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Outdoor Tips, Tricks, Inspiration and Activities | MEC Blog

This winter we hooked up with Canadian free skiers Mike Henitiuk, Joe Schuster, Riley Leboe, and Matt Margetts from the web series *Seeking Nirvana*. Sit back and enjoy three episodes of vast powder bowls, big lines and good-time skiing with friends.

#### Seeking Nirvana | Part 1: Home


This is the mountain village of Whistler, 675m above sea level. Forested with old growth fir and cedar. An important black bear habitat. Criss-crossed by deep valleys making way to endless glaciers. There are few paved roads but instead many miles of intersecting logging roads and dirt trails. It is an El Nino year. We are on the far edge of the Howe Sound, famous for fierce storms, which will make landfall from the west, come December.

4 men make haste into the storm in search of vast powder bowls, to which the mountain village has garnered a reputation. A difficult task, travelling the unchartered terrain, requires the groups combined wits. Only persistence and a spot of luck will reward success. The adventure begins in the mountain village they call home but foreign lands beckon. A journey awaits and a feeling desired. We follow this group, through trials and triumph, Seeking Nirvana.


Created by:
Mike Henitiuk
Joe Schuster
Riley Leboe
Matt Margetts

Cinematography by:
Taylor Loughran

Edited by:
Leigh Powis

Narration by:
Colby James West
Jay Henitiuk

Graphic Design by:
Alex Viau

Seeking Nirvana 1.1 - Home



This is the mountain village of Whistler, 675m above sea level. Forested with old growth fir and cedar, an important black bear habitat. Criss-crossed by deep valleys making way to endless glaciers. There are few paved roads but instead many miles of intersecting logging roads and dirt trails. It is an El Nino year. The far edge of Howe Sound is famous for fierce storms.

Four men make haste into the storm in search of vast powder bowls, to which the mountain village has garnered a reputation. A difficult task, travelling uncharted terrain requires the group’s combined wits. Only persistence and a spot of luck will reward success. The adventure begins in the mountain village they call home but foreign lands beckon. A journey awaits and a feeling desired. We follow this group, through trials and triumph, seeking nirvana.

#### Seeking Nirvana | Part 2: Cabin Fever


Childhood friends embark on a journey past roads-end. Far from civilization, deep in the wilds of British Columbia, time slows as they align with their surroundings. Battling blizzards they quest towards untracked landscapes of powder glory. Through trial and triumph they tirelessly press on. The snow falls, the angst builds. Fever has set in...

Strange adventures await, Seeking Nirvana.

Created by:
Mike Henitiuk ~ @mikeheni
Joe Schuster ~ @joe_schuster
Riley Leboe ~ @rileyleboe
Matt Margetts ~ @mattmargetts

Follow us:
@seeking.nirvana 

Video Editing, Sound Design and Color Grade:
Leigh Powis

Cinematography:
Taylor Loughran

Aerial Cinematography:
Dylan Ross

Narration:
Colby James West
Jay Henitiuk

Graphic Design:
Alex Viau

Seeking Nirvana 1.2 - Cabin Fever



Childhood friends embark on a journey past road’s end. Far from civilization, deep in the wilds of British Columbia, time slows as they align with their surroundings. Battling blizzards, they quest towards untracked landscapes of powder glory. Through trial and triumph they press on. The snow falls, the angst builds. Fever has set in. Strange adventures await.

#### Seeking Nirvana | Part 3: The Lucky Strike


This band of seekers have found a treasure, a mother lode if you will... it's time to stake their claim and strike it rich! This treasure.... it’s not the conventional kind ... gold, diamonds or other such things ... this treasure is much more rare. Found only in the alpine, an land of unrelenting rock and ice, caped with soft and endless snow.

