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Notes on Decadence and Cannibalism in Cross Country Skiing |
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By Ray Purcell |
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| I felt like Curly-Joe on the receiving end of some of Moe Howard's famous face-slapping and eye-gouging slapstick, but the pummeling wouldn't stop.� My goggles were sealed tightly over my eyes, and the cords on my hood were cinched down leaving the smallest aperture of exposure to my face; still the driving wind and snow slapped and gouged. |
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| The analogy is no more absurd than California's spring weather is capricious.� It was the end of April, two years ago, and I had been franticly repairing the swamp cooler before I left to spend the week traversing the Sierra High Route.� From my home in the Central Valley, spring seemed thoroughly spent and summer was at hand.� I was sipping iced tea in my shorts and sandals while I flat filed and waxed my skis, beads of sweat were making annoying spots on my sunglasses. |
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| The weather report actually predicted a storm.� I gave the Weather Service's prediction the same credibility as the Oral Robert's deathwatch; but the countdown had begun and I was a little nervous that the prediction might be right.� This may sound like effete dithering to the hard-core residents of places with real winter.� If you live in the North and Midwest, or event the Northeast, winter is like a sprained back, just there until it's gone.� At least you know what to expect, and you might as well get used to it.� If you want to get away from the cold and wet it's six months or six hundred miles to dry land; its kind of like Kevin Costner's B-epic Water World, but adrift on an endless sea of Winter. |
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| Of course California's weather is a large part of the state's mystic and appeal.� You can literally ski the morning in Tahoe and surf the afternoon in Santa Cruz.� If you don't like the weather, wait a day.� Are you lamenting the passing of spring; drive up a few thousand vertical feet for flowers; or winter, up a thousand feet more and its snowballs.� But beware, for alpine travel the weather is a Janus mask.� The little puffy Winnie the Pooh cumulus clouds that loft across the valley slam into the Sierra and consolidate like an adiabatic apocalypse. |
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| As the days passed before our trip the weather prediction for a late storm from the Gulf of Alaska was steadfast, but the preceding days were blue and warm.� Now my momma didn't raise me for a fool or a betting man so I was loaded for bear and fully prepared for heavy weather.� The nights before we left the stars were out, the next morning the clouds were in.�� I entered Sequoia National Park through Three Rivers at the Ash Mountain entrance; it was raining.� As I drove up toward Giant Forest I increased the speed of the wipers, and by the time I reached the trailhead at Wolverton it was snowing. |
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| Once we merry band of travelers had assembled, we slung on packs and stepped into our skis.� Since we were doing the High Route from West to East we would spend the first night at the Pear Lake Ski Hut.� Even if the weather did continued to storm, in the hut it was no worries; besides it's only 6.7 miles to the hut and how hard could that be.� A few |
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| �miles up the trail began a section called The Hump; I guess the name alone should foreshadow the difficulty of the terrain- it does.� As we breathlessly neared the top, the air around each of us became more opaque, but the wind was still calm. |
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| Over the top of The Hump we descended into the glacier carved drainages of Heather and Emerald Lake, and here we entered the maelstrom.� In the ensuing whiteout the disorientation about unhelmed me.� My face was seared and my hands felt as though they had spontaneously combusted inside my gloves.� Worse than the ensuing exhaustion from the relentless driving wind was the more lethal mental fatigue.� The only thing to do was to resort to cannibalism. |
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| I wasn't interested in considering the historical drama of the Donner Party, nor was I latently embracing the psychotic, Hannibal Lecter kind of cannibalism.� I had decided that awakening my primitive lizard brain with a notional predation would give me mental focus, particularly since sex was entirely out of the question.� Naturally, the only meaningful quarry was my teammates.� |
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| I couldn't see them but I knew they were out there.� I studied each man, evaluated his advantages, strength and agility, cover and terrain.� As a result of my primal cunning I selected the new guy in the group as prey; a skinny fifty-year-old guy who looked like Gilligan and taught high school math.� Suddenly the Pear Lake Ski Hut emerged out of the swirl of snow and mist, my devolution was aborted, goody-goody. |
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| It snowed all that night, and we lay around the woodstove fat and sated having dined on pasta and wine.� The next day was blue and beautiful with 4 feet of new snow on the ground.� We trudged forth, trading leads and breaking trail through the heavy stuff to dig a snow pit to gauge the avalanche risk.� |
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| Our resident guru assessed the slide risk like a shaman reading small bones; with a flourish, columns of snow were tamped, tipped, and scrutinized.� He deemed the risk high, and even if it wasn't we wouldn't have been able to cross in the time eked away from our employers. |
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| It's two years latter to the day and I can't help recalling that adventure as I traverse the same ridge from Emerald Lake into the Pear Lake drainage.� Amazingly, it's snowing again, though so light as to be pleasant given the exertion of the skiing.� I can see the trail, and I'm enjoying the clouds as they sift through the trees and fold over the surrounding peaks.� As I descend toward a copse of trees the Pear Lake Hut again unexpectedly reveals it's self, understated and unobtrusive in the setting of a tumbling cataract of snowmelt in the surrounding alpine valley. |
