Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Spring 2022 Wrap-up

It feels like so much and so little has happened since I posted last in October. For one, I was wrong about my feeling that the winter would be really good. It was just okay. The excitement for splitboarding was quite low (the lowest it's been maybe ever) and so I spent much time in the climbing gym regaining lost fitness. 

I've also been skateboarding a lot, mostly with Sam and Taylor, and it's been fulfilling reconnecting with that part of me. Skateboarding, like surfing, is maybe one of the more 'soulful' activities I do, aside from maybe strumming around on my guitar. It's been a part of me since I was 10 and I don't think it'll ever leave. But fuck, it hurts sometimes. I've hurt myself skateboarding a lot, but luckily it's mostly bruises and twists and the pain never lasts more than a few days. 

I've gotten way behind on posting on here, and though I didn't do anything too epic this past spring there were some good times in the hills that I'd like to memorialize. 


Hallway Couloir, 1/15/22

Riley and Bryan came into town. They were kinda worked from some previous adventure snowboarding in the Bears and I felt woefully out of shape, so we had a semi-ambitious plan of hitting Main Days, climbing back up the ridge, and then exiting via Hallway. We parked in Cardiff and approached from Days because it was the weekend and you can no longer park in upper LCC without a permit during that time.

The approach tired us out more than we expected, so we waffled between hitting either Main Days or Hallway. We ultimately chose Hallway because we knew the snow would not be good, and at least the couloir provided an interesting position. 

After sidescraping down into the chute proper (it does NOT go from the notch on the saddle; at least not with the amount of snow that day), we made chunky/difficult/crusty turns all the way down into the Tube, which had some playful windbuffed/dry condensed powder. 


Doesn't go from here!


Bryan perfecting the art of using your edge on a snowboard


Me (photo: RR)


Bozeman Trip, 1/27–1/30

It always feels so nice to get out of the dusty, barren landscape that is the Great Basin and enter a world of dense Douglas fir, cold streams, and grizzly bears. The drive from SLC->Island Park drags and drags, but I always feel revitalized after climbing out of Ashton and onto the Yellowstone Caldera. 

In fact I was feeling so good on the drive up (and the weather was so perfect) that I decided to go for a quick lap on Telemark Meadows, which is in the YSNP boundaries. It was a beautiful evening--I had the meadows all to myself. 


The snow was definitely just okay. It hadn't snowed in over a few weeks, but the powder on top of what I assume was November's icy/chunky layer was dry.

The next day Jerad, Todd, and I decided to hit Big Ellis. My first experience there a couple of years ago was fun but unremarkable. I actually think it was the first ever out of bounds slidepath I ever rode my snowboard down. 

Anyhow, the snow was marginal but catching up with Jerad and Todd was fun. I'm glad I can go back to Bozeman and pick up right where I left off with old friends. 


Todd gettin' it on the rad and imposing slopes of Big Ellis


I definitely do not miss needing to walk super far for 500'-1000' of riding, but dang being outside in cold Montana sure is nice 


Sunset over Peet's Hill. I spent a lot of time on this hill when I lived in Bozeman—both for work and for fun. That's another thing Bozeman has going for it over SLC: a singletrack trail network, right in town.

The next day Aden and I met up with Libby and Westy (who are now husband and wife!) to go climbing at Whiskey Gulch. I was impressed with the stone. It's seriously so good! I really miss igneous bouldering such as this, which reminded me a lot of the gneiss in Connecticut. But I won't speak too loudly—I don't want the LCC boulders to sense my fear. 


Libby pulling down on something hard in Whiskey

I flashed a V4 that day and hopped on my first V7 since the injury I incurred in Joe's back in October. It felt great. I think it ignited the flame for hard climbing once again, and I've been bouldering more now than I ever have since leaving CT in 2018. 

I finished off the short trip with a couple of laps up Flanders with Jerad and Peter. The last time Peter and I got together, we were deep in the Missouri Headwaters Relay, which was mostly a miserable experience bookended by a very fun picnic. It was great to hang with Peter and to get up in Hyalite. We eyed the entire 'Hyalite-Blackmore' traverse, and I'd love to come back one day with some fitness and get that done.




