S.A. Ridge, Benchmark set.

One of the first runs of the season with my trusty running partner was up to Grandeur Peak where we noticed a beautiful ridge to the North that we hadn't ran before. As always happens on one adventure, another was formed.

Of course I wasn't going to do any research, but my motivated friend set out a course on google maps (or some more tech version) that showed the route. He even had a three dimensional track we fly by to have a look. It looked easy. About 8 miles of rolling terrain with a big decent at the end. We did a trial run shortly after that covered about the first 4 miles. It went very well, except it wasn't rolling terrain. The hills where big, and more importantly steep. At least big hills are great for training.

The highest altitude on the route is about 7500ft and it descends to 4800ft. Because of the low altitude, its more of a spring, fall, winter type route. Naturally, I decide to give it ago at 5:00pm at the end of July. After smoking through the first 4 miles I get to the new terrain (by smoking I mean slightly faster than walking). I'm expecting a short easy ridge to a big rocky decent. I was dead wrong. Had my wife been along she would have said something wise like: 'maybe we should turn arround' or 'that doesn't look too fun up ahead.' Unfortunately I was all alone and the thought of return never even crossed my mind. I jumped headlong into the Oak brush. As always I was wearing skimpy running shorts and a super light water wicking shirt. As you can imagine, the bush whacking didn't go so well.

I think I had about 1.5 miles of no trail on a steep almost knife edge ridge that was covered in thick, deep oak brush. I think I would label this section the meat grinder. for the first 30 minutes I found it very amusing how difficult it was to move at all through the brush. I was literally dragging myself through in sections. To add to the fun, at times you would come to a huge sandstone boulder that you got to climb over (don't ever say we don't have Sandstone in northern Utah). After an hour and a half it finally started to clear up. ( yeas thats 1.5 miles in 1.5 hours) My legs where bleeding, my shoes where filled with rocks, and I was in a fowl mood.

Just then my wife called to let me know she was still at work and it was ok that I was way, way late. Of course I complained about how much I was suffering (really? like when you get to work 40 hours a week?) and she generously showed much sympathy. From here the trail got really, really good. In fact, I would give this section a 3 star trail, and its accessible from my house! My mood rapidly improved, and as always within 20-30 minutes the bush whack from hell faded into darkness. I'll try and attach a movie or two this time which explains a little of how I was feeling at the time. You can see the bush whack section in the photo's with the sand stone boulder sections... see if you can find the trail of blood and broken branches. I think I am going to upgrade it from a no star run to a one star run.Stats:

Route: starting at the parking lot at the top of little mountain, finishing at the foothill clinic

Time: 3:04:13

Distance: 7.72 miles

Pace: 23:51

Starting Elevation: about 6,000ft

Ending Elevation: 4,800ft

This is your challenge to break my record, just bring your Levis.

Warm Nights and No Hights

For some reason this month I was given about 7 days off in a row and REALLY wanted to go do something big and fun. I've been dreaming about a number of routes in the Tetons and of course this WAS the year for it. Unfortunately the best skiing in the range happens to be during our summer vacation where we frolic in other countries. So last week was the first time I really had available to go for it. (In reality I should be well focused on my running schedule, which I'm behind and seems to be going rather poorly)

I had a strong partner queued up and ready to go and after scotty generously covered my last remaining shift we where loaded and ready to fire, until we talked with friends and climbing Rangers in Jackson. Turns out just 10 short days ago the snow was excellent and the ski descents where pilling up. But as summer can, things changed drastically. The nights stopped freezing causing the snow to become unconsolidated from above, and the geo-thermal heat from below caused it to start rotting from below. This is devastating to the snow pack. Most of the routes we wanted need the snow to make them safe, and when the snow isn't safe then the route isn't safe, and also no fun.

So in desperation I turned to Alaska, but based on my limited knowledge, at this time of year you need to be flying into the big glaciers up North if you want to ski, which is expensive and very time consuming. Plus, Oklahoma has family in town and I don't really want to tax his time any more than necessary because he is my only good AK connection, and of course a good friend.

