Privilege

Some days, for no particular reason, the world does you an unexpected favour. We had a forecast for a warm afternoon, so it was a 5am brekky. The ground crunched on the hike down to the snowmobiles so I was feeling lucky already. After a 10 minute snowmobile ride we headed up a valley that we'd skied a couple of days ago but, instead of the slope on the right , we headed left to a line I'd spotted a year ago. Almost certainly never skied before, this plum line is visible from the hut and screams "SKI ME".

A steady bootpack led to the ridge at 1100m , and a ski cache at the drop in. Another 200m of crampon action and we were on the summit ridge looking west towards the Arctic ocean. What a privilege, to be in this place doing a first ski ascent in perfect weather with a top team.

Back down to the ski cache, and then the crew were individually belayed over the cornice onto perfect spring snow. 300m of springy delight later, and we were back on known territory, enriched in an immeasurable way. Quite simply, one cannot place a value on this kind of experience.

PICTURE : Lise and Bruce heading down the couloir of perfect springiness - privileged.