We've participated in lots of ACC trips over the years and many of the folks we've met through the club have become our closest friends,so occasionally we try to repay the favour by leading a trip ourselves to a location that we're familiar with.
Leading trips is a funny business. As "leader" you inform people about the difficulty and the length of the day, about how you would like things to proceed, where to regroup, where the areas of concern are, and so on. You also try to learn about those coming on the trip; skill level appropriate for the day, physical fitness, etc. But despite these efforts, and maybe as a result of being amateur trip leaders, we can never quite be sure how the day will play out. Sometimes people drastically overrate their own abilities and they end up suffering all day, or they travel so slowly that they couldn't possibly reach the day's objective before nightfall. Conversely we sometimes get highly experienced people with very strong personalities who basically have come on the trip with their own agenda.
On Saturday it was the first scenario. In fact there were warning signs right at the trailhead, but we had to let things play out. Two hours into the trip it was clear that we would need to break the group up. Brenda formed a sub-group at a place where there were plenty of descent options available. It actually worked out really well. They made a detour to Puff Daddy, found the route without any shenanigans for a change, skied untracked powder back down to the road, and pronounced themselves to have had a fine day.
I continued with the rest of the group up and over Sifton under amazing blue skies and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.
South face of Sifton anyone?
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