Josh the Wasatch Sasquatch Strikes Again, on telemarktips.com

Yup, Josh is now famous.

-w

Hiking the Gulch With Praying Strangers

Last week Lis and I went down south with a group of about ten folks to do some hikes and backpacking in the Escalante National Monument. The group was a little different that I am used to. It included Lis' father and cousin, and an assemblage of others who, as I came to learn, did not know each other well. Lis' father, Lamar, is an avid backpacker. Aged 69, he can outhike those one-quarter his age. Lamar loves the desert and started backpacking in his forties. He has lead many groups of scouts down there and loves to share with others the wonders of the desert canyons. The others in the group were an odd group of folks whom it seemed were only halfway having any fun. It was odd because many in the group were not very talkative or lively. This is of course relative to myself who could be described as a regular jabermouther who has his own blog and everything. Besides the lack of loquaciousness I found the four-times-a-day prayer gathering a little alienating, but mostly it was the frowns and the stony silence that was a drag. I dont mind thanking god (in lower case) for the food in my bowl, good health, asking for world peace, for ending of human suffering, and compassion. But anyway...

We arrived in the afternoon for a quick hike up to Calf Creek Falls. To the climber's right of the falls there was some very wet and slippery 20-degree slabs. After a quick look-around and obligatory tourist photo-ops I got to work on sending the slabs. Using my chacos, cinched down tight for security, I found small dimples in the rock surface to gain footing. After brushing away moss and dirt I put my tips and finger nails on micro fisures. One slip sent you surfing down the slabs like a slip-n-slide. After many failed attempts I found a line of weakness going to an obvious ledge



I'd give the route a solid 5.7 difficulty rating. Decend the route by surfing down the slope at excessive speed, tripping over a sand bank at the bottom and diving into a somersault, and almost colliding with a tree.

We spent the next two days hiking Coyote gulch by way of crack in the wall to red well. For dinner Lis and I had cous cous with curry powder, shalots, carrots, and cashews. I think the frownypatnsers had those microwave noddle thingys. The scenery was beautiful and all that. I definitely reccomend checking out Escalante if you havent. The canyon was cool and shady, lush and green with numerous arches and interesting formations along the way...





For last day we hiked up brimstone slot, which is next to Peekaboo and Spoky. We didnt make it far up the slot before serious chimneying and wading through sesspools was required. It did not matter though because we had to turn around because team Prozac wanted to leave for home by lunchtime.



All in all it was a good and interesting trip in a naturalistic and anthropological way.

Amen.

Superiority Complex

Robert's job description I think says that he spends most of his time staring longingly at the broad and inspiring face of Mt. Superior while wishing to ski it, and also helping kids off and on the rope tow occasionally. Well, last Wednsday Robert finally got to ski it.

The team: Rob, Ben, John, and Yours Truly.


We woke up early and booted up the 3000+ face, gaining the summit right as the spring corn was softening up. Crampons and ice axes were the order of the day. The skis sat astride our backpacs.

Avalanche debris littered much of the face. Skiing down, we picked our way in between old slide paths to find the untouched sections. The spring corn skied so well it seemed mostly effortless, like on the rope tow where Rob works, but steeper and longer.


All told it was a great day if it wasnt for feeling so gosh darn tired.

Mountaineering: Walking uphill slowly in the snow while not feeling well.

-w

Escalante in the Spring

M. and I decided it was time for some desert hiking. Unlike most of the time, it was pretty cold all day and there was an extra color I'm not used to down in the desert: Green. We hiked up the Gulch, going upstream with blooming plants, green grass, a high flowing stream, and evidence of recent flooding found in the bent down reeds, flattened plant life, and tangled grass hanging at waist-height off of more stout things. The weather could not have been better and the 10-mile hike in was splendid. After droping packs and setting camp we traveled up a side canyon to see an arch and frolic about.


We topped off the trip with a visit to the Hell's Backbone Grill. Its not what you'd call a dirtbag sort of resturant, even though you can definitely dress like one in there and have nobody care, but after a long hike some gormet food is pretty good. My reccomend: Before you drive home, go in for a cup of coffee and a wiskey and black pepper chocolate bread pudding, which will run you about 10 bucks.

-w&m

Josh the Wasatch Sasquatch Sighted in Porter Fork

The abomitable snowman himself was seen in porter fork last sunday. Its hard to miss Josh when he is coming right at you as can be seen at this link

The Sasquatch Himself!!!!!

...


