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Pillow Lines In Memory Of A Friend

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Just over a year ago, my dear friend Adam Lawton passed away, the victim of an avalanche in the mountains surrounding Kicking Horse, British Columbia. For the anniversary of Adam’s passing this year, a group of friends honored him on a trip to the Bill Putnam Fairy Meadow Hut run by the Alpine Club of Canada,  the trip that never was the year before because of Adam’s death. The trip was a reunion of the Skier Boyz, a close-knit family of skiers spread around the country, who originally met at Alta, joined by overactive senses of humor. Throughout the trip, we enjoyed Adam’s constant presence in our minds, sharing stories about him.

Over the years, various members of the original group have graduated from the ranks of full-time ski bums to all kinds of big-kid jobs, which resulted in a spectrum of what people had budgeted for the trip. But when we arrived in Golden at the Rondo Motel, with two rooms for 10 people, we all were “living the dream,” sleeping stacked like cordwood nestled among damp boots, boxes of food, and beacon batteries.

After a little light touring the first day, we rallied up to Chatter Creek to check in for our Bell 212 flight to the hut, piling in four across in two rows, with the last of the group sitting shotgun.

We ended up with a private week at the hut, so the 10 of us expanded our footprint into all the nooks and crannies of the space, designed to accommodate 20. The whole thing couldn’t have been scripted better, as more than three feet of snow fell over the first five days. Playing it safe was the name of the game as we skied pillow after pillow in the trees. Like the year before, skiing the Grizzly area up at Rogers Pass, we found what we started to call ‘video game skiing’: impossibly deep hero snow and perfect terrain, making the skiing as effortless as it was exhilarating. We spent evenings stoking the sauna, playing cards, sharing whiskey, enjoying dinner, and exchanging numerous high fives over the day’s victories.

The trip ended with a single day of bluebird weather allowing us to get into the alpine, do a little glacier travel, and ski some more open lines while getting greater perspective on the Selkirks all around us. The outward enthusiasm of the week turned to quiet reflection after we lifted off in the heli, heading home, grateful for our safety, for the great weather, and for the time spent with friends both right then and in the past.


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