Yosemite's East Buttress, and Utah's Orin Hatch

It was great to get away for five days to Yosemite national park where I didn't hear a single commentary on the upcoming election.  We spent 2.5 days of good climbing starting with the East Buttress of El Cap.  It's a route that's been on my list for a long time and I've either been too afraid, or just didn't have the time.  In fact, I haven't been to Yosemite for almost 10 years.  With a forecast for 0% chance of precip and 68 degrees, It was a no brainer.  After leaving SLC at 12:30am Sunday... er, monday morning we arrived early evening Tuesday night for a 5:15 start on the East Buttress.  After watching two parties of three in front of us bail, it was past 8:00am, time was already getting tight.  So we hammered in to pitch one with Kevin on the lead.  It was a nice, wide chimney with a squeeze section to make it interesting.

Then following that was the technical crux (however far from the real crux) of a polished 10b move off the anchor to an expanding 5.9 tube with rattly fingers in the back.  It went well, although not as easily as I had hoped.  Liking pitch 2 and 3 puts you at around 260ft, a bit longer than the rope, but after some struggling and confusion we worked it out.  Such is life with new partners.  Then Kevin took the sharp end to link 4 and 5 in a pretty cool 300ft or so section of easy class 4 up to hard 5.8 (I know, it seems the two are mutually exclusive, but not in the valley). Then the crux pitch 140ft starting with a 2 foot wide arete with 2000ft exposure to one side and no pro leading into a desperate (5.9, ya really) pin scared rail to 100ft of 5.9 offwidth... sick.  I wouldn't force this on anyone, but when you get through it its awesome.  I only almost pitched off 2 times.  Followed by kevin taking the 5.5 ramp to the money 5.7 vertical pitch.  Then I finished it off with 280 ft. of 5.7 to the ridge of El Cap.

About 2000ft off the valley floor, 1000ft up the route

After a quick clean up we headed for the east ledges decent and thankfully had someone to follow.  For all of you 'canyoneering types'  We did a single line rap of a fixed line that must have been over 300ft long, hanging down into pitch black with nothing but a dull headlight shinning on the smooth vertical granite at your feet and a void everywhere above, below, and to the side.  It was surreal.

 An excellent route I would recommend for anyone with the skills to do it.  It is not for the faint of heart, and just because you may be able to climb 10b at the gym, or in BCC, or even LCC, doesn't mean you can do it in Yosemite.  Try out some local routes before jumping on this one as there is no easy out, and the ledges are not good for sleeping after pitch 3.  Falcon has it listed as 13 pitches, we did it in 7, I've seen other who do it in 9.  I read somewhere its about 1400ft.  Not bad for a days work, but far from it's big brothers just down the wall to the west, where the real climbing begins.

 That being said, i must move on to the painful, (but hopefully quick) item of Orin Hatch.  He was the only one (other than Jim Matheson) who responded to my letters about Ski Link.  Matheson responded with a very nice clear reason why he was not supporting it.  Orin Hatch responded differently.  I've post the letter here for you to read.  It is scanned and then changed to a jpeg, sorry the quality is so bad.  Chances are you got the exact same letter since he didn't even acknowledge my position or reasons for Ski Link.  Things I think you should notice:

1.) "The bill also requires compliance to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and Endangered Species Act of 1973" yet what about the 2003 Wasatch-Cache Revised Forest Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement?  It's actually in direct contradiction to the newest, most up to date forest plan?  Why didn't you mention this senator?  Is it consider lying if you just leave some things out?  Check out this excellent article to help explain: http://www.parkrecord.com/letters-to-the-editor/ci_21419809/guest-editorial

2.)  "Estimates show that with this new transportation system more than 500 permanent jobs could be created and infuse more than $50 million in to Utah's economy."  As one un-named state official once told me.  "No one in the utah government structure (except just a few who aren't players) actually recreates, nor do they know anything about recreating.  Rob Bishop doesn't even play golf."  For those of us who have been to ski resorts, worked for ski resorts, even built ski lifts these numbers are absurd.  How many people does it take to run a new ski lift?  Well, lets say 2 lifties at the bottom and 2 at the top plus 1 mechanic.  Total=5.  how many of them are permanent employes or NOT seasonal? Only 1. So if you hired two groups of people to cover an entire week we would have a total of 10, and lets through in 1 manager so eleven total new jobs.  Note:  No more ski patrollers would be required or groomers, because we aren't actually opening 'new' terrain.  So total new jobs=11 total new non-seasonl jobs=3 maybe?  Not to mention the other 9 are minimum wage, no benefits jobs that add maybe 10,000 in income per person.  So 90,000 total gross income increase for the part timers, and lets say 35000 for the mechanic and 20,000 for the manager (these number are very generous for utah) Total jobs created= 11 total new income for people in utah (most of them not local) $145,000.   How about total temp jobs for construction?  From my experience working with Doppelmyer Lifts Company (who builds most of the Canyon's lifts) we operated with a total crew of less than 100 people to build 3 lifts in 6 months.  So one lift, being generous 50 people.  How many of those people where actually from our state?  less than 1/3.

