When we were a half mile above the trailhead, we attached skins to the bottom of our skis and resumed our ascent of the eastern flank of Eureka Mountain. The skins allowed our skis to slide forward, but not backward, so they could be used to climb uphill.
It was late January in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. A thick blanket of snow covered the ground above 9,000 feet. If the weather was favorable and our ability to endure the brutal cold held up, Luke and I planned to camp overnight on the mountain and skin up to the Goodwin Lakes at 11,500 feet the following morning.
A couple of weeks earlier, Luke had started building an igloo at an elevation around 10,000 feet. We reached the igloo early Saturday afternoon and returned to work. Luke acted as the construction superintendent. I did stoop labor.
Initially we tried to pack loose snow onto the existing walls. This method failed because it was so cold the snow would not pack. Luke suggested that we cut blocks of hard snow out of the ground surrounding the igloo. This idea worked like gangbusters. Within two hours, we had stacked the blocks high enough that the opposing walls were within two feet of each other. We capped the hole in the roof with a long, 30 pound block of snow and filled in the holes with powder. We were now ready to weather a winter night high in the Rocky Mountains.
After we finished the igloo, we skied up a nearby ridge. There was no beautiful vista or rock formation drawing us out. The temperature was in the teens. We were moving to stay warm.
On the descent back to the igloo, I first tried to ski without removing the skins, but had trouble getting an edge with my skis, probably because I cut my skins a shade too wide. Skiing through the narrow gaps between the trees was frustrating. I had more control once I took the skins off but continued to doubt whether I had ever strapped planks to my feet before.
That night we barricaded the doorway of the igloo with our packs. The temperature inside was around freezing. Outside it was lethally cold. My toes got numb around 5:00 a.m., when a draft started coming in the doorway after Luke went outside to take a piss.
In the morning, Luke made instant coffee with the snow we had melted the previous night. The snow melt contained pine needles and had a strong pine aroma. I am a coffee snob, but that cup of instant coffee was the best I ever had. That coffee contained the force of life itself.
We reattached our skins and began skiing up the mountain toward the lower Goodwin Lake. Luke was leading and had difficulty staying on trail. At one point, we skied across the base of a steep, thousand foot long slope. Fear of an avalanche momentarily distracted me from the increasing pain that my new alpine touring boots were causing. Then we climbed a slope so steep I had to remove my skis to ascend it. But after that we stayed on the trail and movement was easy.
When we reached lower Goodwin Lake, gray clouds obscured the sun and a powerful wind was ripping snow across the iced-over lake. It looked like a scene in a beautiful, frigid hell. My gloves had frozen stiff. We ate Luke's homemade power bars in a spot where the trees provided limited shelter from the wind. Then, a few hundred feet below the lake, we removed our skins and skied downhill, through the trees, back to the camp.
For the next few days after we came down from Eureka Mountain, the sun appeared as a dim circle of light faintly visible through the clouds. The unrelenting gray reminded me of a line from Taxi Driver that Chris had quoted a few weeks earlier:
You're waiting for the senator? That's a very good answer. Shit, man! I'm waiting for the sun to shine.
But it's impossible to be despondent about the sun's failure to shine when you're surrounded by the inhospitable beauty of the Rocky Mountains.