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| My goal this year is to spend this weekend just enjoying the hut and the abundance of touring opportunities on the surrounding Tablelands, and the Silliman Crest.�� My partner was Paul Bischoff, the interim caretaker and employee of the Sequoia Natural History Association.� |
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| It's the association that supports and operates the hut for skiers, coordinating a first-come-first-served reservation system, and supervising its use.� This will be the last weekend of this season that the hut will be open to skiers and we expect to have it to ourselves. |
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| Paul is meticulous about maintaining the hut and was the first in the door to inspect.� I was still outside fumbling with my gear when I heard a loud disgruntled lament, "oh no, that last group trashed the place."� I walked in the door cautiously expecting a scene akin to my son's bedroom, but found its living space quite tidy.� "Um, Paul, this looks cleaner than my kitchen on most days."�� He only said, " well, it's probably only stuff a hut keeper would notice', as he quickly swept and tidied.�� |
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| We quickly settled in, firing up the pellet stove that is somewhat less finicky than it's diesel oil predecessor.� Many entries in the sporadic hut logs from the 60's and 70's refer to the old diesel oil stove, and how the regulator would require frequent coaxing.� Hut regulars left detailed notes on the fieldstripping, cleaning, and creative repair of that regulator.� Many of these efforts resulted in the spillage of diesel oil onto the wooden floor leaving the hut smelling like a mechanics garage. |
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| There is a hodge-podge of clotheslines strung about the full round pine log rafters for drying the inevitable wet clothing.� When fully laden at the end of the day the interior can become as steamy as a Russian steam bath, while the drape of garments resembles a surreal tangle of Tibetan prayer flags. |
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| Sleeping accommodations are dormitory style, with ten steel frame bunks which hinge down from their attachments in stonewalls.� After some sixty years the bunks have become saggy and the seasoned habitu� learns to layer their perch with a sheet of plywood and two foam mattresses so that the bedding cants toward the wall.� After selecting a bunk just the right distance from the woodstove I settled down to a fine alpine lunch of Bratwurst, summer sausage, cheese, and rye crackers.� Between mouthfuls and while staring about the venerable interior, I absentmindedly commented that I wished that someone had published a history of the hut. |
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| Paul looked up with a start and told me that there was something on history in the hut library.� Among an appropriate selection of books on Sierra Nevada history, field guides, and mountaineering literature, I found a thin folder containing the barest details.� The rest I've pieced together from Sierra Club Journals, and a history on Pear Lake?s sister hut at Ostrander Lake in Yosemite National Park. |
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| There was a rather large ski boom in the 1930's.� Of course skiing wasn't at all the same then, as one might imagine, as it is today.� A day of skiing embraced a rather involved process beginning with the now arcane practice of the waxing of pine tar-over-hickory bases.� Feet wore leather boots not unlike the tele-boots of today.� The skis were upwards to 9 feet long and had cable over-heel "bear trap" bindings.� A "safety binding" which allowed the toe of the boot to break loose in a fall wasn't introduced until the 1940's. |
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| The order of the day required the ruddy-faced practitioners of the fledging sport to ascend the hill and then ski down.� Runs were interspersed between gregarious social activity, and the cycle was maintained as long as the length of the day and energy allowed.��� In California, the most avid and influential members of the sport belonged to the Sierra Club.� |
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| In 1930 the Angeles Chapter had built Harwood Lodge in San Antonio Canyon, and Keller Peak Ski Lodge to satisfy their members need to ski.� By 1934 Sierra Club skiers from the San Francisco Bay Area had built Claire Tappaan Lodge, near Norden. |
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| Under the lobbying efforts of this subgroup of the Sierra Club the National Park Service reversed a long-standing edict against permanent dwellings in the backcountry.� Following the suggestions, read vision, of the Winter Sports Committee of the Sierra Club, an extensive system of European style huts was proposed.� The chair of the winter sports Committee at that time was Beastor Robinson.� As an interesting sidebar, it was Robinson who with Dick Leonard, and Jules Eichorn made the first ascent of the Higher Cathedral Spire in Yosemite Valley on April 15th, 1934. |
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| In Sequoia National Park, selection of a site for the Pear Lake Hut fell to a Landscape Architect by the name of Lloyd J. Fletcher.� By the spring of 1939, $3000 of the Civilian Conservation Corps funds was authorized for 3 "shelter cabins"; though by the spring of 1939 National Park Service Director Scogen, suggested a cautious approach to development.� Construction estimates for Pear Lake alone consisted of: 20,000 man days of general labor with an additional 150 man days for skilled masonry; materials costs were $1,960; and the packing of 130,000 lbs of material and supplies, with packing labor of 175 man/days running $5.00 per.� That amounted to big money in post depression, pre WWII dollars. |
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| By late in the Summer of 1939 a trail had been cut to the selected site located on the creek draining Pear Lake and approximately 1 mile from the lake it's self.� Trees were felled so that the logs could season over the winter for the plate logs, floor joists, and rafters.� By July of 1940 a 20-man camp had been established and by October of the same year all 4 masonry walls and the plate logs that topped the walls were completed. |
