TR: X-Country Skiing Sucks

[MysticNacho]

Time for my tale of last weekend. Gather 'round children! Not a climbing tale, but a tale nonetheless.

Our objective was to x-country ski up to the Snowbowl Hut, a hut maintained as part of the Mount Tahoma Trails Association. I skied up there 2 years ago, and had excellent memories of a beginner/intermediate 4.5 mile trail with tremendously beautiful view. And despite having to break trail in the middle of the night while its snowing heavily, a good time was had by all. So I figured going back up there this year would be a great little weekend getaway, and so myself and a few friends embarked on the journey.

Unfortunately, my roommate brings along his new girlfriend, who unbeknownst to all has absolutely no athletic ability whatsoever. Almost everyone on this trip has not been on cross country ski's before, but I figured it wouldn't be to much of a problem because it was a relatively easy trail. (Despite being entirely uphill)

However, roommates girlfriend can not leave until 1 in the afternoon. Of course she is not ready ontime, everyone else is late anyway, plus I forgot the permit back at our place in Seattle, adding an hour to our drive time. We end up hitting the trail at 4:30 in the afternoon. I'm seriously grumbling at this point, but I still figured we'd be okay since the last time I found this damn place it was at night with another bunch of beginners, and we were fine. Plus, the word at the trailhead was that we wouldn't have to break ANY trail, and we were blessed with clear skies.

Well to make a long story short, a hike that SHOULD have taken us about 4 hours ended up taking seven and a half. X-country ski conditions were pretty sucky, the snow was real icey making it pretty hard to ski the 4.5 miles uphill. To top it all off, everyone on the trip was having a bad time adjusting to the skis and such. People were falling, cussing at everything in sight, and generally having a terrible time. The pace was incredibly slow, as it was extremely tiring for all. My roommate had some sort of medical problem 3/4 of the way up, and was having trouble breathing, so I ended up having to take his pack and leave mine on the side of the trail. Even though I had told people to bring a headlamp with extra batteries, there were only 3 flashlights between the 5 of us, and I was the only one with a headlamp and extra batteries. Fat lot of good those extra batteries did when the bulb went out, however. One of the other flashlights ran out of batteries, and my roommates girlfriend dropped hers somewhere on the trail and was freaking out to much to pick it back up, leaving it who knows where. Thus, the last mile or so we didn't really have a flashlight. Naturally, being out in the mountains at night in the snowy cold without a flashlight leaves some pretty shitty scenarios running through the mind, so roommates girlfriend starts panicking and crying, the other girl we were with starts having some sort of panic attack, etc.

End of the story: We get to the cabin and midnight and bust out the biggest batch of spaghetti I've ever seen. Valuable lessons learned by all.

[texplorer]

Was there really a need to recant this story here? Mysic, you are a dork.

[moron]

I am a moron. That is why I am taking my girlfriend and both dogs on a snowshoe trip tommorrow. It is a good thing I do not know any better.

[jhamaker]

Subject should be "Sucks at x-c skiing"Even beginers should have been able to skin up to Snow-bowl. Bets are off however for the descent.I would have taken the beginers to Copper Cr. hut. My basic x-c class made it half way there in just a few hours.

Just be thankfull you did not have to break trail up to Hight hut on Feb 1. What usualy takes 40 minutes took the hut mgr 5 hrs.

Thank you for ensuring that one more set of gapers will never want to go into the mountains again.