The sky was mauve, a pale bluish purple. A colour you only see in winter. Mauve, the colour of cold. This was the night the temperature was forecast to hit minus 30 degrees Celsius. As we struggled up from the valley the forecast seemed spot on.
I caught the smell of woodsmoke and figured our bacon was saved. Just in time, too. My blisters were killing me; Liam was on automatic pilot; and Adam was in that twilight zone of silence and despair, no doubt wishing he had never run into the Harraps….
We had met Adam at the Christmas Bird Count. (The score that year was 31 species, 673 total birds counted, and as usual ravens had taken the Cup.) He was from New Zealand and on a backpacking trip between studies. He came for supper and we told him about our Christmas plans for the Tonquin and invited him along. Adam had never skied so he would come on snowshoes.
Christmas Eve. We’re at the Portal Creek trailhead by noon. It’s 40 kilometres to the Cavell Road and the Loni Klettls of the world do it in a wondrous six hours. We will do it in a leisurely five to six days.
As we trek up Portal Creek a feeble sun tries to break through a sky of custard and glue. There had been one other car at the trailhead. The Information Centre had told me that the Dixon cabins were opening over the holidays. The car is Warren Waxer’s, and he passes us on his way down to a warm house and no doubt a hot bath and eggnog in front of the fire then off to a cosy bed. But cheer up lads! Tomorrow is Christmas !
We camp across from Peveril Peak. Like me, Adam is exhausted. (Later he says he had thought of packing it in that first day.) We had lent him an old two-pole ridge tent, and when he finally gets it up it sags so bad in the middle that it looks like an occupied hammock.
We build a big fire, have supper, and a mighty swig of booze. Rum for me, tequila for Adam and Cointreau and a coconut liqueur for his nibs. If we die in the night and wake up dead we will never know about it.
Christmas Day. At breakfast we watch two ravens circling Peveril Peak, wheeling round and round effortlessly. Hugo and Mungo scouting for Santa ?
It’s a late start, the day is half gone, a day when turkeys are cooking and a day when three of them are heading into the Tonquin. We stagger along the creek then up to Maccarib Pass to the big rock where we had camped in February “but the wind goes right through you, it’s no place for the old [fogey]” so we drop down to the trees.
I had checked with Avalanche Canada before leaving. Avalanche danger was rated Good. “Hope Santa has a down jacket” was the only warning. There is a dodgy slope to cross before the trees. We scamper across like mice while Adam stands sentry on the edge with the shovel.
We are in a colourless world, black and white and where mountains are polished silver by a sapless sun. We can see The Ramparts ringed with dark shadows of trees at their lower reaches. The moon is already over Oldhorn Mountain before we reach the krummholz trees. The days are short: eight hours of daylight, 16 hours of darkness and cold. While we put up the tents Liam digs the kitchen area and the fire pit. The wood burns slower up here and with an orange flame. Sitting around the fire Adam says, “This is the best Christmas ever!”
Boxing Day. “DAVID! LIAM!” Adam’s voice, our alarm clock, alerts us it’s time to get up. It takes another four hours before we are packed and ready to go. Liam leads the way hoping to make the trail others will follow. We swing around the base of Mount Clitheroe. The snow is thick and there are tracks of “those of the forest” everywhere. Humidity coats everything in rime.
The Ramparts are shrouded in cold. The wind is behind us now and has scoured the lakes ahead to a burnished sheen of wonder, as if Amethyst Lakes are floating in thin air. No tracks, no one around—it is for our eyes only. We camp close to the deserted Olson cabins.
Setting up camp my fingers stick to the metal tent poles. Sweat cools to a clammy cold and I change into drier gear, but I can’t change the down sleeping bag that is getting damper by the day. Eating supper we talk little as we watch a watery moon rise above Surprise Point with a star here and there. A belt of booze then to bed and books. Suddenly the silence is broken by the faint sound of a motor. A snowmobile! So the Dixon cabins are open? Then I catch that unmistakable rumble of a train. The sound has snuck up from the Yellowhead through gaps in the mountains to reinforce that this is, after all, Petroleum Planet Earth.
December 27. Breakfast is a bypass special: fried garlic sausage swimming in oil and melted cheese. Adam’s breakfast invention is cheese and couscous flavoured with honey and OXO. It will be a hard ski today but tonight we’ll have warm toes and noses because WATES GIBSON HUT HERE WE COME! Except we spend the day lost and never find the hut. We lose the race with the darkness and decide to camp. We find an open spot for the tents, a huge tree to shelter the kitchen, and boulders where we can have the fire.
Our grub is frozen. Adam attempts to eat a solid block of orange cheese as if it were a frozen chocolate bar. I put the olive oil in boiling water to get it out of the bottle. Our faces glisten in the orange light from the roaring fire. We are in a capsule, and darkness wraps around us on the other side of the light. Our world is as far as the flames illuminate.
The sleeping bags are the dampest yet, but our only drying device on a frigid night. Everything goes in that’s wet: gloves, socks, hats, long-johns, underwear. Some chaps sleep with a woman, I sleep with damp apparel and cans of evaporated milk! There are a few stars yet it’s snowing quite heavily. Funny how it snows through the stars.
December 28. The inside of the tent is an ice cave, hoar frost rains down when we move. Getting up and about is murder. I get a fire going and try to dry some clothes. Liam’s hands are blue with cold and for the first time ever he’s crying. What have I done?
A monochrome of gloom sheathes the valley and the mountains become one-dimensional. As we set off we dream of a warm hostel tonight. We don’t consider the possibility that no one will be there and we shan’t get in. It’s late afternoon when we cross the bridge over the Astoria River and start the final slog up to the Cavell Road and the hostel.
“I smell woodsmoke!”I declaim, and excitedly we put on a spurt. But when we hit the road and see the hostel, that there are no lights in the windows and no smoke from the chimney, the deep dejection is palpable. The smoke I had smelt was either wishful thinking or from my clothes. We are too stunned to talk. Then Liam says, “Maybe someone will come with the key, Dad.” We sit down and wait, lost in our separate thoughts in the shattering cold .
A caribou tip-toes across the road like a frightened girl. Two more follow. Santa’s laid-off sleigh-pullers. An hour goes by then suddenly, out of the silence, comes the distant bark of a dog . . .
David Harrap // info@thejasperlocal.com