Created by:
Mike Henitiuk ~ @mikeheni
Joe Schuster ~ @joe_schuster
Riley Leboe ~ @rileyleboe
Matt Margetts ~ @mattmargetts

Follow us:
@seeking.nirvana

Fellow Traveller:
Josh Bibby

Video Editing, Sound Design and Color Grade:
Leigh Powis

Cinematography:
Taylor Loughran

Aerial Cinematography:
Dylan Ross

Narration:
Colby James West
Jay Henitiuk

Seeking Nirvana 1.3 - The Lucky Strike



This band of seekers have found a treasure, a mother lode if you will… it’s time to stake their claim and strike it rich! This treasure…. it’s not the conventional kind … gold, diamonds or other such things … this treasure is much more rare. Found only in the alpine, an land of unrelenting rock and ice, caped with soft and endless snow.

*All videos via [Seeking Nirvana](https://vimeo.com/strangeadventures) on Vimeo.*



3 episodes of vast powder bowls, big lines and good-time skiing. Features Canadian free skiers Mike Henitiuk, Joe Schuster, Riley Leboe, and Matt Margetts from the web series Seeking Nirvana.

Seeking Nirvana captures backcountry ski radness | MEC Blog

Seeking Nirvana captures backcountry ski radness

*What does it take to capture a one-one thousandth-of-a-second, once-in-a-lifetime shot? Reuben reveals how he teamed with Salomon, trekked to the Arctic Circle, and captured a skier in a solar eclipse.*

A third of the way through Salomon’s latest episode of [Freeski TV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edlJ2_924tU), viewers meet the dreamer behind a questionable chase to the Arctic Circle. His ambition: to capture a skier in motion during one of nature’s rarest phenomena – a total solar eclipse. The subject is photographer Reuben Krabbe, who wowed ski fans in February 2015 after capturing fellow ambassador Tobin Seagel skiing against a backdrop of the northern lights.

“There’s a Grant Gunderson photograph of a skier amongst a trail of stars,” says Reuben, citing the Gunderson work as the inspiration for his Aurora Borealis shot. “After that photograph of Tobin, I was looking at maps available through NASA that show all of the different places where solar eclipses are going to happen in the next 20, 50, 100, 200 years.” So where was Reuben to find his white whale? Svalbard – a Norwegian group of islands sandwiched between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Rugged and teeming with glaciers, frozen tundra, and a fellowship of polar bears, it’s the very definition of remote, and one of just two places where the total eclipse could be viewed in 2015.



Roughly one solar eclipse appears per year, but typically in places where people won’t see them, such as the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Worse yet, they often occur when the moon is too far away from earth, so it doesn’t fully cover the sun.

Eager to bring his dream to life, Reuben pitched the idea to the director of Salomon Freeski TV, Mike Douglas, in late 2014. He recognized the hook of the story immediately: this had never been done before. But, there were risks. “We both knew the chances of it working out were so low – if you miss it through the clouds, it’s not that interesting. It’s completely boring actually. You’d just be able to show a time lapse of a cloudy day getting dark and bright again.” Salomon came back to Reuben with a green light. “They said, ‘we love this idea, let’s do everything possible to make this happen in the best way.’ I was completely taken aback.”

The team consisted of skiers Chris Rubens, Cody Townsend and Brody Leven; director and filmmaker Anthony Bonello; on-slope videographer Bjarne Salen; guide Steve Lewis; Reuben; a camp cook; and two ski guides (one an ex-trauma doctor). They spent three weeks on Svalbard and winter-camped while scouting locations for an additional 12 days. Reuben credits Bonello as the coordinator behind the trip, allowing Reuben to simply make sure he was winter ready. His set up included the MEC Radiator Parka, boot warmers, and essentially everything a person needs to not freeze.



Leading up to the eclipse, the team had no idea of the elements they would face. Clear days were used to scout the right location, leading to some frustrated skiers. “We were burning these bluebird days that have stable snow and perfect light and we hadn’t got to ski great stuff yet, just two little chutes. They were all looking at all the stuff they wanted to ski and the pursuit of this single photo – a photo we don’t know whether or not will turn out – is preventing them from skiing,” Reuben sympathizes. “It’s just this impossible thing to deal with. They went through with it, but were vocal, which is good. I was just as frustrated that I was the person standing in the way.”

