Attempt at Provo Peak

Plans for departure times went back and forth, but eventually we ended up getting under way at 9:09 am from the Rock Canyon trail head in Provo, UT.  Our destination for the day was obscured by other peaks and mountains, but we knew that Provo Peak (11,068 ft.)was back there. The lack of snow this winter meant that we started off with our snowshoes stowed on our packs as we started up the familiar trail in Rock Canyon. I admired the many rock routes that I had climbed this past Summer as we strode by. Part way up the trail started to get a little icy, but the trail was low angle and knowing that we wouldn’t encounter snow for quite a while we just stepped gingerly in the especially slippery parts.

After about an hour we connected to the Squaw Peak Trail. Dave and I had never been on this trail so it was new territory for us both. We stopped for a quick snack/water break. While stopped we had a chat with David Sheets, owner of Emergency Essentials. It turns out Dave worked for David almost 20 years ago. They did a little catching up and David told us how he had nearly ran into a bear this past summer,  just 30 yards from where we were standing. Bears in the vicinity, check.

The snow was now getting deep, but the trail was so well traveled and packed down, that we kept the snowshoes on the packs. Another 20 minutes and we were in the Rock Canyon campground, neither of us had any idea that this campground existed. It looks like a fun place to take the kids this summer.  Finally the snow was deep enough to need snowshoes so we stopped at one of the picnic tables to put them on. I checked the GPS to find the trail. There were about 3 trails that left from the campground that all sort of ended up converging at a later point so we took what looked to be the shortest route and started off. After a while we came to a gate and no trespassing sign. Hmmm. Check the GPS and we had missed a turn-off somewhere.  We weren’t too bothered by the back tracking, we were making good time and had plenty of energy. We decided to cut through some woods to where the GPS indicated that we would connect back with the trail. After a while we checked the GPS and we were way off of the trail now.  Oh man.  Time to double back again. This time we had a struggle up the side of a very steep stream bank. Now that we were getting close to the trail we decided to cut through some more woods to keep forward momentum.  Bad idea. When we checked the GPS after a bit we were just as far off as before. This time we headed strait for the indicated trail on the GPS so that we could finally get on course. This meant we had a couple of very high and steep bluffs to climb. It was starting to get hard.

I crested the final ridge and stopped on an obvious trail. I wasn’t about to be fooled by going down the wrong trial so I checked the GPS. It indicated that we were still a ways off from the trail, still in the direction that we were headed so we started up another steep ridge.  The ridge wasn’t the trail, but we decided to just follow the ridge in the direction of Provo Peak, not wanting to get rid of the elevation we had gained by climbing it. The ridge provided a nice view into Utah Valley and all the surrounding canyons. The only problem was the increasingly thick growths of scrub oak. A little bush-whacking never hurt anyone, so we continued on. We spotted a clearing on the ridge where the incline grew steeper and made that our goal, then we would stop for a break. Once we got to the start of that section fighting the incline and depth of the snow began to make things really tough. It was slow going, often fighting for 5 minutes just to make a couple of forward steps. Finally we made our goal, some large rocks on the edge of a small 20 ft. cliff. We stopped for lunch and a rest. I decided to check the GPS to find out exactly where we were. I discovered that the  trail that had been on was indeed the correct trail. Lesson learned, don’t always trust the GPS as gospel.

Provo Peak was now in our sights but it was another mile or two further plus 1500 ft of steep climbing. We decided to climb to the top of the ridge that we were on and call it good. After a big of a rest we got back to it and were quickly reminded that the mountain was not for or against us, it was just there. Steep and covered in deep snow.  At some point we can across tracks of some sort. They had plunged down into the snow and were a day or two old. Without any real defining characteristics we couldn’t figure out what had left the tracks. Then we came to a place where the animal had walked a little more softly and stayed on the surface. Big mountain lion prints were clearly visible. Knowing that the tracks were not recent we weren’t really concerned, but I kept my eyes open hoping to catch a glimpse of  a big cat.

After an eternity we finally came to the top of a false summit. My legs had started cramping and we were just plain exhausted so we called our adventure good decided we had gone far enough. After a quick sock change we started the downward part of the trip. Dave, whose knees were now hurting quite a bit did not have fun. I on the other hand had a blast. I moved onto the untracked snow and basically skied down the slopes. It was a bit awkward, and I ended up on my backside more than a couple of times, but it was fast, easy and a lot of fun.

