Tomorrow I am heading out of Jackson to make my way to Golden, B.C. where 20 of us will be heading into the Fairy Meadow Hut on Saturday. This will mark the beginning of an 8-day ski hut trip into the Adamant Group of the Selkirk Mountains…Yummy. With the consent of Mother Nature we will be boarding the helicopters on Saturday and get hauled off into the hut. Once at the hut we will endure 8 grueling days of skiing (no heli service here; You earn your turns), eating, drinking the Snake River Brewing 5 gallon kegs that the chopper is kindly hauling for us, reading by the fire, and bathing in the 10 person wet sauna. I told you…grueling.

On the flip side of all this joyous activity we could get grounded at the heli-pad for days if the weather is bad. These days are NON-refundable. That is a scary thought. We have also heard stories of the chopper coming in early to yank you if they are aware of a nasty weather system coming. Therefore, there are no guarantees for paradise. Another scenario is incredibly high avalanche danger that would limit our terrain to ski. The Fairy Meadow hut has very limited “Intermediate” terrain and does involve some glacier travel at times. If the weather is sketchy we might be getting to know each other much better than we planned…Cranium, Twister, and copious amounts of beer can be quite the ice breakers. In this situation we must be careful to ration our eating and drinking so we do not run out of supplies before the heli comes back to get us. Not that into an “Alive” scenario.

We are limited to 300 lbs per person for the helicopter, so I am trying to pack as lightly as possible (wouldn’t think so from the photo). My wool underwear will be the key piece of gear. I can wear these pieces for days without any stench…luckily to other hut dwellers. Our hut organizers have put together the menu and did the shopping for all 20 of us. There are options to hire a cook who will do the shopping and cooking everyday you are in the hut. We opted out because that would have taken one of the 20 spaces and we wanted all of our friends to come. Therefore, we will split up into groups each day to take care of the cooking ourselves. Could be interesting…I’ll let you know.

As of this Saturday, January 28th I will be out of touch until the following Saturday, February 4th (or maybe longer if the helicopter cannot get in to pick us up. In this case we do not pay extra.) The rest of the womenspecific.com crew will be attending the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City. They will be gathering information on all the new and up coming women’s specific gear and such for this amazing outdoor industry. Please check in after the Feb. 4th to read about this amazing trip and the updates from Outdoor Retailer. I will try to post a blog the next couple of days from the road. Otherwise…ski hard and have a wonderful week.