When the day of the eclipse finally arrived, the team was elated to see the weather was working in their favour, and Reuben’s dream was realized. Bonello shot some stunning footage of the total eclipse: waves of light gently rippling around a massive black orb. As the light changes, Svalbard appears as an alternate world with two moons; one bright orange, the other heavy ebony, both filled with quiet contrast and mystery. For a short time, the sky goes black, and moments later dawn-like rays careen into the scene, blanketing sheets of fresh white powder in light.

“It was pure elation. Everyone finally understood why this is such a dramatic thing that people fly around the world to just watch,” says Reuben. “We got to create something with it. The success validated the entire pursuit. And then, finally, we got to go skiing. We went back to camp, grabbed some food, and went. We got some beautiful shots [of that] right away. It was nice, to go back to simple shooting in the Arctic.”



Salomon’s Freeski TV episode recently screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival to great acclaim, taking home the grand prize for Best Film in the Snow Sports category. “I had no idea going into it that it was going to have this kind of reception outside of skiers. It put this huge validating stamp on this concept and the entire project,” says Reuben. “It’s been a beautiful way to kick things off.”

For now, Reuben is enjoying the afterglow. “Regardless of whether you’re a skier or not, when you see the solar eclipse photo, you can’t help but stop and look and start trying to figure out ‘What is this? The moon? The sun? How on earth did they do this?’ I think the fact that I can do that by capturing one-one-thousandth of a second is just so cool.”

*– Photos by Reuben Krabbe. Check out MEC’s selection of [Salomon gear](/en/products/brands/salomon).*



The photo of a lifetime: solar eclipse | MEC blog

The photo of a lifetime: solar eclipse

Emelie Stenberg pulled out a map of the Pamirs and walked us through her plan to traverse the Fedchenko Glacier in Tajikistan. Her idea sounded horrible. Vince and I were hooked. So we started planning the longest and most ambitious expedition of our lives. *–**Story** by Holly Walker, photos and video by Vince Shuley*

#### Day 8 of 29: May 7 (4200m)
I leaned on the outside wall of the Gorbunov meteorological station, sipping on a splash of génépi to celebrate with the team. Our arrival onto the Fedchenko Glacier was now just 300m away. Warm sun beat on my face and I wiggled my toes on the dry rocks in front of me. Taking another sip of génépi – one of our two bottles of booze we carried up here – I questioned the bottle’s weight. At that point, I also questioned how we’d even gotten here.



It had taken two years of planning, three days of flights, five days of in-country preparation with three days of ground transportation in an overloaded Nissan Patrol SUV and a GAZ-66 Russian military truck in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province (GBAP). Then eight days of slogging up and down, up and down the talus-covered Russian Geographical Society (RGS) Glacier with almost 90kg of gear each.

Now we were at the access point onto the Fedchenko Glacier. We’d travelled up the crevasse-ridden RGS Headwall three times, and our five-person team – Team Flow – was deep in the Pamir Mountains, the so-called Roof of the World. The surrounding peaks were massive, some rising above 6000m, and the 77km Fedchenko Glacier was vast.



I felt so little.

#### 587 days prior to day 1: (200m)
Photojournalist Vince Shuley and I met Ski Guide Emelie Stenberg for dinner. She had ideas to ski crazy zones in Central Asia, and walked us through her plan to traverse the Fedchenko Glacier. During her research, she’d also found an old Alpine Journal article about a Russian ski expedition that traversed the Pamirs in 1995.