We eventually made it back to the trail that the GPS had tricked us off of and followed it back to the campground so we could remember for the next attempt. Provo Peak is a fairly unknown peak. It can be seen from the valley, but it’s back behind other peaks and though it’s nearly as tall as Timpanogos, the most popular peak in the area, it does not appear as prominent so it goes fairly un-noticed. As far as peaks go, it’s a pretty good looking peak. I wish I had taken a picture of it.

I was able to test a cool new gadget that showed up the day before this outing. The LifeProof iPhone case. The case is shock resistant and waterproof. I have friends that have Otter Box cases for their phones and they work well, but they had quite a bit of bulk to the phone and I’ll just go without before I have to carry around something that bulky in my pocket or pack.  The Lifeproof case, using some shockingly thin plastic, is able to protect the iPhone from normal drops and in the case of the rep at the Outdoor Retailer show, a toss across the booth. The rep also demonstrated the waterproofness of the case by dropping his phone into a tank of water. I haven’t tested my personal phone but the rubber seals around the joints all seem to be well designed and implemented. The touch screen seems to have just the tiniest amount of difference in sensitivity. Not enough that it bothers me and not enough that it causes any issues with typing out a text or email.  The iPhone auto-correct still causes me more problems than any real or perceived loss of touch sensitivity will.

Between the awesomeness of my Goal Zero Guide 10 battery pack and the LifeProof case, I was able to have access to my ill-performing GPS for the entire 8 hour outing in the backcountry. If you have any need for a waterproof case or worry about dropping and cracking the screen on your $500 phone then the $75 for the LifeProof case is well worth the dough.

Dave and I will go back to Provo Peak in a month or so when schedules have cleared up and we’re ready to give it another go. Next time we’ll follow the trail and save our climbing legs for the actual peak. Maybe we’ll even see that mountain lion…

Ouray Ice Climbing

The winter snowpack is the worst it’s been in a decade and the temperatures have been well above typical January levels but most of the ice routes in Provo Canyon are looking good. I think this is mainly due to snow melt from above that drips down to the shady north facing cliffs and freezes up. I drive up the canyon about once week to check out the popular routes always expecting to see them all melted out but they’re sticking around.  Good for me and good for the hordes  of climbers that I saw on Stairway to Heaven last weekend. 


Anyone that has any interest at all in ice climbing knows that Ouray CO is one of the destinations you need to visit.  I planned a trip with my pal Rick Miske to spend a couple of days climbing ice in Ouray between Christmas and New Years.  Rick has spent a good amount of time climbing ice in Ouray so he was our guide. For Rick's take on the trip and lots of great photos check out his blog http://climbingfamily.com/blog/2011/12/31/ice-climbing-in-ouray-december-2011/

Schoolroom - Rick kindly offering some mints

I don’t think any of the ice in the Uncompahgre Gorge, the river gorge that makes up the Ouray Ice Park, is naturally occurring. Some enterprising individuals started farming the ice there a few years ago and have expanded the number of routes each year since. All along the top of the gorge are lines of insulated sprinkler pipe hooked to shower heads. Each night the Ouray Ice Park volunteers head out and turn on the water to make more ice. Very cool. 


We got up early the first morning and headed to the schoolroom area. We were one of the first few people to set up a top rope on the anchors at the top of the 80’+ routes.  Since Rick and I normally climb at night it was kind of cool and different to see so many other people drop down and set up ropes to climb. Over the course of the two days we we traded ropes with a few people, making it easy to swap routes and try out some new things without having to pull the rope and set up another anchor. Everyone was really friendly(with the exception of a couple of Brits that decided to take over one of the routes we were going to do).  The 1st pitch of ice that we normally climbing in Provo is around 50’ so the added 30’ or so made the climbing much more sustained and the couple of ledges on the way up offered a very welcome rest.  The route we spent our time on in the school room had about 50’ of strait vertical climbing with some variety to try out the different forms of ice that were found. On one run I decided to move out onto a curtain then continue upward.  My feet had popped a little lower on the route, but my ice tools stuck so I managed to hang on. By the time I’d made it about 10-15’ above the bottom of the curtain my arms were pretty pumped and I had to call for Rick to take so I could get a rest. I intended on hanging on to the ice a little and just having Rick take up some of the pressure, but apparently I was more tired than I thought because when I relaxed my stance a bit I popped off the ice. Then got a surprise when my weight pulled Rick forward about 10 ft. and I continued my downward plunge. Rick managed to get his feet stuck to the ice on the (luckily) frozen stream and stopped my fall. We had a bit of a chuckle about that one. 