The exit was about as fun as any Hyalite exit, but I've vastly refined my splitskiing skills over the years and it went just about as smoothly as it could have. 

Until next time Bozeman. 


Blind Hollow Yurt Trip, 2/6–2/9

It was time to return to the Blind Hollow Yurt. I knew it would be hard to be our 2020 trip, where we had maybe some of the best powder I've ever had the pleasure of riding. In fact, it hadn't snowed in the Bears in weeks and we had no idea what kind of snow we would be dealing with, but we did know that it wouldn't be very good. Anyway, we had a solid crew and we were all ready to hunker down with eachother in very confined quarters for a few days.



Atleast the sun shone for almost the entirety of the trip





The snow and riding was quite unremarkable, but we got on top of the 'Sisters' each day and had fun catching up with each other and skiing with the hand we were dealt. 

Like most yurt trips I've been on, my favorite memories were goofing off at the Yurt. We packed the yurt to max capacity, and the spare cots provided to us were mostly broken. It took us a solid 45 drunken minutes to set one of them up. The unfortunate part was that they took up so much floorspace that we had to break them down every morning. Setting them back up was a drunken chore that haunted us for most of the trip.



One morning Connor, Grace, Emma and I decided to break off and go check out some steeper north-facing stuff. Seeing small crowns on the exact same aspect one drainage over scared us away from our original plan, so we chose something more manageable and east facing. It was really fun. We called it the J-Tube. 



Connor on the upper crux of the J-Tube



When all was said and done we had a fair bit of skiing and a lot of working our way through our booze cache. Luckily every ounce of alcohol and most of the food had been accounted for, and we zipped out on the final day and said our goodbyes. I probably won't see Aden and Biz for another half a year or so (they're hiking the PCT), so the times spent with Bozeman pals are always to be cherished.


Tri Chute, Birthday Chute, 2/19/22

I think Nick has had a hell of a time coaxing me out of my hole and getting me onto snow this season. Luckily I had been wanting to ride both Tri Chute and Birthday Chute in one single tour for a while now, and when Nick agreed to the plan I got excited for splitboarding again. 

We made pretty good time into White Pine proper and reached the top of Red Stack in about 3 hours. The skinning wasn't too bad and I didn't even feel like I needed ski crampons (but of course they would've been nice). 


We hit Tri Chute in about the best conditions we could've asked for that day. It's a fairly cool run, but it seems like it's difficult to get it in good condition from the top because it's seemingly hammered by wind on a constant basis. 


After Tri Chute we made the long climb back up to the top of Red Stack about 5 hours into the day. I felt like I was moving really well that day despite touring very little this season. We chose the Birthday Chute that I believe was the furthest looker's left. It was fun, hardpacked dry snow. 


We decided to exit out of Scottie's bowl, which I think was the right call. The north-facing shot easily had the best snow out of any of the runs we descended that day. Plus we avoided the low angle forest road exit. For White Pine tours, I'll probably exit out of Scottie's every time if conditions allow. 

I felt like this linkup was a very logical way to check out most of the good stuff off of Red Stack, with the Scottie's exit a nice bonus). About 6,500' total.


Ankle Roll, 2/21/2022

I can't sit still so on a crummy winter day I decided to go check out some spots in downtown SLC. I wasn't super warmed up but felt like my BS noseslides were on lock so I tried one on the Gallivan brick ledge. The first one I landed went well but I wanted to slide longer and pop out a bit more...


And then I rolled my ankle pretty hard; probably the hardest I have in a while. Urghhhh. I made a very slow limp back to my car, which was about 3/4 mile from Gallivan. 



Light yoga for the foreseeable future!


Quick Desert Hit w/ Libby, 3/4–3/6

With a bum ankle and some desire to head down to the desert, Libby and I set off for a quick weekend boondocking and poking around in the desert. Our first stop was a pulloff along Highway 24 south of I70. 

