I spent last Saturday morning exploring the mountains around Box Elder Peak. Dug, Ben, Jon, Mike and I met at Suncrest at 5:30am and drove to the Tibble Fork parking lot. (There are many reasons why I love living at Suncrest but the fact that I know so many guys up there who like to get out and hike AND bike is very cool). We left Tibble Fork at about 6am in the pitch dark and headed up towards Granite Flats. There is a trail that starts from the Granite Flats campground area and winds around a few mountains and dumps you at the base of Box Elder (which was our objective), but we decided to find a more direct route. (For future reference, whenever someone says a more "direct route" in the backcountry, it means steep as hell). Ben lead the way and it was straight up. We must have gained 1,000 ft of vertical in the first 10 minutes. It was a much more interesting approach and we didn't have any trouble finding a route up the mountain. The problem was Box Elder was a lot further way than we anticipated and it required us to navigate across multiple sub ridges to work our way over to it. We finally decided to ski a chute that we discovered instead of try for the summit of Box Elder. I'd say we made the right choice.
Things I learned on this hike:
- Cheetos and Fruit Snacks make you go fast up the mountain. Ben must have put away 3 or 4 bags of each and he is a mountain goat on the climb. A direct result of his choice of fuel
- It's important to stretch your Uterus before skiing a chute.
- When you are climbing 4,000 + vertical ft, just about anything on your ipod sounds good. Just find the zone.
Here we are at the entry. Dug is in red, Jon in black, me in the blue boots, and Ben in the green boots. Mike is on a cliff band about 50 yards away taking the pics (thanks Mike!).
6 comments:
my uterus is STILL sore. but mostly my pride. first i was scared to just climb down into the chute. then seeing you guys bomb the chute got me excited, and then when it was my turn, i managed to get each limb going a different direction on my second turn, during which i slightly stretched my uterus.
then, as i exited the chute, in full view of y'all waiting in the apron, i hit the avy debris, and fully pulled my uterus, maybe teared it a little, and had a little yard sale.
but in spite of all that, i would do it all again tomorrow. the stuff below that, while not 'ben-level' adrenaline, was pure gold fun corn, all the way down to the trail.
good times.
Dear Santa,
All I want for my birthday this year is to move back to Utah so I can invite myself on Rick S's adventures. Amen.
Dug -I thought it was funny when Ben gave us the "Dad" speach right before he dropped into the chute. I'm just glad I had my tread on my boots for the climb down.
Mark- There are plenty of nice homes for sale in the area. Take your pick.
Gotta get a job first...
Those pictures look exactly like the ones that usually have an accopanying headline that reads:
EXTREME SKIER KILLED ATTEMPTING TO JUMP OVER THE GRAND CANYON
Botched
botched, yeah, my problem here was my safety chute "accidentally" deployed before i was off the launch ramp.
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