Random Strangers in the Scottish Gullies. 

After a few runs in the Schoolroom we headed over to the Scottish Gullies. The Scottish Gullies area offers a lot of variety. The routes are a tad shorter, around 65’ for so, but the cliff face in the gorge meanders in and out with jutting rocks which create some really cool and fun ice formations.  After the route we wanted to climb was snaked by the guys I mentioned earlier we moved over to a fairly low angle climb. Because the obvious route line was lacking in technical difficulty we played around on the walls and ice formations that were on either side.  Finished up the day with around 500 vertical feet of climbing and saved something in the tank for the next day. Rick and I recharged with a giant plate of pasta and chicken. I think we both over ate, knowing that we were probably in a calorie deficit for the day.   After a soak in the spring fed hot tub and we were feeling pretty good. 


The next day we got up early again, knowing that the weekend would bring a lot more people out to climb. We hopped on the route in the gullies that we had wanted to climb the day before. I was surprised to see how much more ice had formed from the sprinkler shower overnight. Everything that had been knocked off the day before had been replaced and then some.  The route, I think it might be called Aye Laddie had 3 main lines and a variety of other options to choose from. Everything from a slopey easy start to a little mixed/thin ice. Steep ice to smooth hard bulges or lower angle blobby ice to hook your tools into.  Except for one climb on a neighboring rope we spend the whole day exploring the variety and options this route had to offer. I literally climbed until my arms could handle no more.  


It was an awesome 2 days in Ouray and I hope to return in in late Feb. to get some more climbing in. It’s a great little town with lots of restaurants and just about the best climbing gear shop I’ve seen. The only problem is that everything is marked up to tourist prices.  I’ll save my money for MountainWorks. 

Gear

There are a few trusty, dusty souls out there that will make do with just about anything. And I think that most of us will make do if we have to. You know the type, and maybe you are one, the guy with the 20 year old boots, fraying plaid work shirt and trucker ball cap someone gave him in 1987. There he is mixing it up in the mountains just like you (and me). The difference is you have on a $35 wicking poly base layer, under your $200 soft shell jacket that's paired with $60 hiking pants and $220 boots.  Not to mention the GPS device and ultra lightweight trekking poles, juxtaposed with his stuck he picked up somewhere on the trail making him look like a latter day Moses. I love the mountains enough to be that guy, but I'm not.

I'm lucky enough to be in a position to pick up some really cool gear here and there. We budget for new gear in my house and love each piece we pick up. It might be a nice down jacket, shiny pair of crampons or a great new climbing rope. I think it's as fun to get the new gear as it is to use it, well almost. I know there are a lot of gear hounds out that there that have to have the latest, greatest, lightest, strongest, whatever. They're almost like a Rodeo Dr. shopper buying that new pair of shoes that she'll only wear twice before they're out of style. I'm not this guy either. I think the main reason that I enjoy new gear so much is that I can hold in my hands my next big adventure, or a Summer's worth of outings in the mountains. It's like buying a dream, a dream that will most likely happen because when I look to the east I see the place where my live out my dreams, the Wasatch and Uinta mountains.

A new pair of Scarpa Mont Blanc boots isn't just a heavy pair of brightly colored orange boots. They're the gateway to ice climbing in Provo Canyon and topping winter peaks. Overnighters in the backcountry and limitless trekking wherever I want to go. If you just dropped a Franklin on a new set of quickdraws you might like the new unblemished shiny-ness and the lightweight dynex runners, but what you hold in your hands is hours of fun high up limestone cliffs. Climbing until you can't grip a thing and laughing with your friends.

