Nocturnal Nastiness
Saturday night I hit up Alta for some night shooting with Erik Seo, Max Kusaj, and Julian Carr.
After a gripping ride up the canyon (stuck behind a plow…much swearing insued), Erik and I met up with Julian and Max. We grabbed one of the last chairs up Collins and then poled, tucked, and skated like maniacs to the Sunnyside lift. In accordance to Murphy’s law I zigged when I should have zagged and ended up hiking like crazy (with 50lb pack on) to get back to the correct trail. We scooted under the rope just as it was closing and thanked whatever all powerful being helped us pull off the late arrival.
With lifting out of the way we hung out in the top patrol shack (thanks Alta patrol!) waiting until the time was right to shoot. Dice were rolled, peanuts were flung, and cancer sticks were smoked before we moved on to set up the shoot. At the risk of ruining the surprise I’ll skip over the next two-three hours of lights, ’sending, swearing at equipment, swimming through snow, cursing headlamps, yelling at transmitters, peeing into the wind, snacking, rationing water, thanking the powers (again) for a stable pack, and finally…skiing out under the cover of darkness.
Skiing out with headlamps while its pounding snow is something else, of the three of us (Max kicked a ski and jetted early), I was the only one with non-fogged goggles. One hell of an interesting ride down that I might or might not do again, but a great experience in the end. Julian spotted Lynx tracks at one point and within a short time after we started singing show tunes the FRESH tracks veered quickly into the woods. We were almost an episode of those stupid reality ‘animals attack’ reality shows, not too shabby eh?
End of the night? A slippery ride down the canyon in Seo’s truck, a beer at the Porcupine with Julian, and a quick meal at Denny’s. Props to whoever does the hiring down in Cottonwood Heights, our waitress was pure entertainment…and I’m relatively sure she was hitting on Seo at one point. Jury is still out. Bedtime.
