Tetrahedron: A Stagette Party in the Backcountry

On a sunny Saturday morning nine of us headed to Tetrahedron, on the Sunshine Coast to celebrate Pascale’s upcoming marriage, on a girls only trip, also known as a Stagette. I was excited by my late pick up time of 7:55am, especially due to the fact that Gili left our nice warm bed before dawn. Sometimes it’s nicer to be on a relaxing easy going trip than on a slog fest. Of course, I was also happy to go on a trip with a bunch of cheerful people and to explore a place I haven’t been to before.

We met with the rest of the crew at Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal. Once on the ferry Anne dressed up Pascale in pink while the rest of us enjoyed fresh croissants from Plaisir Sucre, Fabrice’s French Bakery (thanks Pascale!). This was just the beginning of the eating fest (and drinking fest for some) that was a top priority of the weekend.

Tiphaine also made a “mini Ignacio” for Pascale (her future husband), but apparently he was forgotten on the top of the car and flew off as they were getting off the ferry. Thankfully, they managed to find him, but he was a bit damaged. During the trip to the hut he also lost an arm or a leg, or maybe both.

The trailhead was up a logging road that Pascale’s car and Cora’s truck climbed easily. As we parked, the rest of the girls put on their “scary Igancio” masks, also courtesy of Tiphaine, and indeed managed to look very scary. I was in charge of taking the pictures, thank goodness.

We decided to go to Edwards Cabin, about 6km away and 250 meters elevation gain. Pretty sweet. We took a long lunch break and enjoyed the sun. It became pretty hot so a few girls decided to strip down to their underwear and ski with a tutu on. We crossed two lakes and then finally arrived to the picturesque cabin.

We had many hours to kill, so we enjoyed the sun, exchanged stories on how we met our partners (or former partners), and drank some wine. A few of us could not let a girls trip pass without a proper girls fight that included snow ball throwing and rolling in the snow. Some of the girls also kept themselves busy by building a rather phallic castle, but I did not take part in that.

After a while two other people showed up, a brother and a sister as it turned out. They were no longer due for the quiet weekend they may have expected, but I am sure they had much more interesting stories to share when they got back home.

Finally it was time for dinner, also known as chocolate fondue time.  So after we finished with the boring portion of the food it was time to melt a lot of chocolate with coconut milk and dip yummy things into it, like bananas, apples, strawberries and cookies. That was the highlight of the evening.

Then there was some crazy dancing with and without Igancio’s scary masks and more drinking. Noriko carried her fiddle up, so she followed the music and also made her own variations. When the brother and sister decided they were heading for bed, the party moved outside, as we gathered around the castle admiring the girls’ creative work.

A few of us headed to bed around 11pm (super late for the backcountry) while the rest stayed up till 2am (!). But it looked like a good night’s sleep was eventually had by all and we woke up to another sunny beautiful day.

We spent more time in the sun (yes, it was a very hard weekend) and then headed back the same way we came. The only part where some of us took our skins off was when we reached the logging road, which was about 1km of bumpy skiing. The rest of the terrain is more like rolling hills, so keeping the skins on for the way out was a good idea.

We arrived to the ferry terminal early, so it was time to have more food! Some of us bought ice creams or wraps or coffee and we enjoyed more French cheese once the ice cream was finished. When you go on a trip with three French girls you are guaranteed to eat well.

The ferry ride back was uneventful, but on the way back home we got stuck in the worst traffic jam I’ve been in, in a long time. Luckily we kept ourselves entertained by trying to draw the attention of the boys’ car next to ours, but they kept on ignoring us.

I was home by 7pm, quite early, but was exhausted for some reason. Of course I was already in deep sleep when Gili got home at 2am. It was a really fun weekend, and I was happy to be part of the celebration. Here’s to many more reasons to celebrate!