So hire 15 local temp jobs, and bring in 35 outsiders for one summer to create 11 new jobs and $145000 in poverty level income.  That is pretty close to '500 permanent jobs and $50 million in Utah's economy' ( I realize I'm not taking into account additional ticket sales, people coming in for the 'new' interconnect, etc)  So even my educated guess (based on actual experience in the industry)is off by 100% we are still talking almost nothing added to the economy.  I do think Canyon's will see some more tickets, and solitude may get a few mores skiers, but we will have forever sliced the Wasatch in half.

3.) "I continue to be a strong proponent fir giving Utah more local control over Utah's land, and this proposal has a lot of local support."  By giving Utah control of Utah land do you really mean giving Canada control of Utah's land?  And by local support who exactly supports ski link locally?  Why haven't they all posted their support?  I do see lots of opposition.  Please let them post their support for ski link that way we can effectively boycott their products.  Oh wait, or is this why they aren't posting it?

There are definitely other things in the letter that are incorrect and completely wrong, but I'm going to just stick with these few.  Again, I apologize for continuing to use this site for posting these things, but we must act, or as Black Diamond may do, we may end up moving out when their is nothing left.

How much do you love your Wasatch?

Well, I've had a lot of great summer, and really a great year.  Spending time in France, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and Panama.  Yet whenever I leave for long periods of time I still dream about home.  Home for me is the Wasatch Mountains, with a short drive to the desert, the Tetons, City of Rocks, San Juans, Red Rocks, or even Joshua Tree.  But really my heart is in the Wasatch, which is why I feel I must share with you my thoughts on the SkiLink.  Talisker Corporation is a Canadian Development company that recently acquired Canyon's Ski Resort for 123 million and has since attempted to revoke Park City Ski Resort's Land Lease, bulldozed hundreds of trees, built unnecessary lifts, constructed artificial lakes, and many more atrocities against a fragile economical balance as well as devastated the land it owns in the Wasatch.  Now it is attempting to buy a strip of land right through the heart of the Wasatch to connect it with the other cottonwood resorts.  Rather than take the usual route of purchasing land from the forest service, its going straight to congress with the help of Representative Rob Bishop of District 1 to bypass the normal process and keep the public out of the public land transfer.  The bill is labelled H.R. 3452 Wasatch Range Recreation Access Enhancement Act, and it has nothing to do with Recreation Enhancement, only creating more revenue for Talisker.

After complaining for a long time, I final took some action, and more than the usual internet petition signing.  I wrote letters to my Senators, and Representatives, and Rob Bishop himself asking for some sanity in the giving away of our only real renewable resource in utah.  As you probably already know, I am a terrible writer so please be patient with the grammer, spelling, and general confusion.  Here it is:

After spending my youth growing up in Utah I spent over half a decade away in other parts of the US. Since then I have traveled to every continent except Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. There are many amazing and beautiful places on this earth. Most of them filled with their own Unique beauty. However, something even more Unique is right in front of us in Utah. A wonderful, diverse, landscape or mountains, desert, plateaus, lakes, salt flats, slot canyons and more. I understand the the economic progress of our state is very important, however, I'm writing because I also want the economic and natural future to remain in tact. This will only hurt our future economic opportunity: Think Utah lake, a once wonderful resource now ruined forever by a steel plant that now only provides an eye sore, and a toxic hole.

