Asulkan Cabin

This week a trip to the Asulkan cabin and a brand new feature on the blog.

Our first trip into the Asulkan drainage since November. By this time last year we'd been here 3 or 4 times.

An intrepid group of four slogged their way towards the hut on Friday morning. A series of midweek storms had dumped a ton of precipitation. Unfortunately the freezing levels had fluctuated wildly. Rain had been reported as high as 2300m in some areas and it was still far too warm as we skied up the valley in the deep wet snow. There had been a big avalanche cycle and all of the major runouts were piled high with debris. Unnerving, but probably a good thing.

After the final lung busting climb we arrived at the hut in the late afternoon. Past tradition has dictated that we drop our heavy packs and make at least one run before dinner but not today -- it was snowing heavily and the howling wind was blowing the snow horizontally outside the cabin. We settled in for the night.



Fred was planning to join us but had been unable to leave work early enough to meet us in the morning. Instead he planned to start from the trailhead in the early evening and make his way to the hut alone by headlamp. This sounds bold but Fred had been up the route a dozen times previously and there was a good uptrack for him to follow. As long as he had his headlamp he would be fine.

Right, the headlamp.

So picture Fred halfway to the hut, the entire contents of his pack dumped out on the snow, and a mild panic rising up inside him as he wildly searches for his headlamp in the rapidly failing light. Then picture him slowly picking his way upwards in the pitch black, delicately feeling for the firm snow of the half buried uptrack underfoot, occasionally losing the track and being forced to double back in a wide circle to find the track again. In a blizzard.

This was his story as he sat before us late on Friday night after arriving at the hut. We stared at him in amazement. Anyway, happy that he'd made it, we all sat around drinking tea, swapped more stories, and soon went to bed.

But this was not the end of the headlamp story. Oh no.

As we were crawling into our sleeping bags we heard an exclamation of disbelief from Fred's direction.

"I...er, found my headlamp".

It had been in his jacket pocket the whole time.

We were speechless.

The next morning we had a late start since the wind was howling as usual. The hut is normally heaving with a dozen or so wet skiers and it seemed palatial with just the five of us. Eventually we got ourselves out the door for some skiing.







But later that day after returning to the cabin...

"We're going to have to change the outhouse barrel".

Steve made this announcement with the air of someone informing you that a close relative has just passed away. In fact our reaction would have been similar -- shock, dismay, wide eyed horror and disbelief.

The outhouse uses a barrel system for waste collection. Of course it behooves any responsible hut user to remove a full barrel and replace it with one of the empty barrels provided. But it's a nasty procedure that forces one to get up close and personal with some really horrible stuff. So of course it's avoided at all costs. Inevitably, in what Brenda termed a classic example of the tragedy of the commons, the situation becomes rather dire.

And our situation was dire. A column had developed -- not a cone but an actual column -- that extended well above the top of the barrel. In fact "contact" was imminent. Yup, that barrel had to be changed.

Steve seized the initiative by shoveling the snow from the back entrance.




Peeyoo what a stench. Enough to make you wretch. I claimed that the event had to be captured on film and so managed to avoid too much nastiness. (In my defense Brenda and I had changed the barrel in this very outhouse last November).

Anyway it was foul. Steve was a real hero and got the job done. Here he is post poop barrel, starfished and rolling about on the snow. He claims that he learned this from his dog.



So this brings us to a brand new interactive feature here on the 'ole teleblog...a caption contest!



Look at the horror on Steve's face in this photo! Let me know what you think was on his mind. Leave a comment below. You can click the photo for a larger view.