The alarm goes off at 4:30am. I hear Tommy talking in his sleep... or maybe he was awake... I couldn't tell since I still had my earplugs in. I jump out of bed, rip my ear plugs out and shut off the phone before I wake up both of my Killington roomates.
Getting up early is not my specialty unless there is something that I'm super excited about. Last week I bought a new tele setup and this weekend I decided to test out my new gear by skinning up Killington with Zion. My goal was to get to the Bear Mountain parking lot ASAP and start skinning at 5am.
It was pitch black out as I drove to the mountain, and I was tired but twitching with excitement. My plan was to skin up the blue trails located to the right of Outer Limits, but as I rolled into the parking lot I could see the snow cats grooming the same trails that I wanted to be on. I hadn't planned on that. Not really wanting anyone to know I was there or for Zion to get too close to a huge motorized vehicle, I came up with plan B which was to skin up the green trails to the left of Devils Fiddle. Moving a little slower than I had planned, I was on the snow at 5:21am heading up the trail.
Luckily this weekend was so much warmer than last. It was 30 degrees at 5am which is very warm for this early in the morning. I had my headlamp on, underlayers, MontBell micropuffy, arc'teryx shell, and light gloves. I didn't bother with a backpack since I knew that I would be inbounds. I thought about bringing warmer gloves, but since I wasn't bringing a pack to stuff them in I reluctantly left them in the car. I stuck a bottle of nuun water in my jacket and a couple of gels for fuel, and called it good. After only 10 or 15 minutes I had to de-layer and take off my micropuffy. I was happy I had it with me though. Even though I was inbounds, I was also by myself and wanted to make sure I had an extra layer of warmth if I needed it.
The hike began and the terrain was very easy to hike. The beginning felt like rolling hills even though it was an incline up the green trails. It was definitely dark out. I couldn't see Zion unless I called his name and he came back to check in with me. It felt like he was taking liberties and travelling a little too far ahead of me. No one was around, so I wasn't afraid for his safety but I also wanted to make sure he checked in with me often, mostly for my own benefit to ease any stray feelings of being alone in the pitch black.
We trucked along and it was mostly silent and dark. I was feeling a ton of power and energy until I saw a light coming over the hill and a loud motor. I called Zion over to me and couldn't quite grab him in time to feel completely comfortable. When I saw that it was a snowmobiler, I felt a little better than if it was a snowcat. Zion was interested in him but let him pass without getting in his way too much. It was still closer than I would want him to go to a motorized vehicle, which made me realize that I needed to be a little quicker to grab his collar. I thought the snowmobiler would stop to ask me why I was there, but he kept going.
This little diversion woke me up a little and made me a bit nervous, so I stopped to pop a gel. I had a chocolate one with caffeine which is one of my favorite flavors but noted that gels taste much better when they aren't so dense from the cold. My goal was to climb for 2 hours or until we got to the top so I had some moving to do. The mountain opened at 8am and I wanted to make sure we were off the hill well before the resort opened. Being on the slopes with a dog during business hours would certainly be grounds for getting yelled at by a patroller.
We moved on. I came to a crossroads and decided to take the route that offered a steeper climb. The greens were fine, but a little boring. The incline felt great and I was very pleased with how easy it was to flip up my climbing wires. Compared to rotating the back of a dynafit binding, this was an easy adjustment. Part way up this slope I noticed that Zion was starting to traverse the slope. This turned out to be a warming of a fairly steep climb with moguls. Skins work best when they have full traction under foot. As it got steeper I could feel that I was loosing some traction and starting to slip backwards. I had to side step to get past certain sections and moguls. I must have been very well rested though because the motion felt great. I could feel the effort in the sides of my legs but nothing hurt. We got past the toughest part and came into a clearing which allowed the wind to pick up. Despite it being relatively warm, wind is never fun.
After a fair effort to get up the steeper mogul section, I trudged along mostly looking down at the spot of light that my headlamp created in the snow. When I looked up to check in with Zion, I saw not too far ahead of me an animal that looked to be the size of a cow. It was interacting with a smaller animal, which I pinned to be Zion. I looked at the animal to decipher what it was. It couldn't be a moose because I didn't see any antlers. It could almost be a bear. I thought of Zion and yelled, Zion come! The animal turned quickly and started coming at me. I thought this must be a coyote given the speed at which it was moving. I considered when we were in Crested Butte and Zion took off running with a pack of coyotes. It came at me quickly and I put both of my poles up in a spear like fasion to protect myself. The animal came into range of my headlamp and reared back when it saw my poles. At that very moment, I realized it was Zion. Boom, boom, boom my heart was beating loudly. Wow, that gave me a jolt.
I stopped to evaluate my situation. Why did I just have that real of a delusion. Was I OK, yes. Was I safe, yes. Were there any animals around me, no. Was I overexerted, no. Was I too cold, no. Ok, I could keep going.
