I’d only ever gone ski touring once and it was for my AST1 course*. Due to the whole ‘knee debaucle’ I haven’t had a chance to use the training or head out back. So for my first season returning to the sticks after surgery and an exhausting amount of rehab, all I wanted was to do a backcountry ski tour and go sleep in a hut. My girl math did the calculations and it didn’t seem like it would be too much or difficult of a trip.

And so I bought, borrowed, and assembled the gear, strapped on my skins, and ventured into the backcountry with my granola bars and somewhat of an underestimated idea.

*for those of you who don’t speak ski, ‘touring’ is essentially hiking on snow on skis, and AST is Avalanche Skills Training.

Kicking off from Diamond Head parking lot, we were an eager bunch with our backpacks, starting off a little too strong just babbling away, catching up, doing intros. How could you not when you finally get the trip out of the group chat and into the beautiful landscape, knowing that you’re heading deeper into the mountains where no notification, email or doomscroll can find you.

But yea, before we knew it we (I) were needing a break.

Then some more skinning, and another break.

And what started off as cute flurries become heavy wet snow. Time for another break, layer up with that goretex, hood up, and anotehr bite of my granola bar.

As with every group activity, everyone has a role that they play whether it was assigned or adopted.

OS, trip organiser. AM, speedy guy with the wax. TG, the one with the wine, and great ‘novice’ moments. JJ, your best ally and cheerleader. Me, the video/photographer girl. Certainly not the one with the map - that was WF-B.

So, I had no idea how long the hike was going to be, where we planned on having breaks, elevation, what kind of terrain to expect.

With all my gear, I had no idea.

Technically speaking, the first 2hrs was just switchbacks and a persistent uphill through the path in the trees. About 5kms in there’s Red Heather Shelter: an emergency shelter with two tables, a wood-burning heater (it wasn’t on) and a map showing all the way to The Gargoyles and Diamond Head. You can’t sleep here but it’s a great spot to stop for lunch, to warm up a little, but also popular for day touring and using it as a base to do snowy laps.

From Red Heather you’re officially in the backcountry. The terrain is predominantly simple* and some pockets of challenging. On this trip we’d never encounter anything complex, that’s all found beyond our Elfin shelter.

*Terrain grading is: 1, Simple. 2, Challenging. 3, Complex.

After having to hear “the worst part is over”, “it gets easier from here”, “we’re over halfway” enough times, the sense of time and how long you’ve been walking gets lost with the wind - literally. Throughout the day we experienced almost all four seasons - started with mild little snowflakes, that morphed into heavy wet slops, then sum glorious sunshine, that brought it’s cloudy over-bearing sister, and finally broke through the cloud layer to our final stretch.

On this journey, many lessons were learned and observations made:

• You DO NOT need an insulated bottom layer. Why on earth would I need to be warm for a heat-inducing activity… clearly my two brain cells couldn’t make that calculation. And I ended up overheating and the sweat in this mid layer was tugging at my skin with every stride. Never, again.

• I’m thankful for my rental gear (avi kit, and skis, boots and skins), but be prepared for them to perform at the ‘rental’ level. My skins simply wouldn’t glide. I could tell that my pace was the same as the group, but my speed was slow and I was spending more energy keeping up with everyone or having to ask to stop.
  Thankfully AM had some skin wax and I was moving a little faster the next day, but only as fast as rental gear would allow.

• Yes, I’m fit and I exercise, I’m not out of shape. However there is nothing in the gym that can prepare you for hiking with a backpack and all that weight on your legs. It’s a totally different field of endurance and strength, so remember to be kind to yourself and what you can accomplish.

