Keith’s Hut – You Don’t Know if You Don’t Go

By:  Sam
March 11, 2012


With my old friend Scott in town and the weekend free, I decided to attempt to organize a trip to Keith’s hut, a public backcountry hut north of Pemberton BC. Initially the weather looked great, and I began to wonder if we should take a third car to more comfortably ferry everyone up to the trailhead. As the date grew closer, people started dropping out; the forecast was changing, and it was starting to look like the clear skies and soft snow we’d hoped for might instead present themselves as rain and fog. In the end, my girlfriend Katharine and Scott were the only ones left.


We got started early Sunday morning and rolled north under grey drizzly skies. The temperature in Vancouver approached 50, yet we remained optimistic. As we passed through Whistler in pouring rain, our hopes began to fade a bit. No one likes to drive 3.5 hours to ski in the rain, and it was looking increasingly like that was what we were doing. Temperatures got warm again in Pemberton, but were down to 36 at the trailhead. Only thoughts of a warm fire in the hut kept us pressing forward.


Scott had brought plenty of optimism with him from NYC and was psyched despite the sprinkling rain and gloppy snow.


We passed some beautiful snow formations on the way in.


“Sn-ain” changed to snow as we climbed the final slope to the hut.


Keiths hut is a two story hut, built on a foundation that raises the first floor several feet off the ground. Our feet were at the hight of the floor on the second story.

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A storm was moving in rapidly as we got to the hut, and we were all soaked to the bone and shivering as we began to dry out our gear. Unfortunately all the wood we could find was extremely green and wet, so I got frustrated and resorted to drastic measures getting the fire started. Not exactly a one-match fire, but then I never was much of a boy scout.

As we dried out our gear and began to thaw our bones, a funny thing happned. The “sn-ain” that had changed over to flurries, was transforming itself into a raging snow storm. In the space of an hour and a half a few inches had fallen and we resolved to get a run in despite the fading light.


“Make a funny face if it’s windy”


Katharine was psyched, these few inches were bonding and skiing amazingly well and the storm was showing no signs of letting up.


Scott shared the enthusiasm.

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Then tried to take out the camera man.

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We were all eager to see what the morning had in store, so we made our way back to the hut and started cooking.


Rummy is far more fun when played far from access to Netflix, in the middle of a snow storm, in the middle of a remote stretch of woods, in a large cabin that you somehow managed to get all to yourself.

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Read about the author:   Sam

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3 Comments

  1. Porter Haney
    wrote on March 12th, 2012 at 12:04 pm  
    1

    Fantastic post, and good story!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  2. ml242
    wrote on March 18th, 2012 at 12:47 pm  
    2

    Sam, nice to see you out of retirement.

    Is that a cousin to Spanish Moss in the first image? Very cool stuff in there, it looks like a great trip. That dude in the last image is sending it!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  3. powhounddd
    wrote on March 19th, 2012 at 11:31 pm  
    3

    Awesome TR. The Coast is calling me…

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
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