Mt Currie: From The Eye of a Sick Guy

Submitted by J Dogg on Mon, 2007-01-15 23:15.

Rating

You'd think it would be hard to blur some of my best & worst ski memories into one day, but a heli drop on Mt Currie while trying to kick some weird virus/flu is just the way to do it. Strolling through the heli pad parking lot on a brisk -18 morning probably wasn't the best way to kick my cold, but Mt Currie awaited.

We flew straight up the face, got all the scoping we could have asked for, then headed over to the neighbouring ridge for a warm-up rip down a steep wind-buffed face. Mat & Jordan went for the goods while I waddled my way down the shoulder, still wearing my puffy, and flirting with the desire to 'lose my breakfast'.

We chucked on the skins and headed up skin track that I guess Powologist had set for us days earlier. While the others lollygagged and cruised up, I did my best impersonation of what it would look like if I was skinning everest... three steps, breath... three steps, breath. The simple motivation being that it was my only way home, otherwise I'd have opted to not climb at all.

At the top, the boys went for a sunny glory lap back down the bowl, while I curled up in self-pitty and napped on my backpack until their return.

When they caught back up, the real fun began. We topped out and peeked into the skiers right, skinny pencil chute.

WIth no harnesses and

no easy entrance in sight, sick me started wandering up the ridge on his own, in hopes of finding any sane and easy way down the north face of Currie for a sick gorbie like myself. The boyz hollared something about "it might go... just a 10 ft air to what looks kinda soft!". Hmmmm, nothing like airing into a 7000ft doglegging chute/face on a day when i could barely walk straight. So i continued wandering.

I tried to yell where i was going, but without a voice, it wasn't much use, so on i trucked, while they dropped like flies into the chute.

But laziness conquered, and when i got to the skiers left pencil, saw that the previous shredders had rappeled in, my luck was running out. Easiest way to catch up was to punch myself in the face a few times, wake up, jump the cornice, and shred like a fat chain smoker down 3000ft of oh-so-juicey pow by myself until the chutes meet up in the pow fields below.

We all met up, exchanged laughs and disses about who left who when and why, then dragged our sorry butts down a couple thousand feet of SOLID ICE avi debris and drooping alder bush wacking.

All in all it was easily some of my best and worst shredding memories wrapped up in one little package. And hey, I sure felt better at the end of the day than I did the day previous, after 3 hours in IKEA.

Moral of the story: "Don't get sick, and if you do, Don't go to IKEA." Or maybe there's another moral, for the whole entire 06/07 season... "Bring out the cough medicine, cause it's gonna be sick".