Northern Swell 50K

Once again I found myself executing a bonehead adventure with my bud Nick.

This time we decided to head down to the northern San Rafael Swell for a full value day of linking several wonderful sections of wilderness in the Sid's Mountain area. We were both somewhat familiar with the terrain, as I had spent some time earlier this year exploring the first section of the run, while Nick had some experience in what would be the latter portion of the run. 

The first weeks of November had me frothing to go splitboarding, but the snow situation deteriorated rapidly. As the week rolled on, it was apparent that Utah and most of the Intermountain West would remain high and dry after an otherwise promising start to winter, so splitboarding would have to wait. Thus, heading down south seemed like a reasonable thing to do. 

Nick and I shot several plans back and forth, pored over some maps, and agreed on a relatively casual but long-ish 20-25 mile run. I am woefully out of running shape and anticipated a limping finish, but nevertheless was stoked to get down into the desert and further explore an area that continues to capture my interest. 

On the drive in, we passed by the newly minted BLM Sid's Mountain Wilderness signs. Last time I was here, it was still a wilderness study area. Nice. 

Crisp, cloudless. Perfect late autumn desert running weather.

We left the truck around 8 AM and made quick time descending into the bottom of North Salt Wash. I was pleasantly warm as we jogged at a comfortable pace, hopping back and forth across the wash and passing several small beaver dams. 

We followed cairns up to Sid's Mesa, climbing the slickrock terraces at a steady pace. Soon after topping out on the nondescript mesa (which lacks any real trail save for a pack trails), we gained our bearings and headed southeast to Sid's proper. Running through cedars on the mesa was probably the most type-1 part of the day. Just classic high desert cruising on open mesa. 

Somewhere on the mesa, with Navajo sandstone domes in the back

We made it to Sid's Cabin in great time, having taken no real breaks until then, and felt fit, energized, and stoked overall. I'd like to think that ol' Sid spent a lot of time up here on the mesa with nothing but his cows and thoughts. It's people like him that make me want to keep the headphones in the car on long outings like these. I wonder what he'd say about this whole wilderness area concept.

After poking around the old homestead and having a quick snack, we headed straight east toward the head of Virgin Spring Canyon. It was tempting to drop in here, but we stuck to the original plan and continued further along the rim to seek an entrance into Cane Wash. 

The southern rim of the "Little Grand Canyon" afforded expansive views across the flats and buttes below: Oil Well Flat, Limestone Bench, Window Blind Peak, all dusty and useless. I love every bit of it.

We crossed an improbable section of canyon rim that pinches together between Virgin Springs Canyon and No Man's Mountain, and ambled our way along the rim searching for an entrance into Cane Wash. It turns out there's no obvious points of descent, but we found a saddle between Virgin Springs Canyon and Cane Wash that would lead to a somewhat convoluted descent. After a ~900ft descent into Cane Wash, we were off the mesa and in the cool, shady reaches of the canyon bottom.

Unfortunately, the aches, pains, and chafes came way earlier than scheduled. While I knew my body would break down at some point during this run (I had averaged only 7 mile weeks over the past few months), I was hoping to last a bit longer. 

After an extended break, some stretches, and a few Ibuprofens, I tried to jog along the sandy bottom of Cane Wash, but my IT bands were not having it. I felt great mentally and physically, but my knees were screaming. I was frustrated to say the least. Power hiking still felt fine, and we continued along the Wash Bottom at a fast hiking clip. 

A little bit of jogging, a little bit of walking. OHV tracks through most of the wash. Blechkkk.

We found a clear flowing stream midway through the wash. At this point, I was nearly out of water and decided to refill my bladder. The day before, I de-bunged my filter with some vinegar, but forgot to thoroughly rinse the vinegar out before packing it in my runner vest. In turn, the creek water tasted like old vinegar and was more or less undrinkable. The weather was cool enough to prevent any noticeable sweating, so I felt comfortable moving on without refilling the bladder. 

Cane Wash inspires

Right before exiting Cane Wash and heading into the San Rafael River proper, we ascended through a notch that split the sheer sandstone walls, saving ourselves some travel time. Daylight was still on our side, but we realized that we didn't have much of it left, and we probably would be finishing in the dark. Here's to hoping that the San Rafael River Stretch would go by quick!

This notch seemed like a very obvious spot for early inhabitants/canyon travelers to convene

The San Rafael River Stretch did not go by quick, and is the obvious contender for most type-2.5 fun of the day. At first it wasn't so bad, as we ambled through cattle pastures and along sandbars with empty dreams of getting to the mouth of North Salt Wash by dark. Soon, the pastures and sandbars became choked with brush and my legs started to get thrashed, so I switched back to spandex. A nice relief, and my IT band felt a bit better, so we managed some more jogging. After a while, though, the terrain became even more brushy, winding, and unfavorable to running, so we switched back to hiking. At current, we were at 20-25 miles, and realized that we would be covering much more ground than we had initially hoped. 