Another dear set of friends was spending a few days in City of Rocks, but the biggest problem is, I'm not really in the cragging zone this year. More like fast alpine. So I just couldn't get psyched for that either. So what do you do when everything falls apart? Well, I went to work for three days. Dumb, I'm not sure there's a proverb anything like: 'if you can't find anything fun to do then go to work.' Oh well. So here is an excellent photo blog from someone who didn't go to work. Doing a route I'd like to do, with some good people from SLC.

http://www.getstrongergolonger.com/journal/2011/6/9/teton-link-up.html

Goblers Knob, in the summer?

So this week the fun mountain was Gobler's Knob. I've never been to it in the summer, in fact I didn't even know you could go, but as usual, I was wrong.

A good friend, lets say Kentucky, was in town and wanted to go for a run, so I headed blindly up Mill Creek Canyon to see what we could find that wasn't too hot or snowy. It was Saturday so we needed to think out of the box a little and the Alexander Basin trail came to mind. So we jump on it and started running for a very short period of time before 1.) it got really steep and 2.) Kentucky was having pulmonary tachycardia. We slowed to a crawl (actually faster than all of the other Saturday hikers) and continued upwards. The good news is that its a steep trail so no time is wasted and we where at Alexander Basin in no time. It is just as pretty in the summer as the winter.

We hit snow at about the bottom of the upper bowl and skirted it all the way to the saddle at the top of the North North East aspect of the bowl. We caught the trail again to the top of Goblers Knob and I got to see the geological survey mark, 10K feet. Then heading down into Mill A we caught Desolation trail 019 and finally got into a good clip to the East. The decent of of Goblers was a little hairy, but the perfect time between snow melt and overgrowth. We where able to glisade a good portion of the decent in our running shoes. It was the first glisade of the season and it started on a steep 30+ degree slope, but luckily my skills held together and I kept it upright for the whole decent. Kentucky decided to go with the sitting glisade with much success, and much humor for me.

We ran Deso trail 019 to Dog lake to see the 800 dogs, then quickly continued down to Little Water trail head, then back down the road to the Car. You can see the approximate route at: http://www.scribblemaps.com/#id=GoblersKnob

Mt. Olympus, revisited

So, I've been on a light and fast kick (or in my case light and slow), and since I just got back from a slack vacation and am slightly on the pneumonia end of a sickness, I figured I'd get in my spring (hmm... July 7th) ascent of Mt. Olympus via the normal route.

The Normal route for me (I decided today for standardized purposes) starts in the parking lot of Dan's Market on Wasatch at 3900 South (Barbacoa to be exact), head down Wasatch Blvd, up to the West Slabs via the Exum Rap route, then via the North Ridge to the Saddle, through the saddle to the Summit, touch the mail box and then descend via the trail to Wasatch, and finally back to Dan's Market.

I only took two pictures today, but I'll add some old ones. I started a good alpine start of about 8:00am and past 6 people (they where on their way down, not up) who gave me funny looks. One guy even said 'solo?' and all I responded with was yes, before passing by.

One of the humorous things about this trip was that I've been living at about 11000ft for the last 2 weeks so you'd think I had strong lungs. Well, today I was at my aerobic threshold, or slightly over it all the way up. Dumb, so much for acclimatization. This however doesn't mean I was setting any speed records, just breathing a lot.

The other fun (after the fact) part of the trip was I found a friend just off the top of the West slabs waiting for me, who was very quiet. See photo.

Here are the stats.

Water: 2.5 liters

Gu: 6 1 oz packets (used 4)

Climbing shoes

wind coat

patagonia base layer long sleve

running shorts

Merril's version of the Minimus running shoes

Car to car: 5 hours 12 minutes 20 seconds

Hopefully I will cut off a good hour of this time at the end of the season, or maybe Andy will cut it in half. I think the key to reducing the time is getting the in between route down. The section between the top of the Slabs to the Summit is always the slowest and most difficult to navigate, with a little work this could be much faster.

Dirt Bagging in the Chugach

After a ski trip to Haines fell apart due to remarks like 'worst snow in 30 years' and ' you mean we have to hire a guide?.' I attempted to salvage the time off with a trip to the Chugach in southern Alaska. Thankfully, a good friend of mine had coincidentally just moved to Anchorage. In the old days (a decade ago) we used to do all kinds of crazy adventures together, but never had we skied, or been on a glacier together... so why not try it now? This particular friend who we will dub Oklahoma, also had been working a lot in the lat 10 years and I wasn't sure what he was up for.