> “Ours was the first unsupported expedition to cross the Pamirs from the SE to the NW – a distance of 480km. If you try to imagine spending 30 days as one of a small four-member group, at altitudes up to 6000m and temperatures sometimes down to -34°C, with only 550 grams of dry food per person per day, you will have some idea of the challenge we faced.” – From the Transpamirs Ski Expedition, The Alpine Journal, 1995
>
I knew nothing of the former Soviet Union “stans” nor the Pamirs. Tajikistan is west of China, north of Afghanistan, east of Uzbekistan and south of Kyrgystan. The Pamirs take up about eighty per cent of the country and mainly lie in the GBAP, and there are few recorded stories of its 6000m-plus peaks.



#### Day 1 of 29: April 30, (2500m)
Yesterday, Team Flow passed all the necessary military checkpoints and we were only three kilometres away from Poi Mazar when our overloaded SUV burst a tire trying to cross the river. Saidali, our local fixer from Pamir Guides, made a call on his cellphone to Jafar, our host in Poi Mazar. We frantically organized our gear for the 30-day expedition in the dark, leaving any unnecessary equipment and food in the SUV. Jafar and his GAZ-66 truck arrived and we loaded it up as I negotiated the rate of passage – what later seemed like a pointless task when our other choice was to sit in the dark on a riverbank full of boulders for the night. Our driver bade us farewell and left us with a warning, “Be careful, you will get so high that Sputnik will hit you.”

When we arrived at Jafar’s home, he fed us our final home-cooked meal for the next month and registered our team’s entrance into Tajik National Park. We wrote our team’s intention of crossing the RGS glacier, traversing the Fedchenko and exiting out towards the Bartang Valley. Jafar gestured avalanches with his hands and shook his head. He then flipped through his Tajik-English dictionary and pointed at one word: “impossible.”

We loaded back into the military truck and continued the bumpy ride to the foot of the RGS glacier, and started ski touring with our packed sleds. After 400m, we hit the River Abdulkhahor. As I sat with my gut rotting from recently ingested water or food, Selena entered the river to gauge the deepness. Zebulon shimmed across a destroyed bridge line to the other side of the river to create a Tyrolean traverse. We shuttled our 90kg duffles and backpacks over before crossing the river on foot and soaking ourselves.



Two months before our departure, Emilie, Vince and I had decided that our team would need at least one or two more members in case one of us got hurt and the other two couldn’t begin the traverse. We had recruited Zebulon Blais, a guide on Mount Rainier with numerous Denali expeditions under his belt, and Selena Cordeau, a glaciologist and expedition cook who’d completed several sizeable ski traverses. Their experience was obvious and we were happy to have them on board, despite only having travelled less than a kilometre on our first day.

#### Day 15 of 29: May 14 (4800m)
*Whumpf…* “Avalanche! Avalanche!” yelled Zeb. I watched his yellow jacket sliding down about 10–12m to the left of me. The slab continued to propagate, hitting Vince. Emelie had been standing next to me on the track digging a hasty pit, now she began traversing away quickly from the slide path. I took my eyes off of Zeb’s yellow jacket, flipped a 180 and began descending in touring mode with my ski crampons.

As I stopped, Emelie raced back towards the slide path and yelled for everyone to switch their transceivers to search mode. Selena, the most downhill of the group, raced up towards Vince, who screamed he was fine and to go find Zeb.

We spotted a hand wiggling its fingers in the debris. Zeb had raised his arm in a desperate effort to fight the snow as it slowed and solidified around him. Emelie and Selena dug his face free with their bare hands, and Selena and I dropped down to the side of his body to quickly dig in a conveyor belt fashion. As Emelie protected Zeb’s face, he gasped for air. Selena and I cleared his body, removed his backpack and checked him for injuries from head to toe. Zeb was unharmed but cold and shaken.

We found his skis and poles a metre deep in the debris and quickly gathered our gear to return to Camp 7. Having left camp at 5:00am with -25°C and no formal breakfast, we headed to the kitchen tent to eat, evaluate the incident and examine the human factors that lead to this incident. We had already skied two days of 20-degree slopes and decided that risking our group on any steeper terrain this deep in the Pamirs would be frivolous. Our dreams of first descents were beaten.



