Skiing in the Winter Wilderness

Table of Contents

Skis to the Winter Wilderness : Page 2
Skis to the Winter Wilderness : Page 3
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AN INTRODUCTION

The wind had a mean edge on it as it curved to cross the crest of the Sierra Nevada and found us there, two thousand feet above the site of the Donner Party tragedy, trying to find out how to camp in deep snow. It was deep snow that caught the Donners' immigrants back in 1846. Thirty-six people died from cold and starvation, and more would have starved, probably, but for cannibalism.

Our exposed spot on the crest was not where you would expect to find a father pushing fifty, much less being pushed by his two teenage sons. But there we were anyway, and by plan.

We knew that California has come (or gone) quite a distance since the Donner Party's ordeal. Skiing technique has progressed quite a bit too since Snowshoe Thompson carried the trans-Sierra mails in the late 'fifties (the eighteen-fifties, that is) on his eleven-foot skis and since his contemporaries set 85-mile-per-hour speed records in the earliest American ski races on record.