The Wasatch Front is one of the smallest mountain ranges in the country yet is located closer to a major city than any other recreational location in the US. It brings in millions if not billions of outside revenue into our state. Yet as ski resorts become more exotic and prices rise toward $100 a lift ticket, skier numbers have stopped growing; it is becoming a sport of the elite. However, backcountry user groups like mountain bikers, hikers, snow shoers, hunters, fishermen, are all growing rapidly. The Wasatch Mountains already contains 7 resorts within 20 miles or less of Salt Lake City which occupy a huge amount of the Wasatch Mountains. In fact, they cover so much of the mountains, its possible to ski from one resort to the next, and go to every one of the 7 resorts without the use of additional transportation other than the lifts already in place. You can already ski from the Canyons to Solitude. Or Solitude to Brighton, or Brighton to Park City, and so on. The skilink doesn't even connect the the two towns, it connects the top of Canyons Resort to the bottom of Solitude mountain Resort. There is no transportation advantage. In order to travel from Canyon's top of Solitude it would take at least 5 lift rides, and only provides an exclusive group of users to access both resorts. If the State of Utah was serious about an intermountain transportation system they would have a centralized system that is accessible from multiple resorts and efficient for more than just the two farthest out locations. With some work a system that works for all resorts could be designed that did not encroach on pristine wilderness. I.E. via the Guardsman Pass road. Adding the skilink as is, alienates Utah's own local resorts (Park City, Dear Valley, Brighton, and Alta/SnowBird) and gives the advantage to the Canadian real-estate company. Thus requiring yet multiple skilink's for the other resorts to compete, and of course cause the possible loss of the majority of the forest land. 

The addition of the 'skilink' would slice through the center of one of the few uninterrupted sections of land left in the Wasatch and permanently damage the habitat as well as degrade the natural beauty of the area. I've built ski lifts before, and the damage done to the environment to build something this size is unrepairable, especially to a wilderness that is already so delicate. Worst of all is the fact that the bill bypasses the National Forest Service, an organization designed by our government to manage our forest land in a way that is conscious of the present AND the future. If this is so important then bring it before the normal processes to sell, and let the Utah public have a say in their public lands.

Finally, the last thing we need is to give away our precious resources to yet another big company who is not even from the US! We don't need Canadian developers taking over our forest land for their own gain. How much could they possibly care? Your local outdoor Industry has spoken, just ask Peter Metcalph, CEO of Black Diamond in Salt Lake City. Are you willing to give up your local companies so that you can bring in a Canadian development company? Your purpose is to represent the people, and the people have spoken. I oppose H.R.3452 - Wasatch Range Recreation Access Enhancement Act.

 Please feel free to copy and past my letter, or change it a little to sound like someone out of elementary school.... Here is a list of my representatives, feel free to send it to them, or send it to yours.  Obviously you can write your own letter too, and I would encourage you too.

Senator Mike Lee

316 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Representative Jim Matheson

2434 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Senator Orrin hatch

104 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Representative Rob Bishop

123 Cannon House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Quiet Touring on Memorial day?

Memorial day is a complexing holiday, its purpose isn't usually its use.  Most of us spend time vacationing with a moment or two of silence.  So when you chose to get out of town, staying away from the hoards of lemmings can be difficult.  We thought about a climbing trip, a mountain bike trip, even a river trip (not for very long), and settled on a 3 day touring trip.  I think some wise choices and good luck helped make for an excellent and quiet adventure.  Here is the quick details.

Day 1: Sugar House to Affleck Park
I cant think of a time when we've left touring from our house, but we did just that.  Bikes loaded we headed out at about 630pm from sugar-house towards East Canyon.  Planned camping spot: Great Western Trail on big mountain.  Actual camping spot: Affleck park.  Just make sure and get your reservation for Affleck as there's no first come first serve spots.  Another option is East Canyon State Park, which would be nice in spring or fall but maybe a little Hot in the summer.

Day 2:  Affleck park to Snow Basin Ski Resort.
The big day, and the fun day (well for half of us).  Head for East Canyon Dam, then to Morgan, the Mt. Green,  and Finally your camping spot at Snow Basin.  If you stay at Affleck, you get two big climbs, and I mean big.  Big mountain is 1300ft and 6 miles and trappers loops is 1600ft and 7.5 miles. Thats over 3000ft of climbing and 55 miles.

Day 3:  For us day three was short and only had a few climbs.  However, If I was to continue the tour I would head north to Avon Divide for my next camp site or North Fork Park.  Then on to Logan for Day 4.  You can check out some more photos at: http://trackmytour.com/JpZm5

No tour is complete without some form of suffering.  In this case it was driving rain, hail, slush, and mud. Things that help you appreciate the sunny dry days.

Route

Haute Route, not to be.