Day 1

After Oklahoma and his wife generously picked me up at the airport at 200am in the morning we got right to planning adventure number 1, Mt. Ptarmigan North Couloir, a mountaineering route that had some good technical sections. So we headed off with ski's, rope, picket, axe, wipit, hero camera, and a bit of food. Its somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 miles ski in to the base of the route which we started at like 2:00pm or some slacker hour, then followed an off camber ski trail all the way to the base, a good long slog for those of use who are used to going up, not across. We then started the long, long boot up the couloir. Being in AK, 2:00pm wasn't the worst of our decisions for the trip, in fact it worked out rather well, since it stayed light until like 9:30pm. After much fussing with the Hero HD, I finally got it to take some photo's, but no video.


Now, Oklahoma, although he had spent some time in Colorado, Utah, Wisconsin, and California, had not been in the big mountains it seems for some time. And after a few hours of booting up the steep 45 degree couloir, finally looked down. Something we don't even think about in the mountains it seems these days and got a little sketched that he could look down 2000ft almost straight down to the run out zone. Thankfully he is almost as hard headed as me and was able to turn his head and keep trudging. As we ascended we talked about the importance and application of useful skills like the self-arrest. I always thought it was best to learn by doing, not so much any of those other options. Thankfully we did, because Oklahoma slipped in the first 500ft of his decent and had to try out his new skills or be whisked to the bottom at break neck speeds, likely over a good 300ft rock band. At about 500ft shy of the saddle the weather decided it was time for us to descend by bringing the vis down very low. It had been snowing the entire time, with clouds coming in and out--as would be the weather for the rest of the trip. On the way up I spied a cool looking steep line either ice or snow (not sure which) that I dubbed the Hypodermic Needle AK, but actually I think is named the hooker. It looked like an excellent line to ski, but with my partners inability to rescue me, and my lack of knowledge of the line I decided to ski the main chute.

Oklahoma left his ski's at the bottom based on his lack of skiing experience and the high consequences of a fall on this route, so I sent him on his way. It had been recommended that we rope up for this route earlier but I didn't see any time when I though a rope would be necessary. Within the first 500ft Oklahoma took a tumble and, like a seasoned veteran, self arrested. A short and tense moment followed by relief. Now confident that he could reasonably take care of himself I start my ski decent (after dynafit-tling for a while with my bindings). The snow was variable but nice, and as I would soon find out, the best snow of the whole week. After finally getting some video I finished the lower section, retrieved Oklahoma's ski's and sat down for a nice hot tea break to wait for the slow, mountaineering decent.

A moment of soap-boxing. I'm not sure which background played a bigger role in my development, but as the years pass it seems to me that ski's are almost always the option of choice for winter, mountain transportation. Almost as efficient on the way up, 10 times as efficient on the way down. I enjoyed the decent, went quickly, safely, and used a fraction of the energy. In the Wasatch, it seems to be the norm; in AK, we where the weird ones with ski's on our backs.

After my feet where cold, just like my tea became; Oklahoma finally caught up and we where off for our 4 mile ski back to the car. Interestingly enough the whole route could have been down sans-skins. Something new to me. But actually, in every case in AK I didn't need my skin's at all. We arrived back at the car just in time for dusk.

Day 2

After a nice night of sleep we went to the five fingers on the Turnagain Arm to warm up on the ice, which was an excellent idea since I've been on ice only once this year. Not to mention it was a downpour. with serious winds. Since I hate wasting a day, we went for it. Full hardshells and neoprene ice gloves seem to do the trick very well. After 200ft of ice and 6K gallons of rain we where ready to be done. On the decent I had the opportunity to do my first V-thread, and after all my complaining it was no big deal. Held strong, looked good, and was easy. Unfortunately, I did not take any photo's due to the crazy weather.

Day 3-5

The next item to be checked off the list was hopefully the Eklutna traverse. We looked at going about it both directions and due to the weather chose the North to South route. Unfortunately it starts with about a 12 mile ski across a lake, up a drainage to the glacier moraine. After fearing this ridiculous distance on ski's over flat ground with a pack it turned out to be rather fun and enjoyable. It was great for developing my classic and skate technique.... except I was on Dynafits. Oh well, one thing it made me realize is that their really is a reason for pole straps! After stopping prior to our anticipated finish at the pitcher's hut, it turned out the first hut was full of rescue rats training to save us. So we ended up building a shelter under a pine tree. We where prepared for hut life, and only emergency outdoor life so we ended up spending our nights with one 0 degree down bag, one super light western mountaineering 40 degree bag, 1 bivy, 1 sleeping pad, 1 down coat, 1 3/4 foam backpack insert, a rope, 2 hard shell coats, and a few other miscellaneous items to make it through the rain and snow of night. With a little suffering we turned out just fine.