#### Day 22 of 29: May 21 (5500m)
After four days of bad weather, and being tent-bound reading our books backwards, we awoke at 6:30am to sun shining on our tents. It was our window, our “go time.” We rallied a quick breakfast, put on our skins, grabbed our day kits and started skinning fast in frigid temperatures.



Again, I felt so little. As we reached the fork at the end of the Fedchenko Glacier, 6940-m Independence Peak (formerly Peak Revolution) towered above us. Team Flow smiled and took a group picture before Selena retreated back to Camp 8. She’d been plagued with symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness for almost ten days with our altitude above 4000m, and Diamox offered her little help.

The four of us continued on to ascend a col to the west. At our high point of 5500m, we looked down the Yazgulom Valley to another vast glacier and endless high peaks of the Pamir Range.



#### Day 28 of 29: May 27 (3900m)
We awoke at 5:00am, had a quick breakfast, and set off back up the Tanimas Valley. Our backpacks were empty and we had one final load to retrieve before settling back into Kok Jar Pass for the night to wait for our pick up from Pamir Guides the next morning.

My biggest challenges were at the beginning and the end, where we were forced to carry the weight all on our backs. Off the glaciers, we couldn’t use our sleds due to talus, scree and crevasses. On day six, I broke down and sobbed my first tears to Vince, and he gave me a reassuring hug. I hadn’t expected to walk in running shoes over scree for days, carrying all my load. I told him my body ached and that I wanted to go home.

Now, near the end of our journey, Vince and I made a pact to retrieve our final load by 11:00am. I got there at 10:55am, loaded my pack, traded my last salami with Emelie in exchange for some Clif Shot Bloks, and started to shuffle over rocks and plunge through the river crossing with my final 27kg of gear. I was amazed to see goshawks flying in the air, ibex scaling the sides of mountains, and rusted tin cans in the dirt, all signs that we were no longer so far from civilization.

Both Vince and I were reaching exhaustion and we knew we’d each lost about 4.5kg, but the last section continued to test us.

In the final 10km of our 43km day, the wind picked up and tried to blow us back up to the Fedchenko. On our last river crossing, I was almost swept away because the bottom of my sled got caught by the swift water and nearly flipped me on my back. Vince threw me his ski pole and pulled me to shore, where we rested and ate our last few Clif shots. Then, with Camp 13 in sight, we got hit by a big dust storm, followed by a torrential downpour.



We dragged ourselves into camp, wet and exhausted. We could see the road on the mountain side and knew that another SUV would greet us with the next sunrise.

Vince gave me a big hug and said, “We’re going home Holly, we’re going home.”

*Photography and video by [Vince Shuley](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vince-shuley-0b057ab/?originalSubdomain=ca). Skier and writer [Holly Walker](https://www.hollywalker.ca/) lives in Whistler when she’s not travelling in search of perfect pow. She is sponsored by Mammut, K2 Skis, Clif Bar, Smith, POW and Mons Royale.*

*The Fedchenko Expedition was made possible with grants from the [MEC Expedition Support Fund](/en/explore/outdoor-impact), [Alpine Club of Canada Jen Higgins Fund](https://alpineclubofcanada.ca/community/) and [Polartec Challenge Grant](https://www.polartec.com/). Additional expedition sponsors include [inReach Canada](https://explore.garmin.com/), [Goal Zero](https://goalzero.com/en-ca), [Clif Bar](https://www.clifbar.ca/en/), [Darn Tough Socks ](https://darntough.com/)and [Beal Ropes](https://www.beal-planet.com/). Over 135kg of clothing donations to villagers in the GBAP was made possible by MEC, [Whistler Blackcomb](https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/) and the kind people of Tahoe and Whistler. Special thanks to [Pamir Guides](https://www.pamirguides.com/) / Saidali Gaidbuldaev for ground transportation and logistics and to Sebastian Tallent for Pamir weather updates.*