Trient Hut

The Haute route is a popular ski mountaineering route from Chamonix France to Zermat Switzerland, with most of the route being in Switzerland. It travels through some of the most accessible high alpine environments in Europe, and for that matter the world. I can't think of many other places that have the sharp, beautiful glaciated peaks, that have lift access approaches and 4 course meals. Due to it's popularity, its also rather busy. When we arrived in Geneva Switzerland after some 20 hours of travel, we got in a small van filled to the brim with other ski and mountain enthousiasts and started the drive to Chamonix. Geneva itself is a nice town and has a good number of large limestone cliff bands, which the van driver wrote off as choss piles. A good start for realizing what the alps have, and the snobbery that it breads. (Snobbery in this case is NOT derogatory)

Day 1: Chamonix to Trient

 When we arrived in the town itself it was far from impressive. In fact it was a bit annoying. Modern stuctures mixed with classic french and swiss architechure is not well juxtaposed; rather, it more resembles a unbridaled capitalistic growth spurt. The good news is that our hostel that was out of town was fabulous. Truly the highlight of our in town stays. La Tapia run by Maria was clean, had no locks on the doors, and the best breakfast around, all for a great price.

 After warnings about aclimatizing and going guidless, we left the next morning up to the Argentiere glacier via a short tram ride. We bought 1 ride's on the Grand Montets tram which we where told would get us to the highest point, which was not the top of the resort. But a few hundred meters below the normal drop off point. On our second lift ride, we had a pretty funny hold up at the automatic ticket gates which our one ride tickets wouldn't open. So when everyone was watching we attempted to climb over them with our ski's on. It was much more difficult than it seemed, and with axes, skis, poles, a gate, and that fish net fencing, we where almost entangled forever. Thankfully the lifty didn't care at all. Stupid Americans. After finally gettin off the last lift we got back into our comfort zones with skins on and heals released.

Day 2: Trient-Champex

 The trip to the Angentiere glacier was a bit of an eye opener. No trees, and no good size landmarks make the glacier basin seem normal sized, but after close evaluation you realized its massive. Like as big as Little Cottonwood Canyon. The only way to tell was to look to the bottom at the little tiny ants crossing in lines... f They where people, some 4000ft below. Pretty cool. So we skied the not quite wonderful refrozen powder down to the bottom between ice fall and the rocks to the glacier. After some chat we decided which canyon was the Chardonnet glacier and headed for it. The morning was late but luckily the clouds protected us from excess heating, especially since we where on the 40 degree section. Hours later, after finally dealling with some excessive bread in the diet, we reached the top of the Col du Chardonnet--the techical crux of the route. Just a week earlier it had been a steep dicey rock decent followed by a large bergshrund crossing. Fortunately for us it was filled in nicely and reasonably skiable. We rapped(absel) the top section and hung the second rap but chose to do the body rap for the second as the consiquences receded and the slope angle lessened. 300 meters later we where in a new glacier for a beautiful lunch spot.

Chamonix: La Tapia Hostel

Chamonix: The bakery 1 block
from the hostel

 We then proceeded towards the Trient glacier via a long traverse through the Glacier de Saleina

to a inevitable boot pack. The guide book read something like 'no skins heal lifter travers.' Which if your a skinning enthusiast like us, you have no idea what that means. I have never seen or done a no skin's heal lifter traverse, but I can't wait to see it! Next was the col to the trient glacier which was labelled as 'you will inevitably boot' so as any good Cottonwood Ninnis would do, we skinned. It was rather humours and likely more difficult than booting, but we felt obliged to hold to our heritage. Crossing over the top we reached the Trient glacier and way off in the distance had a view of the Trient hut, or I think I would insert the word lodge, except made of stone. 

Look back to the Argentierre glacier

 One of the things we had said before going on this trip was that if we get lost, or something goes wrong, you can always just ski down to some random swiss village... We quickly learned that unlike the Wasatch, or most other places we had skied this was not the case. most glaciers ended in large scarey icefalls that would take at least a day to pass, and may not be passable. The good news was that in the good weather, it was reasonably easy route finding. 

 We reached the Trient hut at somewhere around 6:15 and carefully read all the signs on how to comply with the rules. First of all, skis go in the ski shed, outside. Second, Ice axes go in the ice axe rack in the breezeway along with boots and climbing gear. I pitty the man that walks into the hut with skis, boots and ice axes. I think they may be burned at the stake. (Again, not derogatory since only a stupid american would even think of such a thing) Once we had properly packed away our gear, we got to experience what all the rules protected. A warm, beautiful, dry hut, free from ice axe holes and soiled rugs. Dinner was at 7:00pm and we where sure to be on time. Turned out to be a 4 course meal with a white wine starter... If only all my meals where so wonderful. With the windows of the hut, we had a 180 degree view of the top of the trient glacier. I spent probably a good hour sitting and looking outside. Likely one of the best dining views in the world in my opinion. 