I'm a bit excessive when it comes to checking on reviews for gear. I do a lot of internet searches for everything I buy. The things I'm concerned with are: Cost, value for money, quality, durability, fit (clothing) real world use of the product. I'm always most concerned with quality and value for money. I know that there are always going to be really high quality things, but often these are almost double the price of other products of a very similar quality. If I can decide that the loss of quality is not too detrimental I'll go with the lower priced product. If though the best product really is the best and others just don't even come close I'll usually save up and buy the best stuff. It usually lasts longer and offers me a better user experience.

Anyone that has read this blog has probably noticed that I try to highlight some piece of gear that I've used in a recent outing. I've found in my years of researching products that I really like to read blog reviews of products. You tend to get a more authentic review with the pros and cons of something. I hope that my blog can be of value to someone who happens to be researching reviews on a certain product. I'm going to try to do more of this in the coming months. I spent the last year replacing a lot of old gear and adding gear for new hobbies. I hope to have lots of photographic and video evidence of the gear being used on the mountains or crag.

Upcoming reviews:
Black Diamond Epic 45 winter backpack
Petzl Ergo Ice Tools
Five Ten Anasazi Blanco climbing shoes
Petzl Sama Harness
Black Diamond Storm and Spot headlamps
Goal Zero Nomad 7, Guide 10, Light-a-life, Estrella, Sherpa 120
DMM Alpha carabiner
Blue Water Lightening Pro 9.7 rope
Marmot Trient jacket

And a lot more. It's going to be a good Winter.

Crusher In The Tushar

This is about mountain climbing, but not in the usual sense. I'm signed up for an 80 mile bike race through the Tushar mountains of southern Utah. When you think of Utah mountains you usually think of the prominent Wasatch mountains that dominate the eastern view for most of the residents of Utah. However, down south near Beaver Utah you have the Tusher Mountains and Utah's highest road, Big John Flats, that tops out at 11,500 ft. I'm confused a bit by the "Flat" part of the name, but there are a lot of names around here that don't make sense. Normally I wouldn't post "cycling" things on this blog, but would post on my other blog www.crossthemountains.blogspot.com, which covers my infamous results and other details during the cyclocross season.

However, since I've been training hard and heavy for this race I've been spending a lot of time in the mountains. And staring at all the alpine views made this post seem more applicable to this blog. Most recently I put together a 74 mile training ride with about 6,000 ft. of climbing. The mileage was close, but the climbing is nowhere near the 12,000 ft. of climbing that "The Crusher" course will include. I took off work a little early on a Friday afternoon so I could get in the ride before we left for vacation the next day. I rushed home, got ready and then found I had a few things to get done first. Finally I left the house about an hour fifteen min. late. I've been riding the Alpine Loop quite a bit, which goes up American Fork Canyon and drops to Provo Canyon near Sundance, for training so I stuck with the usual first part of my ride which took me to the AF canyon entrance, then headed west to ride around the frontage road to Draper and the first big climb of the day, Traverse Ridge Road. It's not super tall, about 1800 ft. but it is unrelenting and in the hot afternoon sun it was pretty demoralizing. I finally made it to the top and loved the wide sweeping curves of the downhill. I had run out of water and my head felt like I had a major fever so I stopped at a gas station for a Slurpee. I started to suck it down and got the worst brain freeze of my life so I had to slow down. The Slurpee was pretty sweet so I filled up my water bottle with cold water too. I ended up sitting there for 20 min. sucking down blue Slurpee and 2 bottles of water.


I felt a lot better now and hit the road. I headed up the American Fork Hwy, with my legs feeling every bit of the 35 miles I'd already done. I got in a good groove and worked my way to the summit. This ride was much cooler than previous rides because most of it was done in the shade of the late afternoon and evening. In fact it started to get cool enough that I realized I was going to be in trouble once I hit the summit. Normally it's quite a relief to make it to the 8,026 ft. summit sign, but this time I knew I would be utterly frozen on the way down. I was cold to begin with, covered in sweat and cool temps, then the wind started. Despite adding to the cooling effect with speeding wind I tried my best to get down the road as fast as I could. I knew I could pop into Sundance for a minute once I got there. It seemed to take twice as long as usual to get there. Finally I rounded the last corner and got inside to the hotel registration lobby. They set me up with some hot cocoa and I warmed up as much as I could. It was then that I realized my next big quandary. I only had my prescription sunglasses with me and it was past dusk now and starting to get pretty dark. If I waited around much longer I'd be in big trouble riding blind. I got back on my bike, still cold, and started riding. Since it had gotten pretty dark I took my sunglasses off and rode half blind down the road. I was doing pretty well until I got a bug right in the eye. Then I started hitting swarms. I had to put my sunglasses back on and do my best to make out the pits and cracks in the road. I knew from previous rides that the coldest part of that canyon is about 1.5 miles below Sundance. I think it must be the raging creek right next to the road, but even on a hot day it gets pretty chilly right there. Soon enough I was shivering and slowly working my way down the canyon hoping that Provo Canyon would be warmer. After an eternity I made it to the highway.