Almost right after that optical allusion the sky started to lighten up. There was no sun, just a light tint of white over the grey wind. I looked at the time and I still had a good 30 minutes to keep treking to reach my goal. Still frazzled from the animal delusion, I skinned up to the trees and took shelter out of the wind to put my micropuffy back on. I knew that being this much higher on the mountain and with my nerves talking to me, I would need a little more warmth to finish the hike. I also knew that when I got to the top it might be even windier and I'd have to put on my jacket anyway to ski down. I figured that I'd get it out of the way and do it now. Being out of the wind and in the shelter of the snow covered trees was comforting. Zion sunk into the powder and expored the trees while I adjusted myself.
Feeling better now we struck out to finish the mission. It didn't take long until we neared the top. We passed a lift to our left, skinned up a cat track that I recognized, and came to a spot that I knew would be the last wind protected section that we'd see. It was 7:12 and I still had a few minutes to complete my 2 hour goal, but I decided this would be a good place that was out of the wind to take off my skins and get ready to ski down. It was also all of a sudden plenty bright outside and I wanted to get off the mountain before anyone saw us.
New to my tele setup, I tried taking a couple of dips with my legs. I could immediately feel the difference in the binding setting. Before my climb I had adjusted the setting so that it would be easier to climb. The difference when skiing is that there is less tension and therefore less holding your back leg in place. My ski felt pretty wobbly. I didn't really get the hang of it, my hands were pretty cold and my body was stiff from the hike. I just took it easy and glided down not worrying about making nice turns. Plus, I didn't really know where I was going so I was trying to pay attention to following the green circles.
Zion and I got on a roll. I was skiing along and Zion was expressing his full gate sprinting down the hill next to me. Usually, I'm standing still when Zion flies past me on a trail. I only ever get to experience a flash of lightening as he blows past me. Watching him now when I could feel the speed at which he ran and see him working next to me was absolutely incredible. It was like we were on the same team for once. We were out there together, side by side, feeling the wind blow past our faces and in the wild together. I felt at that moment a complete happiness, like we were in the same pack. It was such an amazing experience that I would love to have again.
We turned the corner and I could see a snowmobiler riding up the hill towards us. He had his lights on still and he rode right up in front of me. I thought, oh crap, he's caught me. Yet at the same time, I had already accomplished what I wanted which was to skin up the hill. All I could do now was ski down. He said, be careful, there are still lots of cats out there grooming. I was shocked, and just said thank you. At this point, I was done. I wanted to get off the hill before causing any trouble.
We skiied down a bit further and I could see that we weren't in the right place. I was looking around hoping that I was close enough to still ski over to Bear Mountain. As I looked around, I saw a little chipmunk crossing the wide open slope. It wasn't moving very fast and it still had a long way to get to where there would be trees for cover. In the same instant, I looked up at Zion who was already springing off his feet towards the little thing. It scrambled across the slope but was much too slow. Three bounds and Zion had caught it. They ended up just below a knoll and I couldn't see them.
I called Zion back, and of course he didn't come. Oh crap. I slid over the hill towards Zion, being careful to stay on top of it and not dropping too low. Yep, he had killed it. It was laying still right in the middle of the slope. I called Zion, come! I really didn't think he was going to walk away from his kill. So I gave it a lot of emphasis, and he looked up at me. Another time, and he motioned to walk away from it, but looked back at the dead animal. I called him again, hoping I could wrentch him away. Finally after a lot of hesiation, he actually walked away from it...always looking back and motioning that he wanted to return to it. I'm sure that the only reason he actually walked away was because he was already tired from the hike.
We skiied down to the right and it was clear that I ended up at K1 rather than bear. So I put Zion's leash on and rolled down to the lodge. The early birds were getting ready to take to the slopes and everyone looked up in admiration at Zion. Seeing a husky in the snow, and Zion in particular, makes most people smile.
At this point I was freezing and rambled into the lodge hoping no one would kick me out. Luckily, my roomates answered the phone and agreed to come pick me up. Thank god for them.
As Zion and I hung out waiting for them, I checked out a trail map. Although I had no idea where I was at the time, Zion and I were only 10 minutes away from the peak of the mountain. I was estatic. I had reached my goals of getting up early and climbing for two hours to reach the top, which I estimated to be about a 2000ft of vertical. I called my mom and dad to share the story with them and how amazing Zion looked while he was running.
All morning I was bursting with happiness. By the time I got back to the house everyone was awake and I got to share the story with everyone. I drank ten cups of coffee and was exhausted but awake with caffeine. Finally in the afternoon I layed down to take a nap. I realized then how much the effort took out of me. Both Zion and I were very tired. But, it was all worth it.
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