a laugh, take a tumble, almost fall in a crevasse. Is it even a good story if nothing goes wrong? If it all goes according to plan? I doubt a trip could ever turn out this way, I usually just play it by ear anyway, and I think I hear the plane coming.
“I think I see some good skiing over there”
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