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| A winter of heavy snowfall and prolonged spring melt delayed the beginning of the completion of the second floor and roof until June of 1941.� Through course of the summer of 1941 the 7 CCC camps established in Sequoia National Park had been reduced to 2, and the world's attention turned to war.� But, the Sierra Club Bulletin of December 1941 reported the completion of the Pear Lake Ski Hut. |
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| Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Pear Lake Hut is a singular masterwork of integrating a structure into a natural setting.� Built according to plans drawn by architect Edward A. Nichol, The structure's aspect and profile serve to visually minimize its appearance.� Two thirds of the walls height is native battered granite, the top third are local logs, which surround the top floor beneath a steep snow shedding roof.� The 510 square foot first floor is 3/4 commons space, divided by a board and batten wall from storage, and a Clivus Multrum (Clive for short) composting toilet.� The top floor is reserved for the hut caretaker and has access to the balcony, which is sheltered under the front roof gable. |
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| Trying hard to ward off our post lunch lethargy, Paul and I began to make noises about a tour up to Pear Lake proper, but the hut was warm and I suppose we looked like a couple of overfeed hamsters- sinewy lean and muscular overfeed hamsters.� An hour latter the snow was falling sporadically and we had progressed to the point in the afternoon agenda where we would standup and move with determination to get dressed for our tour, but we were distracted by the appearance of bedraggled figures slumped over under the weight of their packs shuffling past the window.� |
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| There was a gentle, almost tentative knock at the door and Paul in his idiom as caretaker greeted the group, welcoming them in.� As they entered, each had the thousand-mile-stare of the terminally exhausted.� They wore the deeply tanned faces with pale skin around the eyes that comes from days in snow with sunglasses; kind of like a raccoon in negative.� They were members of the Sacramento Backcountry Ski Club, and had just come down off of the High Route having traveled East to West.� As clothes were hung to dry and tea consumed, introductions were made and the highlights of their crossing retold. |
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| Due to an unusually dry late winter the group was forced to carry their skis to the top of Sheppard Pass, but had no difficulty skiing the rest of the route in the sun over perfect spring corn.� But with three days left to go the group ran into the weather system that lacked enough punch to drive across the entire width of the range.� Never the less, they had to ski through blizzard conditions to complete the second half of their odyssey.� |
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| Whiteout conditions and heavy blowing snow had tested the skiers, but among their ranks were two members with more alpine experience.� A couple, Chas and Mary, emerged as the putative leaders having summited many North and South American peaks.� Most notably Chas, had at one time fortuned upon permits for Everest, and had assembled a team with the intention of putting the first American woman on the summit; among the team that made that unsuccessful attempt was Mary.� I learned that owing to Chas and Mary's navigation skills the group made their way successfully to the Pear Lake Hut. |
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| The terrain into the Pear Lake Hut may not be an everyman's tour given the technical skill and mountain sense necessary, but surrounding the hut is an expansive selection of skiing.� Paul told me that a number of snowboarders had snowshoed in over the winter to claim first descents.� The next day he and I were up to a Sierra start for a moderate tour of the Tablelands and a sampling of the surrounding bowls.� The Tablelands are an atypical topography in the alpine Sierra, and are characterized by a broad gently sloping valley that terraces from the Eastern lateral moraine of the Pear Lake drainage on the West to the precipice that descends into Lost Man Canyon on the East. |
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| The rhythm of our diagonal glide was mesmerizing as we alternated breaking trail up the valley.� As the morning warmed point release avalanches were freed under the weight of the previous days snowfall, which reinforced our decision to avoid the steeper terrain.� Gaining a perspective to the West we could see a carpet of clouds stretching across the Central Valley to the Coast Range, which for some reason seemed content to rest at the Front Range, while overhead it was a Blue Jay day.� |
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| We arrived at the eastern edge of the Tablelands to an ethereal view of the High Sierra.� Over lunch we marveled as the Kaweahs were alternately cloaked and revealed by clouds of their own making.� The high cirrus clouds forming in advance of the next weather system resembled a flight of mystical gothic dragons battling heroes on distant peaks.� On the return trip we traversed high to conserve altitude and telemark the descent to the hut.� Our vigilance in staying out of the fall line of unstable slopes was rewarded when we saw that two deep parallel fracture lines had separated perpendicular to the slope of the popular Skier's Alta.� |
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| We carved turns through good powder like we were counting coup most of the way back to the hut, and that evening we toasted the day with hot chocolate and some overlooked rum.� The next morning was another Blue Jay day and we cleaned the hut to leave it for the summer Park Service Ranger.� |
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| I wasn't disappointed that the next predicted storm was delayed as we returned to the trailhead.� Of course I reconsidered that position the next day as I stood wistfully looking out a window from work at a dark blustery spring sky that I was sure was just pasting Pear Lake with fresh powder.� Would it have been so bad if we had gotten stuck there just a few days more? |
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| April, 2002 |
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