Now, I was no longer really cold, but it was now pitch black and I had cars going 65 mph to deal with. The first part of the ride has a decent shoulder so it wasn't too bad. People often like to honk in the tunnel that you hit part way down and this night was no different. I could have killed them when they laid on the horn as I pedaled through that dark canyon. I was starting to get pretty darn nervous but I kept on. Now the shoulder got smaller and would be ok, except those rumble strips are placed right down the middle of it so you have a choice of riding in the 1 ft. space between the rumble strips and the car lane, or in the 1ft. space between the rumble strip and the road barrier. Obviously you want to get away from the cars that are speeding toward you in the dark. The only problem is that the far right side of the shoulder always has loads of debris on it. I was cruising down and saw the usual gravel, then bits of glass then I came across what looked like a overturned bucket of blood. Really, what are these people doing?! I was totally freaked out by now and had decided to just ride over the rumble strips because I was scared to go too fast anyway. I could barely make out any obstacles before I ran into them so speed was not my friend. Tires, 2 x 4's, junk and what was up with that bucket of blood. I'd also like to ask what the deal is with the huge pile of giant carp along the side of the road. I couldn't see them this time, but I sure could smell them. I had spotted this big pile of rotting fish on previous rides, truly bizzare. And why is this canyon taking so long to get down. By now I had pushed my sunglasses down my nose so that I could peer through them if I needed detail but they weren't blocking my view and making things even more black than they already were. Not a great way to ride, but it was better than choosing one over the other. Suddenly screeching tires right behind me, uncontrolled urination...almost. Did I mention that today was a bad day to put on the black cycling jersey? I'm not sure what the deal was with the car that apparently almost hit me I was afraid to stop or do anything other than continue in a forward motion.  Finally I got to the bottom and a street light. It was glorious! Then the lights ended. I'd like to ask Provo and Orem, what they have against street lights because the entrance to a canyon seems like a good place to have a few lights. I pedaled home grateful that I wasn't dead and pretty sure that I'd be able to make it there now.

Rock Climbing

Haven't posted anything in a bit, mostly due to the fact that I've slacked on gathering any photographic evidence of my adventures lately. I've been doing a fair amount of rock climbing in Provo's Rock Canyon, along with a trip to Draper Red Rock, a small crag developed by a local dentist. Red Rock was fun, though a bit crowded, especially with boy scouts kicking small rocks and pebbles onto us from the rappel they were doing near us. I'm always amused by the names that routes are given and since these routes were put up by a dentist the route names are fairly cringe inducing: Face Plant, Dry Socket and Bloody Impaction, just a name a few.

I've spent most of my time in Rock Canyon, a canyon made up of quartzite and limestone. I believe most of the routes were put up in the mid-90's, but a ton of work has been done in the last couple of years by Darren from the Mountainworks climbing shop. From what I hear he's just about doubled the number of routes in Rock Canyon, that's a lot of time and money. Thanks Darren. This also means there are a bunch of undocumented routes that you have to learn about from word of mouth or websites like mountainproject.com.

When the river was a bit lower we worked on The Appendage, a quartzite cliff.

I believe the route in the photo is a 5.7, but I don't remember the name. It was fun and seemed to have at least one or two broken holds as it blanked out once or twice. There was a lot of hold checking since some of the obvious holds were rather dubious and pretty loose. I also saw my first big horn sheep (minus the big horns - female or young male?) True to form it was up on some tiny ledge eating nubs of grass.

A bit further up the canyon is an area known as The Wild. It's a cool limestone wall with lots of small pockets. The pockets are fun to grab and use as holds. Though you have to be wary of the mud puddles that might be there after a rain, as well as the very sharp edges that start to cause a lot of pain if you find yourself hanging for more than a few seconds.

