I encountered the Adventures section of the Ostrander site the other day, and thought back to the painful and in some way fond memories my wife Ginie and I have of our experience with The Mother of All Storms. Though some dates and names will be fuzzy, our story is a good one that deserves to be included. Check it out, and if you’d like to send us feedback, please write to ksimmons@main.rr.com
I last went to Ostrander in 1996 – and had gone there each year in March with various groups of friends over the previous decade. Our family then moved to the East Coast in 1997– but Ostrander is always on our minds. The company we traveled and stayed with, the amazing backcountry skiing, the gourmet meals, the ambiance and the sheer joy of the many ways in and out of that place will remain in our minds forever.
Our experience with the Howard Weamer-named "Mother of All Storms" will also never be forgotten.
It was the winter of ’91. My wife and had I elected to take a rare trip to the hut by ourselves – in contrast to the large groups we usually traveled with. We had been aware of some amount of weather in the forecast when we headed off for the hut, but whatever the prediction was for snowfall, it either escaped us or was innocuous enough for us not to worry about it.
We traveled to the hut this time (and usually) by the wonderful Horizon Ridge Trail – and favored this way in because of its sweeping vistas of Yosemite and ease in gauging the remaining distance to the hut. We had found the Bridlevail Creek Trail to be a boring slog through woods with little definition, making the trip in seem to take forever. Another plus for Horizon Ridge is the incredible runs off the sides of Horizon Dome – a real bonus for tele skiers.
On our way up the dome, we passed a group of three women who were plainly not ready for the physical demands of the nearly ten mile trip to the hut. They struggled getting up the steep incline of the north face, as they had not brought climbing skins, and really didn’t seem to be fit enough for the trip. As we passed them, we learned that they had a tent with them – a fact that was to become quite significant later on.
We made it to the hut as usual somewhere around dinner time – and were pleasantly surprised to find only one other group there – a young couple (who I’ll call Sarah and Matt– since I forgot their names) accompanied by the woman’s father (let’s call him Jim). They were quite tired – especially the father, who had carried a 70 pound pack laden down with camera gear. Also at the hut were the ever-present and ever-wonderful Howard Weamer (the regular caretaker) and his friend Richard, who then worked summers in Kings/Sequoia as a backcountry ranger.
It started to snow somewhere around then, and we told Howard about the three women out in the storm. He waited a while, called back to the Badger Pass ranger station to see if they had headed back, and hearing that they had not, went out into the storm with Richard to look for them.
Among the many things that make Howard, Michael and George (the rotating Ostrander caretakers) amazing in their own right is their willingness to go out into the darkness of Ostrander to look for those who don’t arrive at the hut by dinnertime. With a cheerful attitude, and a zeal for darkness, cold, pain, and lack of navigation, they will readily go out into the most horrid imaginable conditions to help assure that weary travelers find their way.
In this case though, they were unable to find said travelers. They skied all the way back to the near base of Horizon Ridge, and with no sign of the women, returned to the hut. Knowing that their group had a tent reassured the rangers that at least they had the basic necessities needed for survival – and that kept them from calling out the militia.
And then it snowed – and snowed. And after that, it snowed some more. It snowed all night and throughout the next day – and on top of accumulations from the past week, by the end of that next day, recent snowfall totaled over ten feet.
Telemarking was out of the question, as were snowball fights, strolling on the lake, watching the spring thaw, hunting for wildflowers and birdwatching. We were all severely pinned down by the storm, and after much tea, journal updates, games of the well-worn "Peak Assault" and perusal of the Ostrander guest register, we began to worry about how on earth we would get out of there.
Ginie and I and our three fellow guests had planned to be at the hut for 4-5 days, thinking that in mid-March, we would be reveling in the corn snow and developing the savage tans that would label us as rugged mountain folk back at the office. But, when the world outside disappeared as the falling snow rose above the level of the hut’s windows, we realized that the trip out would be no small task. With no real assurance that the falling snow would end, we made a group decision to go for it together early the next morning – thinking that five sets of legs would be better than two or three.
At seven the next morning, after an early awakening and some of Richard’s killer backcountry cinnamon rolls (hint: the amenities at Ostrander are inversely proportional to the number of people there), we got underway – and instantly learned about the difficulty before us. The new snow had compressed somewhat – but we still had hike through easily three feet of thick powder. Taking turns breaking trail, the five of us covered the short 3/4 mile between the hut and the bottom of Heartbreak Hill (known for its psychological torture of those almost to the hut) in two hours. We had nine miles to go to the parking lot at Badger Pass, and in those conditions, we knew it was going to be a long day.
Just as we reached the bottom of Heartbreak Hill, we heard a sound behind us, and turned around to see Howard and Richard arrive – enjoying the nicely set cross-country track we had put down for them.
They kindly volunteered to break trail going up Horizon Dome, and set out ahead, their fresh legs now much more efficient than ours had been. Just past the top of the dome they came upon the three missing women, who were bunkered down in their completely buried tent and awaiting someone to come and help them out of their predicament.
As Howard and Richard set to work packing up the tentbound party, we said our farewells and headed down the backside of Horizon Dome.
I should mention our surroundings. Yosemite is, without any further adornment, one of the most stunning places on earth, but with the addition of fresh snow plastered over every single thing in sight, the place took on a special majesty. We were fueled by mind-numbing beauty throughout our day as we witnessed that place as few will ever get to see it.
