AN INTRODUCTION

The wind had a mean edge on it as it curved to cross the crest of the Sierra Nevada and found us there, two thousand feet above the site of the Donner Party tragedy, trying to find out how to camp in deep snow. It was deep snow that caught the Donners' immigrants back in 1846. Thirty-six people died from cold and star­vation, and more would have starved, probably, but for cannibalism.

Our exposed spot on the crest was not where you would expect to find a father pushing fifty, much less being pushed by his two teenage sons. But there we were any­way, and by plan.

We knew that California has come (or gone) quite a distance since the Donner Party's ordeal. Skiing tech­nique has progressed quite a bit too since Snowshoe Thompson carried the trans-Sierra mails in the late 'fif­ties (the eighteen-fifties, that is) on his eleven-foot skis and since his contemporaries set 85-mile-per-hour speed records in the earliest American ski races on record.

More relevantly, we also knew that California has gone a fair distance in making a sport of the best of what the Donners and Thompson learned—how to survive in snow and how to ski safely through rugged, untracked terrain. The ice-edged wind found us looking at the very peaks upon which that new sport, ski mountaineering, had been adapted to California terrain by the Sierra Club and then exported to help the armed forces in World War II. I was exported too, and saw how our ski-moun­taineering technique and equipment aided the troops, myself included, giving them combat mobility and esprit that should be recorded better than it has been before it is forgotten.

Now, after too long a lapse, I was back in old Sierra haunts. I brought my sons to this crest, not to expose them to danger but to try to show them how to avoid it. I wanted very much to see them feel at home on the snow, far back in the winter wilderness, all around the clock and all around the compass.

Moreover, I also had a suspicion that every generation needs to invent contests which it can be first to win. This certainly seems to be true of people who look to moun­tains for their contests. The two generations before mine won their contests—most of them—on the great peaks of the Alps and the major summits of the United States. My generation finished off the Himalayan giants. I mean, that's what climbers did who could afford such expedi­tions; the less affluent of us settled for little-known peaks or for switching seasons or routes on climbs of the well-known summits.

To pioneer, father never had it so rough; he had only to find a peak. I myself could still pioneer merely by finding hard ways up easy peaks—and going back down to spend the night in comfort. Today's mountaineers, however, must look for the hardest way up the hardest peaks, and be willing to spend several successive nights trying to sleep partly inside a sack partly suspended from a cliff. The suspense is tremendous!

What next? As a parent of children who may mo­mentarily join the ranks of today's mountaineers, I care. I dread their feeling they must outdo the Eiger and Yosemite men. I hope their pioneering can have more fun in it, no less challenge, and fewer of the spices of danger.

Not too subtly, then, I was trying to expose my dele­gates to the new generation to the good things that could happen if they were to turn their skis to the wilderness for a few winter week ends at least. I hope the exposure will take. For one thing, it will really stretch their ski­ing budget—four ski week ends for the price of one!— and will simultaneously shorten the ski-lift lines.

More important, they'll have new frontiers to explore every time there is a new fall of snow. They'll find coun­try—especially the Western uplands—measured in mil­lions of acres where skis have never penetrated. And they'll learn that there is need for all their new skill in inventing ways to achieve more mobility and safety with less weight. In the course of all this they'll also find out that in winter one of the finest methods of transporta­tion ever invented is a man's own two feet—plus seven-foot skis.

I'm not just dreaming. I'm lucky enough to have chil­dren who walk. They simply take it for granted—so far —that walking is the only way to get to the best places, those wild places where cars can't go and shouldn't.

My sons Ken, who is 17, and Bob, 16, like the look of snow where the only ski tracks are those behind them and where, ahead, the tracks of wildlife are mysteries to try to unravel. They like to top a rise and start down into the far valley knowing that there's no one there, that it is just as wild as if creation had been yesterday. They may even like the sense of relief, of getting away from the compulsion to perfect skiing form—and forget its substance—in succession after frenetic succession of turns down the beat, nicked slopes above the long chair-lift lines.

I'm not trying to paint my boys as antisocial, nor my­self as averse to resort skiing. We are all, however, prone to like change of scene. Fending off the chiselers in the lift lines, relaxing briefly while we ride the chairs, and fighting our way back down the slopes, running over the tails of the slow skis ahead of us or trying not to be run over by the faster skis behind—all this is good fun for a certain number of week ends. Then we're ready to get back to fundamentals.