Col du Chardonnet

 The next morning we where 21 minutes late for breakfast, due to a misread breakfast time. We thought we where nine minutes early. The gardian nicely, but sturnly told us in broken English 'Breakfast is at 6 or 7, not 21.' Graciously he still aloud us to have a tasty bread, cheeze, butter and jam breakfast. On the way out, I of course left my ice axe in the ice axe rack where it will remain for eternity. 

 We skied the wind scared refrozen hardpack with sections of breakable death crust to the icefall where we entered the wind tunnel. SO windy in fact that you could side slip on the flat ground towards the abyss. After skiing the mogels down the icefall we traversed to yet another booter up the Col du Escandies then skied out to Champex, Switzerland via the Val de Arpette.  Yet another amazing and large basin that had suffered from massive wet slides. By massive its hard to represent because we don't see many that size in Utah. Think of the South face of Superior sliding over the road, and then and 5 or 6 more of those size slides all in the same drainage. Pretty cool, however very difficult to ski over basketball size frozen rollers. 

Glacier de Saleina

Col du Escandies

 After being anoyed with the guided american group for a while I got over my oversized head and enjoyed a nice slushy spring ski out to the town of Champex. This would unfortunately be the end of our skiing for the trip, but we didn't know it yet. The plan was to catch a ride to Borg-st.-Pierre for the night and do the 4300ft climb back up to the Valsorey hut on the other side the next morning. However when we awoke the next morning it was raining, and raining hard. We spent the whole next day planning and figuring out how to get back into the mountains and complete the traverse. After calling some of the huts and getting the response 'the weather is very bad' we tried to go around to a more easterly location to avoid some of the more difficult and commiting sections and access the Vignettes or Cabane des dix. This also was a failure as we couldn't find a place to stay and the weather was also 'very bad' at the huts on this side. We calculated our time availabe, how long the storm was to stay, and distance traveled and concluded that we would have to bail... so sad. 

Paris

  What I didn't tell you was that most of the others had already flushed out of the mountains and where on the way home. Such is the life of big goals in the mountains. Another day? I hope so. In review, the scenery was stunning, the food was fabulous, and the skinning/skiing/mountaineering was moderate. An excellent trip I would recommend to anyone with the skill set and the strength. I think the average is 5000ft a day. The only down sides are maybe the diffulty in getting the information on the route (thankfully I had a team of well dedicated friends that pretty much did ALL the research) and the high prices of everything from food to gas, to taxi rides. You can quickly drain the budget when things get off the plan... Oh and did I mention take the train out of Paris? I can't say I recommend air france, unless you get the refundable ticket.  Special thanks to my partners for providing pretty much all the hard prep work, digital maps, photos, money, entertainment, and generosity.  Oh and lots of good red wine.

Skiing the white zone

Making backcountry skiing location choices isn't just about keeping yourself safe, its also about skiing the best snow you can get in the most efficient manner(OK, maybe not always efficient), with the least amount of damage to your gear. You can tell the difference between the newbs and the pro's based on the quality of there experience. Every day is different, so you really can't lay out a list of rules. If I did, I'm sure I would be hunted down like the bleeding baby seal in shark water.

This season these decision have been even more important, and your success could lead you to a good powder day, or a rocky dirt bed. One trick I picked up was skiing the white zones.... on the topo. The white zones define 'open areas' like fields, Meadows, land fills, and above tree line. In the Wasatch we don't really have much above tree line, but its an excellent way to judge a number of things. One great example is most avalanche reports have a break between above and below the tree line. (well, except the Wasatch). In this case I use it to determine the existence of snow that may be ski-able. Here is a most excellent route with great lines, close to the road, and a groomer exit, but don't tell too many of your friends or be sure to ski it when I'm not around.

Start in the Brighton Parking lot and either take a one ride up Milly (sissy) or skin to the Milly booter then boot to the top. Ski something on the North aspect of the upper ridge of Millicent, catch the lake skin track back to the East wolverine booter, then ski wolverine (in this case I skied the glade in fear of super steep snow sluffs over rocks.) Then a quick traverse up to Tuscarora for the Tuscarora chute. Followed by a monster traverse around Catherine's lake to Sunrise peak. Other than the groomer skin and ski, the entire route is above 9000ft.