The next day we started up to the glacier for a little fun and ran into a party who had just spend 4 days in driving snow and no visibility out on the white-out glacier. They where smiling and telling stories of how the almost died. I don't think it was the best for Oklahoma to hear, since he had never been on a glacier before. We then continued up to the ice fall at the toe of the glacier, in all its beauty. Truly a sight to behold, every time. Our objective was small but you could spend weeks just at the toe, sending huge ice routes, mixed lines, technical ski descents, you name it. It really is a wonderland of ice, rock, and snow. To get up on the glacier we had a small, low angle serac that proved to be rather enjoyable. I had brought along 3 screws and a wippet, thankfully Oaklahoma lent me his real mountain axe and I was able to climb with one axe, and one glove on deep blue glacier ice. Thankfully it wasn't too steep and the pro was bomber. After belaying Oklahoma to the top we continued up the ice fall along a fake morain (ice covered in rock) to our high point just below Pitcher's Post. After crossing what seem to be a 10 foot snow bridge we got out into the center and untied for some skiing. Before sending Oklahoma down the trail put in by our death defying friends, I gave him a stern warning to be careful as we are still on a glacier. As seems to always be the trend, within 5 minutes Oklahoma locates a crevasse and steps in, with both feet because he is charging down the glacier without probing or much thought. Luckily it was packed full of snow (at least at the top) and he only sank up to his waste. The bonus is, Oklahoma tends to learn much better through experience, and so he took his travel much more seriously after that. So we tied back in again as to keep up all on top and I skied on the rope as he trotted. Turned out to be pretty fun, at least for me. After reaching the ice fall again and hacking out a Bollard we rapped the last remaining steep section of glacier where again we unroped and skied out the toe. Oklahoma tried out his skiing skills on this low angle section and realized that skiing on death cookies is actually harder than it looks. A quick skate the mile or so back to the shelter and we where out, safe and sound.

The next day was the first day where it wasn't low overcast AND snowing. We woke early and packed up for the 12ish miles out. The sun came up between jagged peaks with beautiful shoe string lines of snow glistening in the morning light. It was cold, the snow was fast and we made excellent time as we headed back. It felt like time to do the traverse, since finally the visibility had come up to a reasonable level. Well, I guess that's how it goes in Alaska. The ski out seemed fun and short on the way out, I ended up blister free on both my feet and my hands. That was it, I had the red-eye flight out that night to SLC where I wouldn't sleep a wink due to my tiny seat that didn't recline next to the toilet.

Special thanks goes to Oklahoma and his always adventurous spirit. I don't know many people that can sit on the couch for 5 years and go straight out to 30+ miles a week on ski's plus mountaineering. In the future, after some good scouting, I plan on trying this traverse in a day. See you there.

Dealing with the Wasatch Powder Birds

Ever had an encounter with the powder birds yet? My own experience has been very poor. Here some excellent footage taken by Andrew and Friends. Please pass this along to anyone you know who cares about their wilderness staying wilderness.

http://straightchuter.com/2011/02/awesome-day-with-the-wasatch-powderbird-guides/

In the Shadow of the Mountain

So no this isn't Wasatch 100 part III. But I had such a good day skiing to day I just needed to read about it. Not to mention, one of the photo's in my previous blog is exactly the same as in this one, except this one is winter! See if you can figure it out.

Today I didn't have a ski partner, except for one that didn't want to ski thousands of feet of blue ice (what gives?). So I went out Solo on a mission to Twin Peaks, which I've never summited in the winter. After Leaving the car at 7:15 am with my oatmeal and yogurt I was off.