Flow of the Fedchenko | MEC Blog

Flow of the Fedchenko

MEC works with a group of athletes who inspire people, strive to innovate, and set benchmarks within their field. As a former member of the [Ambassador program](/en/explore/mec-ambassadors), Jim embodies these values and in 2014, completed an incredible achievement by setting the record for running the entire length of the Bruce Trail. While doing it, he raised nearly $2500 for [Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society](https://www.cpaws.org/) (CPAWS).

It took him 10 days, 13 hours and 57 minutes to run all 855 km of the trail, shattering the previous record by nearly 2 full days.

Here are some excerpts from the captain’s log he kept and posted along the way:

### Captain’s log, Bruce Trail run, 3.5 days in
I’m stopping to take a little break so I thought I’d share a few thoughts and points about the first three and a half days on the trail.

- The terrain on the first day was so challenging that I was actually cursing the earth for forging such awe inspiring geological landscapes. The earth and I have since come to peace.
- Yesterday, along a muddy section of trail, I was literally running in the fresh footprints of a bear.
- No matter how tired I feel, I’m still pretty fast with the right motivation.
- Three small vertical lines on the Bruce Trail maps basically mean: hey dumbass, that’s a sheer cliff, please don’t plummet to your death.
- When tripping over rocks and roots and such, try and find a soft part of the world to land on.
- I found an enchanted forest, and I think there may have been trolls and Pixies and things in there.
- I’ve been singing to myself a lot… I’ve realized I don’t actually know the full lyrics to many songs, so I’ve been making up my own.
- I think I can I think I can I think I can.



### Captain’s log, Bruce Trail Run day 10.5 (mission complete)
- That was *!@#%$* hard.
- I strained my Achilles tendon with 75km to go, and I averaged about 14 swear words a minute afterwards trying to run on it… you do the math.
- With a piercing war cry, and a mighty punch at the air, I was only a few short kilometres from the finish… *insert screeching tire sound here*… but then my light went out, I got lost in the woods, had to scrabble down a cliff and my crew had to pick me up.
- Reset.
- New light, back on track; with a war whisper, a half-hearted swipe at the air, I shuffled off to the finish.
- Thank you to every single one of you who supported me in any way!
- This was never about just breaking the record; this was about doing something that scared me.



Congratulations on your achievements, Jim! The amount of training and hard work you put in to complete your goal is incredibly inspiring. By making it a DIY MEC Big Wild Challenge, you have enriched MEC’s long-standing partnership with CPAWS, where both organizations constantly look for ways to conserve the wild places where we adventure.

Learn more about Jim’s successful Big Wild Challenge and new Bruce Trail record:

- Canadian Running Magazine Article: [Cancer Survivor Jim Willet Breaks Bruce Trail Record](https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/runs-races/cancer-jim-willett-survivor-breaks-bruce-trail-record/)

Follow Jim on social media:

- Instagram: [@jim_willett_](https://www.instagram.com/jim_willett_/)
- Facebook: [The Optimism Revolution](https://www.facebook.com/optimismrevolution/#)
- Blog: [Run Jimmi Run ](https://runjimmirun.blogspot.com/)



Jim Willett's record run of the Bruce Trail | MEC Blog

Jim Willett's record run of the Bruce Trail

Jim is a runner, an optimism ninja, a cancer warrior, and an adventurist. Essentially, he is a man who understands the nature of a challenge.

His 2014 challenge – a Big Wild Challenge – was running the Bruce Trail end to end, all 885 kilometres of it, in a single push, setting a speed record on the way and raising $4 per kilometre to support wilderness conservation.

We asked him to help break it down so we could wrap our minds around the scale of this project.