Still type-1-ish, though with dwindling daylight

Less type-1

We did as much canyon wall and riverbank skirting as we could, but we accepted the inevitable: we'd have to cross the San Rafael River. We were running out of daylight, and it didn't make sense to spend our time searching for improbable sneaks to avoid river crossings.

We moved as quickly as I felt we could. We knew that moving along the San Rafael River in the dark would be bad, since it was probably more than hip deep in parts. After a handful of icy river crossings, I started to become numb to the process (*ba-doom-ch*), and we pushed along, accepting nightfall and getting cold.

After the 6th crossing, we were very, very close to the mouth of North Salt Wash and dreaded the idea of crossing the river two more times. With the freezing cold creeping in and our fatigue levels rising, it seemed quite dangerous. After some canyon wall skirting, we reached a pinch point that edged off into what looked like a deep river pool, but we couldn't really tell by headlamp. Frustrated, we backtracked and searched for a means to get up onto the shelf above us. We found a climbable pourover and were soon sidehilling our way toward North Salt Wash.

We came across the first people we saw all day at the confluence of North Salt Wash and the San Rafael River. They had a camp set up and a small fire going. I was somewhat relieved to see them, but their words were anything but a relief: "North Salt Wash is a bit complicated and actually winds back and forth across the wash." Nick and I were hoping that North Salt Wash would be a breeze, so this was discouraging to say the least. 

I didn't even want to look at my map, knowing that it would do little to raise my spirits. Nick and I had a joke going, where Nick would occasionally look at the map and say, "We're making progress." Indeed. 

North Salt Wash was snowy overall, and we leapt across the narrow creek numerous times. We got turned around occasionally, but knew that staying more or less along the creek would bring us back to where we started our day. 

Cold, tired, sore as boils, we reached the North Salt Wash exit and started our climb up the slickrock and back to the unmarked TH I hadn't noticed how fatigued I was until this last climb. The final bit of walking felt dreamlike, and we were back at the truck in a little over 12 hours, cold and ready to eat. 

The entire route was entirely off trail (unless you count faint and inconsistent pack trails), and was the longest distance I've covered on foot in a single push to date. I am looking forward to more long distance desert efforts like this, but will do a bit more conditioning before the next one. 

The northern San Rafael Swell deserves all of the adoration, protection, etc. 

Total mi: 33

Total elev.: 3,366 ft. 

Elapsed time: 12:18

Food: banana, gu, 3 chews, pro bar, 2 clif bars, 8 macaroons 

Water: 1.5L

River Crossings: 6

Times Nick and I agreed that this was a "big ol' day": 50

Total amount of nut butter applied to the nether regions: 10 tbsps

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/4376552092

 

Tacoma Buildout and First Snow of the Season

Toyota Tacoma Bed Camper Buildout

Libby and I cancelled our plans to go climbing in the Swell this weekend because the weather looked bad pretty much everywhere within a 300 mile radius. No snow in the Wasatch to have a meaningful tour close to town, yet too much precip here and in the south, making LCC granite undesirable and sandstone climbing questionable at best. So, what better time to tick off some rainy day tasks?

I recently purchased a truck, and the thought of building out the bed weighed on my mind ever since I got it. With a topper finally in place, the time was ripe to get to work.

Truck camping, sans-buildout, in Indian Creek.

I'm not much of a carpenter nor handyman, but I can saw relatively straight and hammer things in place when I need to. With that being said, I wanted a sturdy buildout that required as little construction as possible. I wanted a raised sleeping platform that would cover only half of the truckbed, leaving the other half of the truckbed available for easily accessible storage, or for sitting upright with ample headroom. But, I also wanted the option of turning the sleeping platform into one that would cover the whole bed, either during the times I'm with Libby, or when I want to leave valuables in the truckbed out of sight.

Lucky for me, the 3rd-gen Tacoma beds are practically designed for buildouts, with really nice geometrical notches and flat, uniform surfaces.

I went to Home Depot and bought two 4'x8' sheets of 1" thick birch plywood (I didn't want to cheap out on the quality of the plywood, since cheaper plywood bows, flexes, and warps much easier), 7'x6' of subwoofer-style carpeting, adhesive spray, a staple gun, staples, and two spring clamps. I had 3" screws laying around, and used only 12 of them. With these materials alone, I made a buildout that I am super satisfied with, and stoked to try out. All in all, it cost about ~$120. I am really grateful to my neighbor Ryan for letting me borrow his power tools, and to Libby for her perfectionist touches. 