We headed up to The Wild with my brand new Blue Water Lightning Pro 9.7 rope, which by the way was fantastic. Very supple, nice to handle and worked very well in the Grigri. Go over to Mountainworks and buy one.

This is a 5.6 that we used to warm up on and set the top rope.

We played around a bit on this 5.6 and the 5.7? crack to the right then moved to a 5.9 that proved a bit of a challenge. The start is slightly overhanging and has poor feet. This is one area that the sharp pocket edges cutting into your fingers start to weaken your resolve to hang on for just a little longer.  This particular night was fantastic. We climbed until we were just plain tired then packed it up. I'm sure there will be more Rock Canyon to come in the months ahead. In the immortal words of The Carpenters - "We've only just begun"

Thanks to Rick Miske for showing me the ropes (pun intended) at Red Rock and Rock Canyon.

Goshute Cave - Going In

CLAUSTROPHOBIA! That was my main fear when I told my wife's uncle Dan that I'd be up for the trip to Goshute cave. I've never been in a real cave. All of my experiences have led me to the tops of mountains not inside of them. I knew I didn't have big issues with claustrophobia, but I've felt mild to increasing anxiety in tight spaces before so knew I'd probably be ok, but didn't want to freak out or anything.

We left Orem at 7:30am and buckled up for the 3 1/2 hour drive. The Goshute cave is located about 70 miles southwest of Wendover, which lies on the Utah-Nevada border. If' you've never been to Utah, then you're probably unaware of Wendover. Its the home of Utah gambling. Literally just on the Nevada side of the border. The town is a testament to Utah gambling, there's no other reason for the town to exist. I understand that it used to be a way-point for people traveling across the desert. But now it's just a dirty miniature Las Vegas. Head out of the city and you'll find the Bonneville Speedway where all of the land speed records are made and broken each year. You'll also find some decent rock climbing in nearby mountains and Goshute cave, the reason for my visit.

We finally made it out to the trail-head for the short, but steep, 3/10 of a mile climb up to the cave entrance. I saw the big, round, black hole up near the top of the 500 ft. tall summit we would hike too and got a little excited. There were 3 adults and 4 kids(ages 7-12) in our group. We took our time on the climb up, the kids, including the visiting sea level Californian were breathing pretty hard. When we got to the big hole in the rock I looked up in the dark end where I could no longer see around the corner. One of the kids, who had been here before informed me that it was not the cave entrance. She pointed to a small, 3ft tall crack in the rock. Oh boy, it was going to be fun from the start.

After the initial crawl through the cave opening the room opened up quite a bit so that we could all stand up quite easily. First we went into "The Dance Hall" a large mostly featureless room. We then doubled back to the first room and then started our slow walk into the depths. Uncle Dan said it was the wettest he'd seen the cave in the 16 years he'd been coming here. We mostly slid down the damp and muddy 200 ft. ramp called "Devil's Slide". Then we came to the rim-rock pools. Dan said he hadn't seen water in them in 10 years, so it was pretty cool that they were full that day. It did make the passage through a little more interesting. If you didn't want to walk through 6"-8" pools of water you had to carefully walk along the 3" wide limestone and calcium rims that the pools had made over thousands or millions of years they'd been there. At one point the ceiling was pretty low and just as I was about to put my foot on the next ledge my head hit the ceiling and my foot plunged into the water. I tried to pull it out quickly but just repeated the same action. I am happy to report that the waterproof claim for my Scarpa Kailash boots is accurate. My feet stayed nice and dry.

We made out way through various tunnels and rooms, checking out the cool mineral formations. Everything from typical stalactites to crystal formations that looked like sea urchins and coral. We came to the first real belly crawl of the trip. I took off my backpack and pushed it forward as we squirmed our way up a 30% twisting tunnel. It was about 10 ft. long and I managed it just fine without freaking out or feeling the walls close in on me.

