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

Porter Fork Bluebird

Ben and I went up porter fork today. We are usually pretty fast on the up, but today there was some very impressive splitboarders. They were flying up the hill with those large, unwieldy planks. Very impressive...

My legs on the other hand were doing about as one would expect after 5 days of skiing in the last 6 days. Near the top I started to feel like I was skinning in ankle-deep molasses. The picture says it all...



As for the skiing? It could not be better. After a few cornice and wind-drift kicks gave naught but a shrug we dove down into the top of porter fork bowl for some of the best turns this year, at least 3500 vertical feet worth. Here is a pic of Ben doing the first slope cut




And here is me, another satisfied Porter Fork customer



At this website you may view a video: http://www.math.utah.edu/~nesse/imBuildingARockWall/060314porterFork/

-will