Anyway.... Josh, Bobby, and I all headed up to porter fork last sunday. I think this might be one of my favorite places in the Wasatch. It was a lesurely day, plodding along in the warmth of spring in heavy sticky new snow but I'm not complaining. At the start Bobby said he was not feeling well and wanted to turn back. This sort of situation requires subterfuge. I told him that the view of the run "lies just beyond that tree" and "you should decide what you want to do when you get up there". The old carrot and stick tactic... After several iterations of this tactic we all got near the top with a view of the porter fork limstone wall that would make for some great sport climbing in the summer. Splitting the wall was a nice chute on a shady northwest aspect. I pointed the chute out to the team and muttered some passing comment about how it would be cool to someday ski it. Bobby spied chute and the fategue turned to excitement as he piped up "I'll ski it!" I said that I would watch and film. Then Josh said he wanted to do it. "Fuck it" I said, "I guess I'll go up there to". I mean how hard can straightlining be. I mean its kind of defined by what you are not doing: turning, which I've only sort of got down, so not turning wouldnt do any harm. It turned out that I did to some turns and a fair bit of sideslipping but anyway...


What ensued was a great day of skiing. The following links are to films of the event...

1

2

3 (rocket man=josh)

4

5

5

6

-will

Maybird in Spring

I'm sorry I have no pictures for this one. The camera never came out of the pack as the clouds prevented any good pictures.

The skin into the pine and maybird canyons is always a bear. All three of these are hanging canyons and it takes a little activation energy to get out of hyway hell and into shangri la. We have all done it and concede that it is worth it. I tend to like little conttonwood drainages better than big for views, besides mill B south of course, and the Broads fork cirque... Ah hell they are all pretty. I take that back. What I do like is the openness of the red pine, maybird, hogum drainages. I love looking up at the phiferhorn above. Today however the phife was in cloud cover. Ben and I got near the pass into hogum but neglected to go there as there wouldn't be much of a view. We stuck to the trees on the east side of the drainage. Up high the powder was not too heavy by spring standards and the underlying crust didn't cause any funnybuisness till we got lower down. Ben and I had a great decent through the trees on moderate angles and out of harm's way as far as avalanches are concerned. I actually felt relatively comfortable on skis for the first time in the backcountry! I thank Rob for the lesson at alta last Saturday. By the end of last Saturday he told me I did not look quite as bad as I did in the morning.

-w

King's Peak Outing

It all starts with a healthy diner. Then I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and started driving out through Wyoming to King's Peak. The plan was to ski in as far as I could and possibly climb the thing.

Andrew McClean's book states that the road to hell is paved with good intentions but the slog into king's peak is just plain hell. I don't know if that is exactly true, but then again, I did not get all the way in. At 8 in the morning I started off from the road which is three miles further to the actual trail head. By mid morning my elevation was higher, the snow deeper, and the temps warmer.

So warm in fact that snow started to stick on my skis pretty badly. Breaking trail was difficult and slow with the heavy pack on but the scenery was beautiful. It was nice to be in perfect cross coutry ski terrain, with incline for nice steady climbing and perfect kick-and-glide. By about 4 pm the temps started to drop and I conceded that I was no where near the gunsight pass that leads to king's peak and so I'd better just set up camp. I was probably about 2 miles from the pass, and then another 4 to the peak. I had enough food to keep going the next day but M's flight was getting in Satruday night and I didnt want to cut it that close. I found out that the small 220 g propane/butane tank will melt 3 L of water plus all the cups of coffee and tea you want, and cook dinner of cous cous at 20 F. The night was cold. My thermometer diped into the single digits that night. I found out that with two socks with heat packs taped to my feet, with a warm full nalgene in the foot of my bag, with long johns, flece pants, caplene and down jacket on, inside my 0 F rei down time bag that single digit temps are just barely doable. I didnt get much sleep that night but all told it was OK.



The next day I woke and had tons of coffee and relaxed as it warmed up to a comfy 20 F. I tooled around the meadows on my skis for a bit then decided to haul ass back to the car before it heated up too much and got clods of snow on my skis. On my way out I met up with this family, an 10 and 12 year old and this guy who were all doing kings peak. these kids were tough. They camped in the single digits just like i did the night before. We chatted awhile and they told me that they were really enjoying my ski track in. They also told me that the whole wastach mountain club was planning to be up there this weekend to enjoy my ski track.



I plan to go back in a few weeks when the 3 miles of road melts out so I may park closer and the snow will be more settled and there will be easy trail breaking and/or a skitrack in.

-w