Stupid Is As Stupid Does

What a day in the backcountry yesterday. In the preceding three days, 50 cm of snow had fallen, winds had been moderate to strong from the southwest, and the freezing level had been bumping up and down. Avalanche hazard was rated considerable, high, high (below treeline, treeline, alpine). And every idiot who could strap a pair of skis to their feet seemed to be out.

Doug and I spent over two hours breaking a trail from the parking lot to the north end of Evening Ridge. Trail-breaking was on the heavy side, but not outrageous . No sooner had we got to the top of our planned run at 2040 metres than a solo female skier comes along the trail behind us.

First thing she says is "Where are you skiing down?" Which I take to mean, I have no clue where I am, and need you to tell me what I should do and where I should go. "Where are you skiing down?" I counter. "Well, I just followed this trail up (as if it had fantastically appeared before her like some kind of magic carpet), and I don't know where I am." "Do you have a map? I ask. "Kind of," she replies.

How do you 'kind of' have a map, I think. Is that like being 'kind of'pregnant? 'Kind of' human, 'kind of" a half-wit? "Well, either you do or you don't," I state the obvious. "Well, I looked at one in town," she replies. Right. That'll help.

Doug and I forthwith ignored her. Idiots in the backcountry aren't my responsibility until they are officially lost and I have to go out and look for them.

We skied a run down, broke trail from the bottom of our run, back to our uptrack, and skied back up for a second run. Our track had obviously been relatively well traveled in our absence and we were not surprised to find that two more female skiers had followed our track up and were at the top of the run. We also passed the solo skier who had skied down the top 100 metres of the run right by the up-track and was skinning back up. Clearly, she had no idea where to go and was at least showing some common sense by staying near the uptrack.

As we took our skins off on top of our second run, the solo skier arrived, saw the two new skiers and attached herself limpet like to them - the outcome she had been hoping for all day. We skied down well away from this happy group of idiots.

After our second run, we decided to call it a day. We broke trail back to our up-track again, and found the three women staggering along it exhausted although they hadn't broken a single step of trail. We flashed passed them as they stood gasping by the trail side.

Coming back through Hummingbird Pass, there were yet more idiots out and about. The skin-track had been deeply pock-marked by boot tracks, there were half a dozen backpacks, with various bits and pieces hanging off the outside strewn right along the middle of the track, and people were up on the steep avalanche prone slopes on either side of the Pass, filming each other skiing down. All this, in the middle of one of the biggest terrain traps in the area.

"What sort of clusterf**k is this?" I asked Doug as I skied quickly through, hoping none of the idiots chose that moment to launch down and trigger an avalanche on my head. In front of me, I could see Doug hurling backpacks off the trail like an Olympian competing in the shot-put. It was funny to watch packs go winging through the air while the owners of the backpacks chattered away like squirrels behind us.

Stupid is as stupid does, I thought.

Hurrying out through Hummingbird Pass before the idiots get us