As we worked our way through the cave we started going through more and more wide but short areas where crawling on hands and knees or stomach was required. Uncle Dan had conveniently forgotten to tell the rest of us to bring knee pads. I managed to find all of he bumps, scrapes and cuts the next day in the shower when the soap started stinging little spots all over my legs. We eventually came to a tiny hole called "The Toilet Bowl" it was more or less conically shaped with that tiny hole at the bottom. What I didn't understand is that we would be going down that hole, which I didn't think even a tiny Chinese gymnast could make it through must lest a very un-limber 6'3" man. I watched as Dan worked his legs down through then informed us that you had to turn your head sideways to make it through the hole. Then with is arms over his head he slide down through. We each took our turn and somehow I made it through. 
My next thoughts turned to how in the world we'd make it back up through the hole. We worked out way to the end of the cave and ate our lunch slouched under a short roof and looked at the various signatures of the early cave explorers. It made me think and wonder about these people that had gone through the cave with their old carbide lamps and decided to explore these cramped caverns and tiny passageways.

After a little break we reversed our way, somehow making it up through the Toilet Bowl and back to a side cave where Dan had dropped the rope bag for later use. We made our way through a few more narrow tunnels and found the 50 ft. tall wall that we had planned to climb if we had time. There was a bolt at the top, but no other way of placing protection without the full 50 ft. of exposure. We let Dan lead, since he's had a long and full life, while the rest of us chickens waited below. Dan set the rope we each took our turns climbing up. I was the first to take the optional 90 ft. rappel down the chute on the other side of the wall. I dropped off onto a fairly flat space with a drop to a lower cavern down below. I waited for someone else to join me for a while but no one came so I headed down on my own. The room had some really cool formations. Sadly, some previous explorers had managed to break off a bunch of the smaller stalactites when they tried to work their way into a smaller cave.

After spending about 45 minutes by myself Dan and his son-in-law Greg each made their way down to where I was. Dan had simply tied off the rope above and lowered himself down without a harness. Dan is old school. The rappelling didn't look too dangerous, but Greg and wondered how Dan had managed to get back up without a belay. We let him go first since he had put himself in that position and watched as he held one hand on the rope and the other grasping at greasy glassy holds. Greg went next and when I was my turn the rope was tossed town and got stuck about 20 ft. up. I didn't want to my wife to hate me for becoming a paraplegic by making a stupid decision to climb unroped above large mineral blogs that would have surely broken my back in a fall, so I very carefully made my way up the first section of the climb. One side of the chute was covered in flesh ripping sharp crystals, like a coral reef, the other side was mostly smooth glassy blogs that were made all the more slippery by the thin coating of mud that covered everything in the cave. I made it up to the rope, but was in no position to stop and tie in so I kept going, hoping for ledge of some sort. Every time I reached what looked like a nice ledge from below, turned out to be yet another steep slippery slope. I finally reached something that gave me reasonable footing so I tried to bring up the rope to tie in and found it stuck on the sharp crystals below, no amount of tugging could break it loose. I opted to just tie in with my ATC rappel device so the I could at least stem a fall if something happened. I just about had it clipped in when the ATC dropped and pinged down to the bottom. I heard chuckling from above and informed them what happened. I finally just climbed the rope hand over hand until I made it to the top. I tied in to the other end of the rope with a figure 8 and rappelled back down to retrieve the rope and my ATC. I found it at the bottom of one of the lower caves, tied into the rope and started climbing again. By this time I was hot, sweating and tired of climbing. I managed to scoot up the chute and rappel down the other side.

Dan and I climbed out of the cave and out into the snow that was slowly coming down. I was happy to see light and was surprised when I looked at my watch to find out that we'd been in the cave for 6 hours. At least we made the trip out there worthwhile.

I had a great time on my first caving experience. I wouldn't call myself a spelunker just yet, but I've got my eye on the Red Baron cave in Rock Canyon. A 50 ft. rappel over a thousand foot cliff before you swing into the cave entrance. Sounds like a good time to me.

First Peak Of The Year

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I set off to climb Mt. Timpanogos, the beautiful mountain that overlooks the Provo-Orem Area. We headed up one of the two trails that would take us to our campsite for the night. After about an hour or hour and a half of hiking the trail just disappeared. We had a swampy mess to the right and thick trees and shrubbery ahead and to the left. We plodded around for about an hour, even following some moose tracks at one point, in a effort to find the trail. We were only a half mile or so from our destination, the saddle of Big Baldy and Mt. Timpanogos. Eventually we decided we had to give it up and head back to the car.  So much for that.