Out our way Spring is the best time for those funda­mentals. The days are long enough to light a several-mile ski tour and the sun is usually mature enough to warm a lunch-time bask. The snowpack is at its deepest, smooth­ing out the high country. The Sierra Club's touring huts are especially inviting then, each an easy day's travel sandwiched between snug nights. Well, not too easy. They are a good warm-up for ski mountaineering.

Borrowing what I could remember of my early ski-mountaineering days, I appointed myself coach. In ac­cepting me in that role, Ken and Bob tacitly accepted (for the moment, at least) my pronouncements drawn from early editions of the Manual of Ski Mountaineering.

For example, those of us who compiled the book like a ski boot with a sole that will bend—not easily, but that will at least bend. We want bindings that will al­low the heel free play in level gliding and in uphill travel; otherwise blisters are guaranteed. We'll settle for ordinary downhill skis. If there's likely to be much soft snow, our poles must have a big enough snow ring to give some thrust when we push back. A ski mountain­eer must really use his poles, not just wave them.

Clothing need be no problem. Over the far hill there are no people to impress and to look pretty for. This is a chance to squeeze the last wear out of older ski clothes, to scrape the last thread bare. Stretch pants will get by, but impede circulation, ventilation, and insula­tion. The baggier the parka, the better—for the same reason. The main requirement of clothing is that it be adjustable; layers will need to be subtracted or added easily to avoid over- or underheating.

A few of the prewar axioms still hold: (1) Two light layers trap more air and insulate better than one heavy layer. (2) It is easier to keep warm than to get warm. (3) If you don't want a chill, don't work up a sweat.

"If your hands or feet get cold," I admonished the boys, "put on an extra sweater." They looked unbeliev­ing, but I meant it and tried to explain about the body's thermostats which, when they must choose, will always shut down on circulation to the skin and the extremities if this is necessary to conserve heat for the vital organs. I wasn't too lucid, for we had shouldered our G.I. ruck­sacks and I found it discreet to conserve words as we started up the grade.

For a fairly long uphill stint we ordinarily would tie climbers on our skis. Plush will do but sealskins are better—they slide forward but not back, even on a thirty-per-cent slope. I let the boys know that going uphill is nothing but honest toil. They would discover toil's own good reward for themselves, and I needed to concentrate, between puffs, on hoping that I would rediscover it.

We didn't pick the warmest place for lunch. We stayed out where the view was sweeping, and the wind too. To help save weight, we carried concentrated foodstuffs— pumpernickel, cheese, bologna, nuts, dried fruit, choco­late—but took the curse off our dehydration with a can of fruit juice, brought along purely and forgivably for luxury—"instead of a canteen," I said, getting soft, know­ing full well the Manual would not tolerate such weak­ness. Theoretically, we should have melted snow instead, and would indeed have done so had we really been out to make progress in all our technique of going light. Instead I chose the modified spartanism of an old friend of mine who insisted on a cold shower every morning— but explained, "I always add enough warm water to make it comfortable." We weren't going to make this trip an ordeal by hunger or by thirst.

Nor by miles. We traveled only a short distance after lunch and allowed plenty of time to make camp. Bob asked, when he saw me looking uphill for a site, "Why not camp down there in the trees?" This showed good sense but I had another purpose in mind. There must be a demonstration that our camping equipment could make us cozy in an exposed position. So I chose a spot just under the crest, well above any trees.

"Remember to keep well back of the edge," I cautioned. "It's a snow cornice with a big overhang, and all set to collapse." Indeed, we had seen a cornice collapse on our way up, and how swiftly an avalanche could start.

Safely back from the edge we set about excavating a snow platform in pseudo-Himalayan style—but without a lightweight snow shovel. The snow was wind-packed, and of just the right consistency for sawing into blocks.

"Use your ski tails as a saw and a shovel," I said, but warned, "Don't pry; just slice."

I learned this the hard way myself—harder for a friend than for me. I pried, ever so gently, and cracked a ski tail—his.

The excavating went rapidly. You push the tail straight down a foot or so in a series of stabs outlining a snow block, then diagonally slide the tail under the block and slice it out. The snow was perfect for an igloo, but Es­kimo engineering and snow-cave digging could come on a later trip. We cut into the slope about three feet on the uphill side and piled our blocks below, ending up with a platform about eight feet square. Using a ski's edge as bulldozer, we leveled it. By now the platform was com­pacted to ice.

