Story of the Hut Trip - April 2013

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Story of the Hut Trip

By Eliot

7th Grade -  HPSEL 

We met at the school early in the morning. After checking for all our gear and sorting our food, we departed for Uncle Bud’s trailhead. When we got to the trailhead, we heaved on our heavy packs onto our backs and began our journey skinning and snowshoeing up the trail. Half way up we stopped and ate our packed lunch. We hiked approximately six miles to get to Uncle Bud’s. It was a pretty hard hike, a lot of the time it was snowing.

Along the way, Julia Dramis gave us all nicknames.  The following is a list of our nicknames (in order from grade level)

Parker: Truck Driver

David: Gold Digger

Audrey: Baby Doe

Jessie: Nerf

Eliot: Rabbit foot

Julia: Life Guard

Axi: California Girl

Lydia: Headache

Claudette: Croissant

Sara: Honey Bear

Mack: Mack-Attack

Daniel: Thing one

Christian: Thing two

Michael: Thing three

Mrs. Bangtson: Mrs. Candy

Mr. Bangtson: Mr. Candy

Ms. Mack: Macklemore

So when we finally got to the hut, a lot of us were feeling pretty exhausted and some had headaches, but we rested and recovered. We played card games, a main tradition we do at this hut. We also started a puzzle, which we also worked on for hours throughout the trip. On the first night, we had pesto pasta for dinner and for dessert, home made ice cream and fresh baked cookies. During dessert we shared our biggest challenge and biggest success of the day. After we resumed our cards games.  Card games we usually play on the trip include: spoons, B.S, signal, and speed. For this trip, two card games were added. These were Egyptian Ratslap and 007. A while after desert, we went to bed.

On the second day, we had scrambled eggs and bacon. After we cleaned up breakfast, we went on a hike. We explored up the mountain some more and made it to the saddle of a pass between the two peaks.  Here, we had our lunch of bagel sandwiches. Then we hiked higher as it got windier. We hiked up a bare mountain ridge with snow blowing everywhere. When we got to a good stopping area we checked the snow for avalanche danger by digging an avalanche pit. The snow was okay, so we skied down this area (except for David, Sara, and myself because we had snowshoes instead of skins). When we got back to the hut, we relaxed and played card games, and made jello. For dinner, we ate mexican with chicken and steak. For desert, we made s’mores by the fire made by The Things (Christian, Daniel, and Michael). Afterwards, tired from the day, we went to bed.

The next morning, a group of students skied the slope just outside Uncle Bud’s, while the rest of us made French toast for breakfast.  After breakfast, we cleaned up the hut and packed. To decide who would carry what, we played spoons. In spoons, you try to get four of the same suit of cards by passing around cards and deciding weather you wanted to keep or trade the card in your hand. Spoons lie in the middle and there is one less spoon then players. Once you get four of a kind, you grab a spoon. When everybody sees this, they try to grab spoons too, and whoever doesn’t get one is eliminated. In our game, if you get eliminated, you choose what to carry down the mountain. Daniel won our game going against Claudette in the final round. When we skied down, the snowshoe kids rode on other people’s back or on the tails of their skis (I have to admit, it was pretty fun). After finally making it down, we had Pizza provided from my dad who manages a pizzeria. This concluded our hut trip.