Recalling a decade of backcountry
skiing in Montana and a good friend
lost to fate
by John Burbidge
Backcountry Magazine, December 2001
The Tepee! You gotta get up there,
JP tells me. You’ve heard of it, right?
We used to have it in Grant Creek Basin
behind Snowbowl Ski Area, until Kurt
got buried in that avalanche and the
Forest Service found out about it and
kicked us off because we didn’t have a
permit. So we moved it over to Wisherd
Ridge up the Blackfoot. It’s tucked away
at the base of the bowls in a place where
nobody will find it. Timber company land,
so we don’t need a permit anyway, they
couldn’t care less. The skiing is awesome,
three beautiful bowls, great powder turns,
fresh all the time. You’ve never telemarked?
Well Wolfie’s got an extra pair of skis, we’ll
rent you some boots--you downhill ski, right?
Telemarking’s not hard, you’ll figure it out.
You gotta get up to the Tepee!
A year goes by. I never get up there.
You gotta get up to the Tepee, man! JP tells me. Well I wanted to last year, but it never worked out.
Well, make it work out this year, you gotta get up there, it’s a blast. Well, okay, sometime….. Well,
how about this weekend? JP pushes the issue. There’s already a bunch of people going. Some
beginners, too. Some women . . . are you in? Uh….Yeah, okay. I’m in, I guess. I’ll see what this
tepee is all about.
Then it’s after work Friday, rush hour, renting gear, getting groceries, 12 people, drive around, pick
‘em up, takes forever. Eight o’clock dark, we’re finally at the parking area and it’s cold, windy,
unfamiliar, scary. I assemble the foreign ski gear, hop around on the snow, get ready to shoulder
my already heavy pack when somebody hands me a 12-pack to stack on top of everything else—it’s
an initiation of sorts. You carry everything you possibly can then toss another 12-pack on top. A
huge black lab bumps my leg, who’s dog is it?! That’s Pete, JP says, he belongs to Garrison but
Garrison let’s us bring him up here. Crazy ass dog, humps all his food and 12 tall-boy beers in his
dog pack. Strong, runs the bowls with us all day long in the deepest powder, and smart, really
smart, avalanche dog I think. If the day ever comes when Pete won’t charge down the bowls, trust
his judgment, ski the trees.
JP takes the lead. Twelve people in a line, eight who’ve never been before, how many can fit in the
Tepee? JP says eighteen people and three dogs is the record. Well how many miles till we get
there? Five or six, not bad. Skinning up the snowy logging road, higher and higher, switchbacking,
traversing on for hours through the wind and darkness, seeing by starlight because the moon’s not
up yet. We’re cutting off the road, uh oh. JP is breaking trail through the woods—how does he know
where the hell he’s going? DOES he know where he’s going? Do I really know this guy that well? Do
I trust him? Follow in his tracks, trudging on, winding around trees, over deadfall, up and up and on
and on. I stop when JP stops. How you doing? he asks. Fine, it’s really cool out here. Yep, it is. I
resist the impulse to ask how much farther. He flicks on his headlamp and suddenly the Tepee
appears illuminated in the light, right in front of us. It’s huge, buried in show, golden, solid, amazing.
We’re here, JP says. We are here.
Everybody straggles up as we begin the ritual of digging out the doorway and the perimeter of the
canvas and the woodpile and a path to the privy. The process is slow but rewarding as we shape
with shovels what will be our home for the next three days. When the door flap is clear somebody
goes in and starts a fire in the stove which isn’t hard JP tells me because the fixings are always left
in place because that’s the last thing you do whenever you leave the Tepee—you ALWAYS put
paper and kindling in the stove and matches on top for the next people who arrive exhausted and
cold like us in the dark. I nod, realizing he’s initiating me.
Hours later we’re settled in, fire cranking, cozy warm, lounging on our sleeping pads on the cushy
pine-bough floor around the wood stove with beers and wine and all our wet clothes hung up to
dry. Exhausted, ready for bed. I am so ready for bed, ahhhh, lean back, drift off. Okay, JP says, let’s
go ski. I jerk awake. What, are you crazy? Eight of us new recruits look at him incredulously. Sure,
full moon ski, he says. There’s a full moon rising out there as we speak, lighting up those bowls like
floodlights. Get your shit on, we’re going skiing!
A few of us protest meekly—oh my god, I’ve never even telemarked before, this is crazy. But we see
there is no choice. Can’t look wimpy, can’t fail this test, another initiation, how many are there? So,
sigh, pick the warm and dry clothes off the line, put them on, on with the sweaty-cold boots, hats,
gloves, but what about goggles? Do I need goggles at night, JP? Peeps, shovels, headlamps, water.
Out through the door flap, into the dark, scrape the ice off the bindings, the skis are as tired as us,
they’re stiff and unhappy that we’ve woken them up. Put the pins in the hole, strap on the stiff
cables. JP in the lead again, just get in line and skin through the moonlight. Don’t even think about
it. We follow like sheep.
And it’s bright, amazingly
bright. Cool! Now I’m
waking up. Skin toward
the ridge, up through
the tight trees, openings,
pockets, we’re on the
crest of Wisherd Ridge
now and the moonlight
mountain world seems
ours for the taking. Sit
on your pack, laugh, drink,
gaze, no wind now, no
sounds, ssshhhh, listen
to nothing. Then JP stands
up, points a pole over the
ridge crest and says Susie
Bowl is right there. Why’s
it called Susie Bowl? Be-
cause, JP says, the first
year we moved the Tepee
to Wisherd Ridge we didn’t
know what we were doing,
we dragged the canvas all the way to the crest, near where we are right now, but didn’t have time
to set it up ‘cause it was dark and late. We spent a freezing night in a storm in some trees around a
fire, drinking whiskey and singing “Wake up, Little Susie” to stay warm and keep spirits up. We
sang it over and over. The next morning we saw the beautiful bowl below, and named it after the
drunken refrain. The constant wind on the ridge that year convinced us to move the Tepee 800 feet
below, where it sits now, sheltered in the trees. Everybody listens silently to JP’s story. We are
being initiated.
But we won’t ski Susie tonight, he says. Too many beginners, avalanches maybe, better stick to the
trees, safer. This way, he says—then he’s gone. We follow. Creaky leather rented boots, old three-
pin bindings on narrow double-camber skis, I’m careening through the moonlit woods, I make a few
telemark turns, my first ever, then sit on my butt and crash, get up and make a few more turns. The
gang’s all around me, crashing and burning, we’re an army of gigglers zooming through the pines in
fresh powder, who’s over there? where’s Steve? where’s Renee? did they head off that way, will
they know how to get back to the Tepee? For many of us, it’s a first-time telemark experience that
we will never forget, an incredible mixture of uncertainty and exaltation.
Back in the Tepee, later that night, everybody’s safe, fire dying down, tucked in our warm bags,
Pete the lab guarding the door and snoring lightly. The orange light of embers seeps from the stove
and dances on the canvas walls. The Tepee even has a loft, a wooden raft strapped to the poles up
high, and three people are sleeping up there. This is amazing, truly amazing, I think. I don’t know if
I’ve ever felt so satisfied. JP, lying next to me, reaches over and taps. I’m glad you finally made it up
here, he says, really glad. So am I, I tell him. Really glad. I think I’m hooked.
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