{"id":7748,"date":"2023-07-07T11:45:18","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T17:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voile.com\/blog\/?p=7748"},"modified":"2023-07-07T11:45:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T17:45:19","slug":"14-fairies-in-a-meadow-a-fairy-meadows-hut-trip-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voile.com\/blog\/14-fairies-in-a-meadow-a-fairy-meadows-hut-trip-report\/","title":{"rendered":"14 Fairies in a Meadow: A Fairy Meadows Hut Trip Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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They say that only the unluckiest of people come to Fairy Meadows Hut<\/a> and don\u2019t ski powder. We dreamed of a week of snow that would turn into sun. We were lucky and our dreams came true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heli Ride In <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The helicopter soars over the final ridge and drops down into a glacial valley. Trees race by outside the windows. Those of us with the best cameras and pre-established-through-Google-Earth senses of place snap photos of our soon-to-be go-to zones. All of a sudden, there is the hut, the landing zone the pilot spoke about, and bundled up people lying across duffels, shred planks, and various bags and boxes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All photos courtesy of Garry Schlag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We land, undo our belts, open doors, and begin unloading from every nook and cranny of the bird carefully and efficiently under the roar of the motor. The outgoing group is ready to pass our gear out to a pile of its own as we start passing back gear from their pile to load while the majority of their passenger’s board. A hand signal from the ground tells the pilot that the exchange is done and the helicopter disappears as quickly as it appeared. For a moment, all is silent again at the Fairy Meadows LZ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moment passes and the air is filled with ecstatic yelping and universal yipping brought on by the fact that we just got dropped by a helicopter at a BC hut for the week to ski and party with our friends. We introduce ourselves to the outgoing group members still waiting for the second heli shuttle and commence our conditions interrogation. \u201cWe skied everything,\u201d they said through, and this may be me retrospectively projecting, the toothy grins of skiers who are trying to play it cool about a life-changing week of steep and deep powder skiing. A second helicopter pilot calls in their approach and soon we are unloading incoming passengers and loading outgoing passengers and items again. The helicopter takes off and flies away again, leaving us in paradise. We would not see it for seven days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settling into the Fairy Meadows Hut<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Day Zero<\/strong>, we moved our skis and boards, bags, food, kegs, packs, and bodies into the hut and started settling. We scoped the water system (gathered from a glacial creek, heated for dishes on the wood stove), sauna (wood stove heated, surrounded by snow for cold shocks), kitchen, living areas, and our upstairs shared bedroom where we laid out sleeping bags, pillows, and costume bags for the week. After a supremely busy morning of shuffling gear, helicopter briefings, flights, and more shuffling of gear, we figured it was going to get dark soon. We then geared up for a short lay-of-the-land tour before sunset, ascending through breaking clouds into a wide moraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting Goals with the Group<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Our group was a collection of college friends and their mutual friends. I fell into the latter category and thus gained a handful of awesome new friends by accepting an invite on this trip. We came from varied backgrounds of skiing and snowboarding and we all set realistic personal and group goals for the week considering ability, conditions, and our friendships, old and budding. These goals ranged from dream descents and routes in the area to games played in the hut and the duration of time spent in the sauna (and at what temperature). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone was psyched at the stunning surroundings, and we collectively realized that despite the dynamic morning and overcast conditions, the day still held many hours of light in our new northern location. So, we just kept skinning to just below Friendship Col and a stark, dark metamorphic rock feature I began calling \u201cthe fin\u201d. Clouds got thicker and we all decided to flip it and head back to get cozy for our first evening in the hut. Folks split up and skied different lines with varying degrees of geological visual cues in the flat light. Vertigo was experienced and persevered through with laughs and snow-covered butts. <\/p>\n\n\n