Adventure touring on the White Rim

I had a struggle between doing the powder keg this year or bailing for a trip to the desert. I only had one close friend left doing the keg. The kicker, however, was that the spouse was leaving town for the week... I like to think of it as a free kitchen pass. So at the expense of the keg, I decided to head to the desert.

Based on the options available we decide to do the White Rim Trail in Island in the Ski, Canyon Lands National Park. But not the normal way, because that would be too boring. So we packed up our touring bikes and headed South in hopes of getting a permit. We planned to ride counter clockwise, in about 2 and 1/2 days self supported. That totals about 117 miles of rocks and sand doable in a high clearance 4x4 or 2x4 with some skill... Oh and did I mention lots of sand?

Day 1: about 35 miles from the parking lot down into the White Rim to our campsite next to the Green river. While we where getting our permit, we where talking to a ranger who got dubber 'olive oil' for the visible stress in her simple permit issuing position. Olive oil had told us that the only river access we would have would be at Potato Bottom camp, and it would be a bush wack at that. Turns out she was a little off. It was one of the last major water stops, but far from the first. So on day one we carried about 2 and 1/2 gallons of water each--or about 20 lbs of water. (Just to compare my Tarmac road bike weighs about 17 lbs). Needless to say it was a heavy day. All without much need. We decended mostly for the first 17 miles or so until we reached the green then it was a mix of flats and moderate climbs to the camp site. Reasonable bouldering was the evening activity along with a fancy meal of potato soup, with avocado and green peppers.

Day 2: Definitely the full featured day of 47ish miles through rolling hills and short steep climbs and technical decents (at least for a fully loaded touring bike). At the mid point we met the crux of the route: The Hogsback. A steep loose climbing that was relentless. However with much determination we where able to ride the climb, and a lot of motivation from our friends from ska brewing. (http://www.skabrewing.com).

Speaking of Ska brewing company, YES we where self supported on this trip, but after deliberations with one of the founders of Ska, a statewide beer advocate for Colorado brewing, and other very professional brewers of Colorado, we decided it was still considered 'self supported' if you accept generous offerings of brew during the post ride. And thanks to this group of excellent citizens, we where always greeted at the end of the day with an ice cold beverage or fine distilled selection for the cellar of Ska or associated companies. These professionals also provide more than enough entertainment for any night with endless humor and a selection of desert games such as bocce ball, moon light rides, and kite flying.

I almost forgot the rest of day 2! After the completion of the Hogsback, it of course should have only been a few miles to the camp site right? Well, hours later and a setting sun, we where not there yet. Turns out Team Ska had chosen a camp site 10 miles closer than we had. So we stopped by to say hello as the sun was setting before our final 10 miles of slow rocky desert riding. At this point we should also admit that we gave into their generous offer to share some of their large water stores... but to be clear we only took about 35 ounces each. Enough for tea and dish washing for the night and morning. We finished the last 10 miles in the dark with only a little navigation trouble due to the lack of visible landmarks. Thankfully I brought along my super dyno hub light that illuminated the trail well, even before the moon rise. We where spent, and ready for bed.

Day 3: We had to spend a little extra time in the morning repairing a broken pannier mount due to the continued pounding and high weight, but it only put us back about an hour. Day 3 turned out to be nice and actually pretty short. The ride to the trail split was about 18 miles. At the trail split we had to chose the Shafer Trail climb, or the ride out to pot ash, then continued ride up Longs canyon to the car. The Shafer trail is about 1700ft in about 5 miles, and the visual stimuli is amazing. The grade isn't too bad, and the road well cared for so it was really just a nice beautiful grind. The only problem was the road was closed due to 'covered in ice' as Olive oil had stated. But those of you familiar with the desert and how things go, would probably have a difficult time with the idea of it being covered in ice with very little snow visible around the park. After evaluating the likelihood of olive oil being wrong (very likely) and the fact that many bike tracks had passed through the trail since the last rain/snow event. We decide it was likely open to bikes by now anyway and took the risk.

made the right decision as it was an excellent climb with 1 or 2 unrideable snow sections, but by snow I mean like 3 inches of very walkable snow. You could see the bikes from above just rode through. After reaching the top we finished the 10 grueling miles back on the Asphalt to the car.

Great ride, excellent scenery, and good friends. I would recommend it to anyone who can get a reasonably big tire on your touring bike, and has some good MTB skills. Or if you don't have the skills, take the MTB bike and its easy, with just a lot of miles