• The backcountry is quiettttt. Just stop and listen and you’ll notice you’re in a white void, not a single siren, plane, milk frother, pedestrian crossing ‘ding’ or ringtone. And there is so much peace in it <3

• Water is the essence of life, and my hydration bladder was the mvp of my kit. As I’m panting up this mountain, sweating my bodyweight in poorly chosen attire, the last thing I wanted to do was take off my pack and rummage for a water bottle. Instead I could just suck on the tubey tube and H2ohhhhhh :)

• Chocolate and sweets are great snacks. I didn’t bring any, no, but the others did and thank god!

After +5hrs of touring, we finally made it to Elfin Shelter. There was already a young group of 12 there that had taken over much of the communal space, but we managed to snag and share a table.

The entire hike up we were encouraging ourselves by the gourmet reward that awaited us at the cabin. To OS’s full credit of an idea, we had planned for a little charcuterie and wine evening. So after having unpacked, hung up our wets and skins, rolled out our mats, we popped open some bagged wine. Such a great idea - that feeling of sitting down with friends after a long hike, finally being able to relax and put our feet up, nibble on some meat and cheese and crackers with a glass of red in hand, looking out of the cabin at the silent mountains. And once night falls, you can see so many teeny tiny stars that city lights narcissistically compete against, that you can’t help but your jaw to drop when the see the night sky again in all its depth and dazzle.

It’s these moments where core memories are made.

The rest of the evening consisted of finishing said gourmet meal, having our dehydrated dinners (mine was pad thai for two portions - ate half and saved the rest for lunch the next day), playing cards in the dark with our head torches. The shelter doesn’t have any running water so we were also constantly filling big pots with snow and melting them on the stoves, adding a neutralising tablet for everyone staying over to use for cooking or drinking. There’s also no toilet paper so we shared our little tissues and rolls (which some of us knew to bring) with each other.

The following day, we had our cups of coffee, whatever breakfast we’d packed (there were some banana bread, granola bars, dehydrated breakfast something, etc), geared up, and ventured back out.

Some of us were feeling worse for wear, with either having a poor night’s sleep due to overheating in our sleeping bags or the sleep songs from neighbouring bunkers who we could hear through our earplugs. The blisters from day one were also feeling rather tender.

But it’s all okay - we only needed to tour for half of the route, and then we’d get to ski down the rest of the way! This is the part that I was looking forward to the most. “Beer, pizza, ice cream. Beer, pizza, ice cream.” is what you would’ve heard if you’d passed us that morning.

Unfortunately, my glorious ski turns didn’t go as I’d hyped them up to be. As soon as I transformed my boots into ski mode, they pressed onto every mildly sore areas (everywhere) and clamped down into pain. And for whatever reason I couldn’t seem to get any flexion in the boot, like, at all. So the entire way down I was terrified of being too upright and my body being in the wrong position on my skis and then dun dun duuuun - hurt myself (again).

Aside from ^ that, though, the snow had a slight crust on top and so we didn’t get any Ski Magazine worthy turns or shots (I forgot to take pictures of us skiing….). Instead it felt like we were surfing on snow, levitating slightly, and skating across the surface leaving our squiggle lines behind.

Back at the parking lot, with our notifications finally flooding back in, AM came through with our celebratory surprise beers :) Sharing our rose, bud and thorns with each other, laughing at how freeing our feet feel out of our boots, smiles thinking that we were only just here yesterday and so much has happened that will be engrained in our memories forever. <3

While this was a lot of fun and picture worthy, venturing into backcountry territory is not a game. You need knowledge, the right gear + clothing, cautious risk level, correct attitude, etc. So don’t be like the 12 snowshoers we encountered who came out trampling all the snow and didn’t bring a single avi kit.

Check your local area for backcountry avalanche courses and get the knowledge before your first venture.

Here’s a generic packing list I found online to get you started, and adjust where you need depending on your body temperature, the weather, what your group is bringing and what you can share between you two. Your local outdoor retailers may also do rentals so don’t forget to check those out too!

And this was my personal packing list for the trip.

nb: it doesn’t list the items that other members of the group brought for us to use collectively (eg, jetboil, water tablets)