Our Logan-type tent—a 12-pound wonder—came out of the pack next. Ken volunteered to put up the sectional center pole—an inside job. "I know a good thing when I see it," he told Bob, and got in out of the wind. With the center pole, Ken gave the tent height; Bob and I staked it with ski poles and tied it to skis to give it sem­blance of shape. The inside man set to work inflating the air mattress (half length was enough for a multiple hip pad), unrolled the down-and-processed-feather sleep­ing bags (army surplus), and got the Primus stove set up.

Bob passed in a small foam-rubber pad to experiment with. Maybe it would be better than a shared air mat­tress—he who shares his neighbor's air mattress also shares his neighbor's every bounce. We should find some­thing better. Searches for improvement, big and little, have been one of my own major ski-mountaineering pleasures and could be theirs too.

I marveled as I climbed into the Logan tent. It must have been designed by a recluse who abhorred proxim­ity. You can even stand up in it! They call it a three-man tent but it could have held our whole family (all six of us) and leave room for a friendly guest.

Lying in the luxurious open space of this mansion-on-the-snow, I regaled Ken and Bob with the sad story of the "Home-on-the-Snow" tent I designed just before World War II. Until I die I shall insist that this should have been the army's official mountain tent instead of the dank, impractical, inhospitable cul-de-sac the army ended up with. The Home-on-the-Snow was theoretically a two-man tent but we never had fewer than three in it and seldom fewer than four. With four, it would have an extra sag on top caused by the bulge on the sides. It was as snug and revealing as a sweater. Only one per­son could sit up at a time. No one could stand in it, nor need try.

All in all, this design had antifreeze advantages. It also had a built-in rest inhibitor: when it was full, you could turn over only by mutual consent.

Its minor disadvantages, I still insist, are far out­weighed by its virtues, among them its lightness in weight —less than a pound per man. Another, its streamlining and low silhouette, important in high winds. Its worst feature was that it could be snowed in because it was so low. Its best feature was by all odds its cooking space, a vented floorless area in the sloping front. Here your snow mine, which is to say your water supply, is right at hand. You scoop up snow as needed for melting on the stove. If someone tips the stove over—and someone always will—you don't have to rely upon the sleeping bags' blotting up the soup. The snow in the open floor space soaks it up instead, and if you happen to scoop up a little frozen soup when melting snow for your coffee, who's the poorer?

My point isn't to argue the merit of tents, but to sug­gest that tent building can be fun. I experimented with paper models, then a cloth miniature, and finally the pilot project. It went on many trips before I built its successor, with different material and (let's face it) slightly larger dimensions.

"The perfect tent is yet to be invented," I told Bob, our mechanical son, "and a lot of people are going to have fun trying to invent it." Then I remembered my clincher: "Besides, that first tent only cost me $4.60 for materials."

Someone else had all the fun making the Logan—and it cost us $88.

As with tents, so with packs and stoves. Plenty of room for progress. Whatever the item, the search for a lighter, better, affordable design can be fun.

I threw the boys the epitomizing challenge as we sat there luxuriating and I remembered earlier, harder days.

"Beat our twenty-one-pound record if you can," I said. "In my heyday we could take off on a three-day trip and spend two nights out with only twenty-one pounds per man. That included the food, tents, sleeping bags, stoves, utensils, first aid for us and for our skis, and our extra clothing—for seven of us." But it didn't include what we wore, such as our skis and poles.

A pack as light as that, I could add, doesn't play hob with one's downhill ski technique. More important, it doesn't put too great a strain on the swivel muscles that are the hallmark of the chairborne.

Lightness of pack can also make ski-mountaineering co-educational, as we proved during one Easter week in Little Lakes Valley in the High Sierra. Our party of twenty-two included four women. A little more distaff over the hot kitchen Primus could do a world of good. Anything would help. Ski-mountaineering menus are wide open for pioneering and whatever I would like to say about the blending of foodstuffs that were never in­tended to be mixed in the light of day, and the resulting mayhem-in-the-pantry, is privileged information. I swiftly change the subject and claim merely that no ski moun­taineer has ever starved or even gone hungry, and that no man who has done an honest day's toil need be a gourmet.

Continuing our honest toil, we struggled to keep the kerosene out of such food as we did have—a struggle that is always very much worth the effort—and we didn't quite succeed. The aftertaste is unforgettable; almost im­mortal.

I wanted to tell the boys more, but remembered in time that the less a father says to his own sons, the more they are likely to remember. Advice comes best from those who cannot command. I will just disclose to you a few of the things I should like to have told them. They will never know what is said here for they long ago made it a point never to read anything I write if there is the slightest possibility that I'd like them to.

