Brew Hut Ski Trip
The Brew Hut is one of the four huts maintained by the University of British Columbia’s Varsity Outdoor Club. More information about the hut and its history is available here
My friends Henk and Anna had planned a trip to the hut with some friends they made hiking the PCT, and invited me to come along. Since we all had Monday off for MLK Day, our plan was to spend Saturday getting to the hut, do some skiing on Sunday, and then head back out Monday.
Day 1: Up we go
After collecting more friends along the way, a quick night in Vancouver, an unexpected coolant leak from the van foreshadowing, and some chain-based shenanigans on snowy forest roads, we hit the trail around 10:30am.
📷: Tippy-Top
The first two miles or so were on a forest road, making for relatively quick progress. Other than one group on snowmobiles we had the trail to ourselves, and decided to stop for lunch before turning off the road.
As we progressed up the trail, Lizard began struggling with her poorly fitting borrowed skis and boots, and the group decided it would be more efficient for her to proceed on foot. This led to some interesting gear setups:
📷: Tippy-Top
But given that the snow was quite firm, turning into ice in the treed sections, those of us without ski crampons probably ended up struggling the most
📷: Lizard
The sun began to set as we continued up, making for beautiful views.
I refused to turn on my headlamp, walking into the hut around 6:40pm asserting we had made it before dark. Although over 20 people had self-registered on the hut signup page, we were met with only one other group of 4. They had already started melting some water, and we sat down together for dinner before crawling into our sleeping bags for an early night.
Day 2: Skiing and a Treasure Hunt
We woke up to beautiful clear skies, and the other group in the hut soon left back for their cars. Tippy-Top as our experienced local relayed to us that the club that maintains the hut had helicoptered in some firewood, but had been unable to stash it in the woodshed before the first winter storm. With a rough idea of where it had been dropped, we decided to spend our morning doing some probing and digging - good practice for those of us in the group newer to backcountry travel and avalanche rescue.
We had a quick lunch
Then at last it was time to ski!
We started with a mellow warm-up down to East Lake, and brought a hatchet in case we found some moderately-accessible running water, which we did:
📷: Tippy-Top
And then went for a longer lap on the aptly-named “Doorstep Run”, going almost fully down to the lake Northwest of the hut.
📷: Tippy-Top
Tippy-Top and Anna headed in, and Henk and I decided we had the appetite for one more lap. We headed over to one of the coluoirs South of the lake, and even with less than ideal snow conditions had a fun descent.
We headed back up to the hut around sunset, comfortably following our skin tracks from earlier in the day. Henk’s skins started to fail, leading to some fun MacGyvering, as well as me touring with a second pair of skis on my back yet again as he bootpacked up the steeper sections.
Thus delayed, we made it back to the hut in the dark and excitedly dug into our dinners.
However, the day was far from over. For the good of future hut users, Tippy-Top convinced us to go out for yet another round of digging, and after adjusting our location based on some new updates he had since gotten, we finally struck gold… well, wood.
This wood was a bit drier than the few logs we had found so far, and after some more “engineering” of a firestarter using wood chips and skin wax melted in the bottom of a beer can, we fell asleep to the relief of a crackling fire.
Day 3: Over and Out
We woke up the next morning and made preparations for our return home. Henk and I headed out a bit earlier, looking to check off another couloir, and with Henk using Lizard’s unused skins made a relatively quick lap before collecting our things and heading off to chase down the rest of the group.
Lizard once again made quick progress with her microspikes and had a nice nap in the van while the rest of us took a longer way around, hoping to get in a few more turns on snow rather than the icy treed bootpack. We arrived at the cars around 5pm, and headed back to Squamish for some well-deserved burritos.
This was my first hut trip, and my first tour of the season, and even with the gear and firewood issues I had a wonderful time. While the snowpack did not make for the best quality of skiing, it made for a very safe and approachable tour, well suited for our group’s experience level. I hope to visit the remaining VOC huts soon!