##### As an ultra-distance racer, have you done anything comparable to this run?
I have done week-long races, but nothing quite as large as this. To run this kind of distance for this many days in a row … well, there aren’t many people around who have. That makes me feel both excited and a little freaked out.



##### Does the Bruce Trail have any particular challenges or hazards?
The trail runs along the Niagara Escarpment so there’ll be a lot of short steep climbs and descents, which are not only tough on the legs, but can be worse on the feet – in terms of blisters. And it’s fairly technical and rocky in spots, particularly towards the north end. Even just hiking some of these sections can be tough, so running them could be insane.

There’s also something to be said for the motivation you can get from being in a race. In ultras, the field of competitors is usually pretty small so you do spend a lot of time on your own. And I’m used to doing the majority of my training alone as well. So the solo aspect doesn’t faze me. But, I’ll miss having competitors on the trail.

##### Do you have a specific training plan in place for this run?
I’ve never been one to follow a structured training routine. Probably not the best approach for an ultra runner, but it’s what works for me. And there is progression in my training, but it’s more of a guideline than a plan. I’ve really just learned to listen to my body and base my training on that.



##### Can you share some optimism ninja wisdom with us?
I’ve come to the realization that this journey isn’t about becoming anything … I think it’s more about “un-becoming” the things I’m not. Stripping away the preconceived notions and labels of the person I thought I was so I can become the person I was meant to be.

What I’ve learned about being positive is that the more you do it the better you get at it. Just like most things in life. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but it’s necessary if you want to complete any kind of goal.



##### Why is wilderness conservation important to you?
I could go on all day about this one. I could talk about our responsibilities, both as a society and individuals. Or, about how grateful we should be to live in a place like Canada, with so much to offer us. But aside from that it’s freaking amazing. When I went through the cancer stuff; surgeries and chemotherapy, it was the doctors and nurses who helped to heal my body, but it was running and nature that helped to heal my soul. That’s the kind of power it has on us.

##### Does anything kick your ass?
I have no doubt the Bruce Trail will kick my ass … over and over again. As have most of the races I’ve done. As did the surgeries and chemo. But without the adversity and struggles we wouldn’t get the opportunity to grow. Or, be given the choice to get back up when life knocks us down. And we wouldn’t know how strong we really were or what we’re capable of achieving. Personally, I know I can take an ass kicking, pick myself up, and keep moving forward.

*A Big Wild Challenge is about pushing your own limits and doing something that matters to you. They all happen outside and they support wilderness conservation in Canada.*



An ultra Big Wild Challenge: running 100k a day | MEC Blog

An ultra Big Wild Challenge

You dream, you plan, you negotiate with your significant other for sufficient time, then you just hope for good luck.

After landing under a brilliant sapphire sky on the Grand Plateau Glacier in May, we would have little of it. For photographer Steve Ogle, Prince Rupert fisherman and ski mountaineer Dean Wagner, and I things started well. Fairweather is a mountain of dreams that straddles the Alaska-BC border, whose 4,663 metre summit (the highest point in our province) soared above us in an arc of windblown snow and ice. More than 200 years ago Captain James Cook named the peak on a rare sunny day as he sailed through the Gulf of Alaska; these days it has the reputation among mountaineers as the most inappropriately named mountain in the world.

This trip would be different, we deluded ourselves into believing. As we listened to the buzz of the Bush Hawk’s engine fade into the vast icy wilderness of Glacier Bay, we were cheerful, almost ridiculously optimistic, shuffling around the snow in t-shirts to establish our base camp. Fairweather’s summit appeared so close, it seemed as though we could reach across the sky and touch it.



May 15. Two weeks have passed since we touched down. Wind blasts with nerve-shattering force. Somewhere above this maelstrom, I detect the roar of a jet. I fantasize about business class passengers ordering cocktails and watching an in-flight comedy.

