Sharing some images of a few days’ work-party at Hišimy̓awiƛ in mid December (is ‘work-party’ an oxymoron?). Beta on the conditions is quickly out of date of course, but for the record we hiked from the bottom of the 8 km hill and booted it up without skis. Sections of the old growth were pretty icy with relatively thin snow cover. This was before the arctic outflow of late December 2021, but definitely deep winter up there, complete with glorious light shows.
Workers’ breakfast with a view
Morning light on Cat’s Ears
The guys were out erecting scaffolding and ladders at first light. A major task was to remove and replace two broken solar panels on the roof, and prepare for the installation of additional panels later.
Martin, Ray and Keith securing the new panels
Martin spent hours at the top of the ladder working on the camera.
He’s still up there at sunset.
It’s humbling to see what goes into keeping the hut in pristine state behind the scenes. The hut committee and other volunteers are amazing in the skills, energy and dedication they give to this. There is so much that the photos don’t show - such as the heavy packs of tools and iron-mongery hauled up there, the biting cold on exposed hands, or crawling underneath the plugged up belt in the outhouse.
I’ll spare you the details, but maintenance of the outhouse is a concern. The state-of-the-art urine-diverting toilet works extremely well for human waste, but it cannot handle the massive amounts of toilet paper that are being thrown there. Please, all hut guests, consider this as something you can do to contribute quietly to the maintenance of this place: minimise the toilet paper you use, and carry your used paper down with you. (A small plastic bag in an outer pocket of a backpack works well for this.)
The place is getting a lot of use and a lot of love and we want to keep it looking like this.
Martin Hofmann, Ray Billings, Keith Battersby, Alcina De Oliveira, Catrin Brown