As we started down the north side of the dome, Jim’s seventy-pound pack began to rear its ugly head. Ginie and I were out front breaking trail, and in the deep snow we were taking a line that went straight down the mountain. But because of this, by the time those behind us followed our tracks, what they were skiing on was more akin to a luge course than the slow slog we had experienced. Sarah and Matt, with their thirty-pound packs, did fine, but Jim’s
pack served only to yank him over backward each time he tried to move forward. We collectively decided it would be best if he took the pack off and tied it behind him with a length of rope – thus serving as a kind of anchor.
The pack did not agree with this strategy. As he tried to move down the mountain, the pack stubbornly submarined itself under the snow, grinding poor Jim to a halt. Using various systems and having each of us take turns with the pack, we finally reached the bottom of the grade.
Our trip had now consumed close to four hours, and we still had three miles of flat to cover before reaching Glacier Point Road – and then another five miles after that of travel on the road itself. Glacier Point Road is closed in the winter to car traffic, but is a well-traveled cross-country route, serving skiers from Badger Pass. Because of this, we had high hopes that when we reached the road it would be packed, thus allowing us to travel at a more normal pace.
Being off the ridge was something of a blessing, as Jim could now use his pack without the dreaded toboggan effect, but there was a new phenomenon on the flats we hadn’t reckoned on – the snow we had to slog through was easily a foot deeper. We attributed this difference to the wind – which blew snow from the ridges down into the surrounding valleys and consolidated the snow on the ridges. The reason didn’t really matter. What did matter (significantly) was that the going was now much, much harder. I am over six feet tall, and the snow reached above my waist. It was no longer possible to push one’s skis through the snow, step, after step – we now need to pull each ski straight up through the thick snow and then push it down ahead.
We were exhausted as we started through the flats, but our group was committed to finishing that day – or that night. In response to the challenging conditions, we began a regime of taking turns breaking trail. The current leader would get out in front and fight through the snow until they had to stop, and then another would take their place. In time, each person began removing their pack to make the going easier when their turn came, and then returning to get
the pack skiing over compressed snow.
This trip would have been a Herculean task for anyone – and it was inevitable that the differences in conditioning and stamina would become more pronounced as the day wore on. Ginie won the endurance test, far and away. I was the runner up, with Sarah and Matt not far behind. Jim and his seventy-pound appendage brought up the rear. This became the order of leaders that day – and everyone worked absolutely as hard as they were humanly capable of.
After ten hours, it began to get dark – and around six o’clock we reached Glacier Point Road – which, from a mileage standpoint, was our halfway point. Mercifully, the road had been plowed at some point in the last few days, and though it wasn’t packed out, the depth of the snow was less than a foot, and traveling became much easier.
Easier is in this case a relative term – and the going on the road was painful. Each of us had worked harder that day than at any point in our lives, and it was only the prospect of a warm meal, warm bed and civilization that kept us moving.
Around ten that night – sixteen hours after we started – we finally reached the Badger Pass parking lot – the typical staging area for those skiing in to Ostrander. The sight before us was a funny one. The parking lot was completely empty and meticulously plowed – save for two enormous mounds of over ten feet tall. It took us a moment to realize that these piles contained our cars – and that the lot was that clean because the ski area had been closed for
the last few days.
Ginie and I hobbled over toward the maintenance building at the ski area to check in – as we wanted to let Howard and Richard know that we had made it safely and to report on the status of the women behind us (who we hadn’t seen in more than eight hours). We startled a cat operator who was just getting ready to leave for the night, and he kindly agreed to help us get our cars out of their cocoons. With his truck and a length of chain, he made short work of
a task that would have taken more time and energy than any of us had remaining.
We all then drove off toward the valley, and our new friend opened the Badger gate to let us out. We felt fortunate to have gotten there before he left for the night.
Ginie and I had the good fortune to get a room at the Yosemite Lodge, and I can assure you that no bed has ever felt better anywhere.
The next morning, we indulged ourselves with a long, luxurious breakfast at the Awahnee Hotel, and the vision of the valley through the tall windows in the dining room was an incredible one. I have seen the Valley in every month of the year, and in rain, sun, snow, morning light, sunset and every other imaginable condition, but this was the best. There was a fresh blanket of snow on everything, and the wind had plastered the snow against all the big rock faces. We felt lucky to be there.
And the feeling of having worked that hard to survive was an extraordinary one. We will never complain about Heartbreak Hill again. In the days that followed, we had more than our share of cramps and soreness, but the astounding accomplishment behind us made this all worthwhile. We saw nature, it challenged us, and we rose to the challenge. Our long and tiring trip out of Ostrander that day has become a metaphor in our lives for difficult situations, and we have realized many times that because we kept going that day and finished the trip that few other challenges in our lives will be insurmountable. That’s a pretty cool feeling.
We had exchanged addresses with Matt, Sarah and Jim, and a few months after the trip, we received an extraordinary surprise in the mail. Sarah had made us each beautiful, hand drawn t-shirts with the official name of the event (The Mother of All Storms) and the date – along with a friendly note thanking us for our role in the day. Wherever you are, thanks again for that day and your gift – and if you like, please write and remind us of your real names. We forgot your names, but we will never forget your stamina.
Thanks for the memories.