Basically, the bed platform is almost entirely supported by the wheel wells and a 1" ledge that runs the entire length of the truckbed liner. This made construction SUPER simple; all I needed to do was build out some support boards for the middle of the bed platform, and slot them onto the notches. The precise measurements of the lateral supports escape me, but you get the picture: 

Notice the nice geometric notches and flat wheel well surface. This provides much of the support for the bed platform.

The only real "construction" required for the whole project. These lateral supports slot onto the bed liner notches, are 30" long, and extend roughly 5/8's of the way across the truckbed. 

It was time to put the bed platform on top of the supports. Home Depot didn't have any plywood sheets that would cover the entire dimensions of my truck bed (74"x57"), so needed to cut two 1" thick 4'x8' sheets of plywood into two 28.5"x6' sheets (this gave me a good bit of scrap, which I used for the aforementioned lateral supports).

The next part was a bit tricky, but not a major pain. The truckbed isn't perfectly rectangular; it tapers off 4" from the tailgate in a series of angles obtuse angles. I wanted the bed platform to fit perfectly, maximizing as much of the bed space as possible, so some fine sawing was in order. This didn't take long, and things started coming together. 

The primary sleeping platform, supported by the bed liner and lateral supports. Notice that I left ~2" of the lateral supports exposed to support the other half of the bed platform. 

Rinse and repeat with the other length of plywood, and things fit snugly. I knew I'd have to do some trimming once the carpet went on, but I'd cross that bridge when I got there. 

The 'full' version of the bed platform. 

Next was the carpeting, which was somewhat time consuming, but well worth it (less condensation, less splinters, more aesthetically-pleasing, more dampening). I used thin carpeting— the type you'd use for subwoofers, or on a pool deck— and fitted it to the plywood with adhesive spray and staples. I trimmed off any bulky excess.

Indeed, I needed to trim a bit of board off of one of the plywood sheets to account for the added thickness of the carpet. This didn't take long.

Voila. Like a glove. 

At this point, I considered it mostly done. With this design, I can either store one half of the sleeping platform in my garage, or stack it on top the other sleeping platform and secure it down with some basic spring clamps. Pictured is the 'stack' method. 

Single sleep platform mode, with one piece of plywood stacked on top of the other. I have yet to decide whether this will be the default mode.

These projects are a lot more enjoyable with good company! Thanks Ryan and Lib.

Ready for the road. I'll probably keep my bag and the memory foam in here at all times for mobility's sake. If someone wants to steal my bag and memory foam pad out of my truck while it's parked in front of my house, they probably need it more than I do. 

First Turns of the Season

A day at the races: the snow falls once again; COVID is still here; Biden is our president elect; Collins at Alta is the only place in the Wasatch (in my mind) where touring makes sense.

I hadn't forgot to tune up my skis and make sure all the bells and whistles were in working order before the 2020/2021 season's first dump. I've been waiting for a system like today's (11/8/20) for a very, very long time. Meteorological monotony has seemingly plagued the SLC area for the past 6 months, with the last major precip event taking place in June. It may have rained once or twice between now and then, but only paltry amounts. Otherwise, things have been bone dry (which, admittedly, has been great for climbing and running up high). 

For better or for worse, I headed to Collins Gulch at Alta, aka the Collins Glacier; the only desirable skiing option right now, since Alta started blowing snow in this drainage some time around October. With 0" of base and forecasted low-density snow, I left the car with very low expectations.

It was a bit of a madhouse, as expected, but the mood was convivial overall. I think people were excited for many reasons, though I reserved some of my own excitement based on how aggressively COVID is spiking. I finished my own bout with COVID back in July, but I couldn't help thinking that, despite this, I was not morally superior than anyone else. After all, I wanted some early season pow just as much as the next Jane and John, and goddamn, had it been a long, hot past few months. Do we all deserve this? Are we doing the right thing?

I stopped about half way up Collins Gulch after someone who'd been riding Alta for the past week told me that this was where the machines stopped blowing, and that just yesterday, any terrain higher than this was rock and dirt. Despite denser-than-expected snow, I didn't want to risk it, so I transitioned and made my first turns of the season down the Collins Glacier. Out of all the turns I've made in my life, these were nothing special. Regardless, those first turns are always exciting— if not for the present moment, then for what the upcoming winter might hold. I got to the bottom wet with storm and sweat, transitioned, and headed back up for one more mediocre lap. 

Winter's here again, and it feels like things are beginning to fall into place.