The uphill skintrack is a circuitous thing by nature, the good ones gently tracing the contours of changing slope angles, arcing around tree stands, and efficiently gliding through convoluted terrain. Which is why Evan’s challenge struck us all as a funny thing to try… could one of us make a perfectly straight skintrack across Shannon Lake, before we headed up into the gleaming alpine bowls above?
As head ski guide for our group at Valhalla Mountain Touring, Evan had clearly found just the right quest for our motley group of highly-competitive backcountry skiers. The task – one person would lead the group across the lake, shore-to-shore, with the straightest possible skintrack. Down low, there’s little understanding of how well or not well you’ve done, until you climb up the towering slopes above, whose alpine pinnacles provide the perfect vantage point to soak in the views, the slopes, and the track across the lake. There one person’s handiwork would be judged by Evan and the ultimate authority, his father-in-law, Dale, who established the family-run lodge.
Gauntlet thrown down and quickly scooped up, it seemed an easy task. But the difference between short-range footsteps and the long-range accuracy turned out to be harder than anticipated. Stay focused on your feet, and the path becomes a wandering one, squiggly and bending. Eyes ahead the whole time induces a weird sense of vertigo, feeling resistance of your feet in the snow and fighting to stay balanced. Soon you realize how much time you actually move your glance up and down as you ski, which is precisely the difficulty of holding one target landmark on the horizon.
It has to be said; Charlie took the challenge to heart. His landmark stayed pretty true, and though speculation and heckling ran rampant as we started up through the trees, we all knew the line was more straight than curved. Less than an hour later, we stood on an alpine bench just under the summit. Evan and Dale conferred quickly, and a few of us snapped pics. But the wind swirled around us, its below-zero chill biting through extra layers in single digit temperatures, and the group hurriedly devoured fuel, intent on getting warm, getting another lap, and getting back to the sauna and beers at the end of the day.
To me, the skintrack challenge resembles what many of us in love with the outdoors face with our daily balancing acts. It’s a good reminder to keep your head up, and at least spot that landmark on the horizon that we’re working for. But it’s also a reminder that your feet meet resistance, and that bends and sidelines happen. Very little of our lives is like Shannon Lake; instead often weaving through very complex terrain. Sometimes those bends are necessary diversions, sometimes, just the little restorative side goal that we needed along the main journey.
So how DID Charlie do? Late that night after the sauna, we plied Evan and Dale with a few beers and asked them to hand down their judgement. Evan, who undoubtedly held a few of the straightest marks in the history of VMT, smiled, laughed, and told Charlie, “Not bad… I’d say probably among the top ten I’ve seen.”
“That’s it?” said Charlie.
From the corner, Dale smirked, added with a wink, “He’s just jealous… easily top three,” sending us all into laughter over Evan’s strenuous objections.