For some reason I love rolling into a place in the dark not knowing really what the views from camp will look like. I was intentional about backing the truck into the pulloff so it would face the Reef, which I knew would be lit up by the sun in the morning. I wasn't wrong, and it was a great view from bed.



Shortly after sunrise I fired up some coffee. Libby and I sat on a rock and enjoyed watching the weather move in around us. It looked like it was raining elsewhere, but we stayed dry.




The plan after that was to point it south toward Hanksville and eventually to an overpass in the road that bisected our objective for the day: Maidenwater Canyon. Highway 24 is a cool highway, and I'd love to take it and Highway 95 all the way to Blanding one day. So far we've driven most of that route with the major gap being Hite to Natural Bridges. Driving is not always cool, but it typically is when you're surrounded by lonely red rock country. I love the desert!!! 

Anyhow, Maidenwater was a sweet, mellow canyon with mostly uneventful obstacles save for an invigorating hip-deep wade. We had fairly scant beta downloaded onto my phone, and while we wanted to climb out of the canyon via Trail Canyon and overland back to the car, it was taking us too long to find the exit. So we backtracked all of the way instead.





We had a mellow evening at an empty Sandthrax Campground, playing chess and cooking. The next morning we contemplated descending Hogwarts Canyon, but the skies threatened rain so we returned home. 


Spaceshot Attempt, Zion National Park, 3/11–3/12

At some point this spring I decided to buy atriers and start practicing aid climbing. I read thee aid climbing book, spent some time in the gym and at home dialing in systems, and practiced some aid leading in Little Cottonwood Canyon. When I told Greg that I was getting pysched on learning how to aid climb, he expressed interest in doing an introductory aid route with me.

This was very nice of him; Greg is quite the accomplished mountain human. He's climbed El Cap a handful of times, he's aided many routes in Zion, and he's also logged some impressive Alaska ski descents. I knew that if there was ever a time to really learn aid climbing, it would be with someone like him.

We decided on Spaceshot because it's a relatively short wall, and supposedly the aid climbing isn't that tricky at C2/C2+ (we were kind of wrong). To really achieve the full effect, Greg advocated that we climb it wall style rather than smash-and-grab, which is what a lot of parties do for Spaceshot. 

We get into Zion fairly early and headed up the wall mid-morning. I made a short Instagram story thing describing my experience on the route, so if you want the full details, go check it out there. 


Whiskey turned out to be a critical item in the haul bag. It was there with me when I fired off my first aid lead, and it was there when we decided to bail and hang out on a large, open ledge. 



I now understand the difficulty of covering long distances with a haulbag. 




Our haulbag got stuck on the low-angle approach pitches. I was bone thirsty throughout this whole endeavor, and it was really fun working with Greg and using my knowledge of ropes/anchors to problem solve our way out of things. That was actually my favorite part of the whole experience. There would be a constant back and forth about how to optimize certain plans. Greg would suggest one thing, I would counter-suggest another thing, and eventually we would decide on a plan of action that we deemed the most efficient.


Eventually we got to our bivy ledge and I fired off the bolt ladder lead. Turns out C1 is no indication of how 'easy' the pitch would feel. Stepping in the top rung of my atriers was very strenuous, and it took me a while to make progress. Greg played music to encourage me, and he also managed to set up camp while belaying me. Wall climbing was starting to feel like a lot of work. 



For some reason I could NOT stomach the canned chili despite being hungry, so I duct-taped it shut hoping that I would regain some hunger. I knew this was a bad sign. Before too long we were in the portaledge trying to go to sleep, but my stomach felt way off. At one point I was sitting up with my head hanging off the side of the portaledge, ready to puke. Luckily it passed. I was not excited at the prospect of getting sick during my first portaledge experience. 


The next morning Greg ascending to my high point and fired off the rest of the pitch. He hung around for maybe 1.5 hours below one specific placement. Luckily we brought my tricams and the pitch just barely went.



I belayed Greg for about 2.5 hours, maybe more. This required a lot of patience. I listened to music and podcasts on my phone while I waited. The jugging went quick, and I made it to our first hanging belay of the day. The next pitch is supposed to be the hardest, and I was not the most excited about hanging out on an exposed belay for another 2.5, 3 hours. 