Except for a handful of brief, between-storm forays, we’ve been pinned in our tent by spring storms dumping more than a metre of snow. Temperatures have plunged into the -30C° range. I have read my two books twice. One of them, Cormac McCarthy’s grim apocalyptic tale Blood Meridian, does little to boost spirits but serves to pass time. I have even scanned the labels of my long underwear, which oddly makes me dream of beaches in Vietnam and Thailand.



We monitor weather forecasts from Alaska’s National Weather Service multiple times daily like a call to prayer, growing to despise the computerized voice crackling over the handheld radio as if it is personally responsible for the horrendous weather. This time however, the voice delivers a few shreds of optimism in the form of a high pressure ridge that’s forecast to settle over the Gulf of Alaska. Our cheers are muted, having been suckered numerous times over the past couple of weeks into making a summit attempt only to be turned back by savage wind, cold and murky clouds. Yet late that night when I awake for a midnight pee, the wind has stopped and the night sparkles. In the morning, the sky is bluebird and the air is calm. Only a few wisps of wind are visible whipping snow from Fairweather’s whipped cream ridges.

We inhale bowls of oatmeal, pack lunches and climbing gear, pry our feet into boot liners and frozen plastic shells. Setting off, we skin across the flats of the Grand Plateau until it rears up steeply. Movement is invigorating but we’re stopped in our tracks by a cascade of ice and snow burying a nearby pass where we skied weeks ago, as if we need more reminders of our tenuous existence in this alpine. In less than two hours we pass through this avalanche alley, stash our skis, and force down some water and a steel-hard energy bar. Steve slaps his hands together and I wiggle toes trying to generate circulation. After roping up, we retrace our route across the bergschrund then ascend toward a low-angled dihedral that splits a vertical slab of ice. The col is tantalizingly close and when we crest the headwall we’re greeted by a surreal sight, the sweeping aquamarine crescent of the Gulf of Alaska 4000 vertical metres below us. This impressive height in just 20 kilometres from the tide line, making Fairweather one of the highest coastal mountains in the world.



We traverse the col until the west ridge rises into the sky, weaving around crevasses and crossing others, occasionally pausing to test with our ice axes the strength of snow bridges before committing our weight. I stop to lean on my ice axe and gulp mouthfuls of air. Steve and Dean do the same; the sight makes me think of the adage, mountaineering is fun only in hindsight, or something like that. My altimetre reads 4,210 – another grueling 450 metres to go. Gazing upwards, I piece together a route among cracks, drifts and gargoyles of ice.



I concentrate purely on the next 100 metres, unwilling to be tempted by the deception of another false summit. But the next time I look ahead, the slope decreases and before us sits the broad  plateau of Fairweather’s crown and beyond, the wildly corniced ridge of Mount Quincy Adams. Together we shuffle the final few paces to a wind-hammered knob of snow, the hostile but beautiful apex of BC that in a busy year might see the boot prints of a half-dozen souls, and in some years none at all. On one side, an ocean of ice and mountains, on the other, the wild blue north Pacific curves to the western horizon. Above us a jet liner traces a silent white arc across the blue sky. In a single instant, the mental torment of idle days spent waiting out storms beneath this brooding monolith of snow and ice washes away. Our trio gathers for a requisite hug, our shouts heard by nobody but ourselves. Dean produces a small flask of Jagermeister saved for the occasion. I look at my watch, 2:15pm. Six hours after leaving the tent this morning, and two weeks after flying in from Haines. Steve boldly removes his gloves then kneels to tap out a SPOT text to friends and family: S-U-M-M-I-T-!

May 22. Back on Vancouver Island, I’m lazing around in shorts in my backyard, fingers and toes numb. I peruse an email from a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Alaska in response to a query I made about the weather in the Glacier Bay region. I knew it was bad, but how bad? He tells me that the first half of the month witnessed some of the coldest and wettest weather ever recorded in the Gulf of Alaska region. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not, but we made it.





Fairweather: inappropriately named mountain of dreams | MEC Blog

Fairweather: inappropriately named mountain of dreams

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