I should go right out and confess, something changed in my skiing, something BIG. I was on a set of new 7 Summit Dynafit skis with Low Tech Race bindings and TLT 5 mountain boots. The Ski binding combo weighs in at 6 lbs 6 ounces, the boots are 5 lbs 6 ounces in a 27.5, which are bigger and I also ski without the tongues, so lets say 5 lbs 3 ounces. A total on foot weight of 11 lbs 9 ounces (not counting skin's or crampons). Sound like a lot? Well my light weight telemark setup is 11 lbs 3 ounces for ski binding combo (Chargers with switchbacks) an my Garmont Energy's weight 8 lbs for a total back breaking weight of 19 lbs 3 ounces. And actually, its not back breaking because the weight is on your feet. So that's about a 7 lbs difference; OR like carrying an extra gallon of water along with you... on your feet. All this to say I felt light and free, or like running. I actually did run for a while but quickly realized that it wasn't THAT light, or at least I am not that strong.

Altitude gained is difficult to average but when I'm going solo it seems to be somewhere around 1000ft per hour, depending on snow conditions and technical difficulty. Although times very widely, that put my total about 30 minutes faster than expected or about 10 percent faster over a 5 hour period. Not bad for just pulling out your wallet! Ok, so back to the story...

I started off at the S-turns in Big Cottonwoods and headed up Broads fork trail at 7:15. In 1 hour 15 minutes I was at the lower lakes (about 2100ft of easy skinning). After that I followed a skin track to the back of the cirque where I then started putting in my own track since no one had climbed the east ridge yet. Very shortly after starting, I first broke my crampon attachment (race bindings... shesh). and then started wallowing up an rock band that proved to be very difficult because it was covered in 5 feet of facets (think sugary snow).

Finally, I was able to get past this section and return to my ski's with ski crampons and quickly dispatch the next 600 feet or so before it became steep blue ice where I again started booting. The difficulty was finding the place where the ice was thicker than 1/2 inch so you could support yourself. Multiple times I would start wallowing in the facets, trying to pull myself back onto the ice, The visual picture is something like trying to pull yourself out of a whole in the ice over a lake. You reach for the next piece of ice and it just breaks, mean while you slide back to where you started. Very energy consuming.

At one point at about 2/3 of the way up I was wallowing and pulled a piece of ice off a tree into my face that then removed my glasses and sent them cascading down the 50 degree ice slope. I watched as they gained momentum and shot off the roller below... out of sight. My favorite photocromatic glasses, gone in a second. I was almost ready to turn around and give up, except that 5 skiers had approached behind me and where skinning up around toward the saddle between big and little (ya 5 skiers, on a Friday, in a cirque that's 4 miles from any road. Freaking Wasatch). So although I had broken my binding, lost my glasses, and spent endless amounts of energy wallowing: my pride wouldn't allow me to descend. So I just told myself I'd go a little more, and then a little more... And finally the snow got hard enough to walk again and I got a good 500ft of good old fashion, boot packing on wind scoured old snow. The crux was definitely at the top when it gets really steep, the snow turns to facets and there's a small cornice to tunnel through. With much fear I quickly dispatch my best wallowing/mixed climbing/cornice burrowing and was on the summit. About 5,100ft from the car and the last 2000ft where earned the hard way.

After a quick lunch, I pulled the skins off, and locked the heal down for the first time on these skis... at 11,300ft on blue ice surround by 3 sides of 50 degree slopes, cliffs, and chutes for a minimum of 2000ft.

For good measure, and lack of trust, I locked down the toe pieces so nothing would free me from my skies. Then with much anticipation I dropped into the steep, icey slope. Turns out it wasn't too bad on a set of fresh edges and thin, short skies! If it wasn't a 2000ft slide for your life I would have been making jump turns all the way down.But, I took it conservative and side slipped through the high risk blue ice and saved the turns for the safer ground. It is also scary the first time you do a jump turn on these skies because you over rotate, because they are so light and short.... Super fun!

Only on one section did I chose to self belay myself down the ice with my Wipp-it, and that was unique and fun in itself. I looked closely for my glasses, and finally I found them, about a quarter from the bottom where the snow got too soft. Now in much safer ground I let it go a bit and really enjoyed the turns on my new short skies. reaching the Amphitheater base, I quickly transitioned to skins (as quick as a free healer can transition with all those gadgets) and started up the ridge to Mill B to ski out via Blanch lake.

Once reaching the ridge I had excellent turning conditions all the way to the lake before it deteriorated into a 'soul searching bushwack' as Andrew McLean would say.

All in all, a fabulous tour that I would recommend to anyone! At least anyone who has the tools, the skills, and of course the bad judgment to do something like that. About 10 miles and 6000ft.