Greg and I discussed how indeed we were going quite slow, and it was questionable whether we'd even make it to the Earth Orbit Ledge by nightfall. After some deliberation, we decided to 'soft' bail. We could've kept going, but I lacked the motivation. It was a great lesson in just how gnarly wall climbing can be. 


I have no distinct desire to go back to Zion and attempt Spaceshot again. I'm not sure if and when the psych for aid climbing will return, but it was a meaningful experience for me and I'm glad Greg humored me in giving it a go. 


Wheeler Peak, Great Basin National Park, 3/26

After getting shut down on Spaceshot, weeks later I threw out the idea to Greg that we should go ski Wheeler Peak in GBNP. 

There was something alluring about the Snake Range of Nevada, which lies plumb dead in the middle of barren Great Basin country. It's such a strange national park; there's not a ton of access points, there's little pretense in the surrounding towns (there's barely any towns, come to think of it), and there's a stark lack of the hubbub you find at other national parks. 

It was eerie rolling up to the empty trailhead late at night, with warm air and the winds howling high overhead. 

We awoke proper early and started the long, low-angle skin into the drainage.


Despite very warm feeling air, the clouds remained overhead, the wind continued to blow, and the snow on the ascent stayed firm. We knew we'd have to dial back our original plans a little bit. 

Evidently Wheeler Peak gets hammered by wind from all directions. The ascent was a mixture of hardpack skinning, to booting up loose talus, to walking along a dry summer trail.
 

It was starting to feel like a proper old-guy mountaineering experience!



The last 1000' were a slog; the altitude certainly slowed me down. We stopped at the top for about 30 minutes to take everything in, and we realized there's definitely a lot of skiing to be had here. I'd love to come back and access from the drainage to the south and get some of those fine-looking corn runs. 


The skiing down was quite marginal but at least the clouds started to part. There was one 600' ribbon of nice windbuffed snow that afforded some fun turns. Very quickly we entered into the land of schmoo, and the descent back to the trailhead was slow and arduous. 



The riding conditions were nothing to write home about, but it was fun summiting Wheeler Peak with my splitboard. It felt like more of a mountaineering experience than a ski mountaineering experience, but that was fine with me. 

Spring has Sprung in the Wasatch, 3/27

Not really much to report on this fun outing in LCC aside from a gnarly wet slide coming off of Perla's Ridge that sounded like a freight train moving through the canyon. Impressive stuff. 




Nick and I were very glad to be on the other side of the canyon when this happened. 


Icefall, 4/3

Icefall remained an enticing line ever since I walked away from it last May. Luckily things lined up on this day and Nick and I scored it in excellent corn conditions. Probably some of the best corn I've ridden in a long, long time.
 


Nick and I chose to drop in from the steep skier's left entrance (maybe 45-50 deg?). Conditions were perfect for this angle. I took the first turns down and hooted and hollered as the corn was soft yet supportable. 

We both ripped it pretty fast to the bottom of the run, and made the very warm and exposed skin back up to East Pass. Shards of quartzite talus reigned down on us on the lower portions of the exit, and we tried moving as quickly as possible. 

Icefall is a very high quality corn descent; it has a little bit of everything. This was probably my favorite run of the season, which isn't saying a ton because this past season I didn't really splitboard anything major. Still, I'd ride Icefall again in a heartbeat. 


North Chimney, Castletown Tower, 4/15

Ben told me to clear my calendar for this weekend because we both wanted to get some desert tower climbing in. Desert tower climbing felt a lot like a rite of passage for the adventure climber. I had been climbing fairly well leading up to this weekend and I was ready for whatever Castleton would have to throw at us.

I'd never climbed with Ben, although I had spent plenty of time with him, so I didn't know exactly what I was getting into. He ended up being a great partner and I'm psyched to share a rope with him again. 


The tower of all desert towers


The approach to any of the climbs on Castleton is non-trivial

We were prepared to climb either the Kor Ingalls or the North Chimney depending on wind and crowds. We turned the corner from the North Chimney to the KI and winds were practically unbearable. We had to yell to eachother and our wind layers fluttered like flimsy sails in stormy seas. North Chimney it is.