First, I would have cautioned them, if you should ever decide to take up ski mountaineering on your own, don't go alone or with a weak party or underequipped or any­where beyond reasonable expectation of safe retreat. Secretly not wanting them to dash too far ahead of me, I would have warned them that if they were overbur­dened with energy, they should save it, thus keeping the party strong if someone else's underburden of energy should show up; mine for instance.

Sounding even more fatherlike, I would have warned them in capital italics about AVALANCHE HAZARD, and would have illustrated it with a very hairy story about how four friends of mine would now be dead, their death having been brought about by a very simple-minded avalanche, had a fifth friend not had a cold that day. There I would have ended the story abruptly until they pounded me for details, which I would spoon out with liberal accompaniment of vital avalanche lore.

Finally I would have tried to explain to them what ski mountaineering had meant to me; about the peaks I had made first ascents of, for the most part on skis; of the high snow camps I had known and what it was like to be up on top in early winter morning and evening, when the world is painted with a very special light; of the kind of competence and even braveness, maybe, that one picks up from good friends and challenging peaks, up there when the storms hit and the snow pelts the fabric all through the night; of the kind of exhilara­tion we got when, after two winter struggles, the third put us on top of a fourteen-thousander and we were first to be there in winter and see how magnificently winter treats a high land we already knew well in summer but in a lesser beauty; of the long vibrant moments when we were back on our skis, skimming down the uncre-vassed glacier on just the right depth of new powder, letting our skis go, finding that every turn worked, hear­ing the vigorous flapping of our ski pants even though the wind was singing in our ears and stinging our faces, sensing how rapidly the peaks climbed above us, those peaks that had dropped so reluctantly to our level in all the slow day's climb; of the care we had to take after night found us out and we sideslipped and sidestepped down into the tortuous little basins and then into the hummocky forest floor that lay in darkness between us and camp; I would have described that hot cup of soup I cuddled in my hand in exhaustion, sipping slowly to absorb its warmth and its energy at a retainable rate; and I would speak of the morning after and, not its hangover, but its glow as I looked back up to the rocky palisade above the glacier and was just pleased as hell to have got there at last—pleased with the weather, the companions, and the luck—and also forgivably pleased a little that I could do it.

But I didn't tell them all that. This is the sort of thing you find out for yourself, that comes when you escape into the reality of the wilderness and discover how amaz­ingly well man has been designed to cope with just such reality. This is the sort of thing I would want them to find out for themselves. Maybe then, after that, we could compare notes. That would be the best reward of all!

Our Logan was really cozy now. We were in that es­pecially blissful camping situation only the ski mountain­eer or the expeditioner finds himself in. You tie the wind and the chill outside. To insulate yourself doubly against the cold, you climb into the sack, taking off only your boots. Propped on your elbows, you arrange to have din­ner served to you in bed—friendly self-service—even as your breakfast will be. The Primus has a friendly roar that can outshout all but the most hostile winds and you listen to your friend. It warms your tent while it roars, but not too much, for you need to keep a circulation of fresh air coming in the tunnel entrance, and the stove exhaust going out the vent near the tent's peak.

We had the entrance tied back and were watching the shadows develop among the turrets of Castle Peak when two skiers christied to a stop at the edge of the brink below them and us.

One of them called over: "Now that really looks com­fortable! When do you serve the martinis?"

"They'll be ready for your next run," I said, lying.

"Are you going to spend the night up here?"

"We're all set up to, and the boys would like to," I re­plied; and the boys had indeed said they wished they could. "But we're just trying this business a step at a time. We'll try for an overnight stop next trip."

They took the steep pitch below us in style, like the ski-patrol pros they were. But they never did get back for the martinis, for the lift had stopped running to the top of Signal Hill, a hundred yards above us, and there was no easy way for them to get back up. In less than half an hour we ourselves had struck camp and made out way back to the car, just as the sun left it, and were home four hours later.

On the drive home I had some more fatherly advice for my sons. "When you're old enough for martinis," I coun­seled, "if you do decide to take up ski mountaineering and really get back into the wilderness, remember you've got to watch your weight. 'When in doubt, leave it out,' is what we always taught them in the Mountain Troops.

"Now the way to save weight on martinis," I said, "is to take no vermouth at all."

Perhaps I should have suggested better things not to take.

* * *

And now, on to the serious work of the book—after this footnote: if you want to know all about how that one man's cold saved four men from death by avalanche, see "California Avalanche," by Kenneth D. Adam, in the 1955 Annual Sierra Club Bulletin. —D. R. B.

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