Yesterday I decided to head up the Dry Canyon trail, the trail on the other side of Big Baldy, to both scout out that trail, as well as get in a good workout. It's a great trail and I was making good time when I came to a fork in the trail and followed the hoodoo trail marker left, it looked like the direction that I remembered seeing on Google Earth. After I headed up that trail for a little bit it became apparent that I was on the wrong trail, but I decided that I'd stay on it as it appeared to go to the Big Baldy summit. I'd never been to the Baldy summit and it sounded like fun.

The trail got really steep really fast; tight switchbacks that looked more used by deer and goats than humans. I was awfully glad to have my Easton Trekking poles. I had to stop frequently to catch my breath and keep the sweat down. Once it started to get dark I decided I'd better find a suitable spot to sleep for the night. I kept heading up but everything was so steep that I didn't feel comfortable sleeping there. Luckily it was a fairly warm night, I only had on my micro-weight Smart-Wool long sleeve shirt, which kept me comfortable.

I looked up and saw that I was closing in on the Baldy summit and the ground looked like it leveled off about 30 ft. below the summit so I figured I'd just keep going up. My legs were getting pretty tired by now and pretty soon every last bit of light was gone. I spotted an old gnarled tree down on the ground and decided that it provided enough protection to keep me from rolling down the mountain in the night.  I threw down my nylon tarp and sleeping bag. I had been craving the candy bar, that I picked up on the drive to the trail head, for the last hour but I didn't want to break into it until I was in my sleeping bag and settled for the night. Finally I was in my bag, the ground had a few more rocks that I had counted on so it wasn't the most comfortable spot, but I didn't care. I tore into the candy bar and probably ate it in two bites. Then I tore into the other one that I had bought just in case I needed something in the morning.

My bivy elevation was about 8400 ft. The night was long and fairly sleepless. I did get tired enough to sleep for about 3 hours at one point. Around 5:00 am, the wind picked up and was whipping my nylon tarp, which I had placed under and over my sleeping bag. It was at this point that I realized just how much I liked my Big Agnes Storm King down sleeping bag. I've tried using mummy bags in the past, but I'm too big and I feel way to restricted in them. Not to mention that I toss and turn a lot in my sleep so I never stay on my sleeping pad. The Big Agnes sleeping requires you to slide the sleeping pad in to a flap on the bottom of the bag which keeps you from sliding off. The bag was roomy, but still plenty warm. I was able to roll around in the bag and sleep whichever way happened to be the most comfortable at the moment. I also have to mention how durable the bag and the Big Agnes insulated dual core sleeping pad.are. I slept on some sharp rocks and the tree I was up against was covered in splintered wood and sharp broken branches. When I checked the sleeping bag and pad yesterday everything was in perfect condition despite rubbing against sharp objects all night.

Around 7:00 am I finally got myself out of bed, besides nature was calling. I got everything packed up and decided to head for the summit. I left my pack where it was, got a big drink of water grabbed my trekking poles. The lack of a 35 lb. pack made the going much easier, but it was still steep and slow. I finally got near the summit and found, to my dismay, That the actual summit was about 300 meters further. Pretty soon I reached the snow line and had to work through knee deep snow for a while until I found some footprints from someone that had probably been there the day before. I used those footprints to keep from adding to the snow that was working down into my hiking boots. The day before I wasn't sure I liked my Scarpa Kailash hiking boots. They have a Gore-Tex layer which makes them waterproof, but also contributes to swampy feet in warm weather. Except for the snow that was slowly melting in my boot, my feet felt warm and dry, even after going up and down the mountain in shin to knee deep snow. I now know that I have a great waterproof alternative to my Scarpa Mont Blanc mountaineering boots when I know I'll be hiking in deep snow.

I finally got close to the summit and found the snow on the ridge line to be nicely compacted and wind blown to a hard crust. This made me feel at ease with regards to avalanche danger and made climbing the last hundred yards much easier. I made the summit, It's not much to speak of. In fact I lived here for 8 or 9 years before I even found out that Big Baldy had a name, it was just a steep mound in front of Mt. Timpanogos. The summit elevation is about 9000 ft. I managed to get a few photos of Mt. Timpanogos and the Everest Ridge line that I want to use when I summit that peak from the west face.