After waiting behind a guided party with a client who was just learning how to crack climb (probably 1.5 hours of waiting), Ben set off on the first pitch, which (I thought) was a physical double crack dihedral on vertical rock. I think this would be a 5.9+ or even a 10 considering the start anywhere else in the desert, but we were on Castleton where tradition rules the day.


I followed the pitch and felt like my back was soaked in water. It turns out that I forgot to fully screw on the cap for the bladder. Oops.

We made a speedy changeover on the top of pitch 1, and perhaps to not make Ben think I was a total chuffer, I was very deliberate in starting up the offwidth pitch with little hesitation. 

The first couple of bodylengths were very easy, and then came the offwidth which protected splendidly with a 6. I walked it up a few few from a good stance and fired off the true offwidth section, using feet out left. This was a pretty difficult section of climbing. I had to catch my breath for a minute or two afterwards. 

The climb does not really let up either. I continued up the chimney, climbing past several refrigerator-sized chockstones that either require classic chimneying, delicate stemming, or boulder-y layback sequences. All of the X'ed chockstones/flakes add to the excitement and make the movement much more interesting. It was an excellent pitch and I'm glad I led it. 



One can probably climb the North Chimney in the dead summer and feel fairly comfortable. It was a seasonably warm day in the desert, but I stayed cold as I belayed Ben up the pitch. 



Ben took the last two pitches, linking them together. The third pitch starts with some attention-grabbing stem moves off of the belay and then eases up once you exit the chimney and into a gulley with easier climbing. However, this gulley is terrifying because it's filled with evidently loose blocks. 

The fourth pitch is very short but offers some interesting face climbing to the summit. 


The summit super impressive! I don't think I've ever been on top of a formation with sheer 360 degree views. 




We hung out at the top of the summit for a bit and enjoyed rifling through the summit register, which is a bit of a freak scene. 

We decided to rap the North Face, which had one of the scarier rappels I've ever done. It's a sheer drop with lots of exposure, and the fact that you kind of need to just commit and fall back into your rappel rig is a bit puckering. Luckily there's a tiny ledge for your feet that you can down mantle to and gather your bearings. 


Luckily we brought two ropes, because one of our ropes got stuck on the first rappel. Weird, because the rap rings are the size of grapefruits.


This was Ben's brand spanking new rope that got stuck, so we spent an hour trying to free it but with little luck. We made the final two rappels somewhat defeated. 

When all was said and done we climbed the tower in around 3 hours. The rappels would have went lightning fast had we not got our rope stuck.

Next time I'm in the adventure/alpine climbing mood but the high mountains are shut down with snow, I certainly will consider going down to the desert and checking out more towers. They're adventurous indeed.


As we hiked down the trail, we noticed another party rapping down the North Face. Surprisingly enough they heard our yells from below. They told us that they would be happy to retrieve our rope, which was a super solid move on their part. We were informed that our rope somehow wound itself into a figure-eight on a bight, which then got caught up in one of the rap chains. WTF? I guess we somehow managed to fix our rope from the bottom. Weird stuff. This was a good lesson in bringing two ropes on climbs such as these, because sometimes you just can't help from getting your rope stuck even if you do seemingly everything right.


The forecast for the next days called for harrowing winds, and while we wanted to climb Lonely Vigil on the Lighthouse Tower, we settled for lowlier pursuits and went bouldering in Big Bend. I managed to get Brown Power on the second go, which gets my vote as the best moderate in the area. 

That day we drove all the way to Joe's. It rained on the drive up, and we hoped it would be dry enough the following morning. That night we drank some beers at the Right Fork campground and enjoyed a beautiful moonrise over the canyon. 

Thankfully the windy clear night helped the drying process and we spent a few hours in the Mansize area the following morning. I managed to nab a send of Great White, a climb I worked back in October. The key was switching up the beta from a scrunchy toe hook to a powerful dyno, which admittedly is more my style. It paid off! Bouldering in Joe's is thee best.





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