I'd like to thank everyone--sponsors, attendees, athletes, staff, volunteers, park rangers, and the Almo community--for coming out and supporting the the 3rd annual Idaho Mountain Festival--Powered by Asana Climbing. We permitted for more people than last year and we sold out of passes one week before the event.
Raising your personal bar in climbing requires a bit of projecting to eventually redpoint hard routes that you desire to climb without falling. I used to laugh at all the climbers in Rifle that would eat, sleep, and breath that same route over and over and over till they got the send. They talked about their project as if they owned it. Projecting has never been my favorite part of climbing...but it is necessary.
Everybody has their ups and downs. I had a whole lot of them the other day (Saturday, July 12,2014). My first UP started at 3:18am.
Jennilyn, my wife has been talking incessantly about doing the W.U.R.L. At the beginning of the year, she expressed her desire to have me join her on the first portion that makes up the Cottonwood Ridge Traverse. She felt like I would really enjoy it and that it would play to my strengths.
At 3:18am we (Jennilyn Eaton, Craig Lloyd, and I) found ourselves jogging from the Ferguson Canyon trailhead, heading up to the Storm Mountain Cirque. Because of W.U.R.L., we had to start there to summit the Broads Fork Twins instead of the usual approaches. Lucky enough, it allowed us to summit Storm Mountain (9,524') and an unnamed peak (10,350') before reaching the BF Twins.
Somewhere along the ridge-line before the BF Twins, we got to see the sunrise. Can it get any prettier?
From Ferguson Canyon to the BF Twins, along this ridge was nice and steep. I couldn't wait to get above 10,000' knowing that most of the climbing would be over...at least the long consistent climbing.
I was elated to stand on the top of the East BF Twin (11,330'). Ever since I moved to Sandy, UT, the Twins have stared me down as I drive up 9,000 South everyday, making me think "I need to summit that." I finally got to conquer it and now when I see it, I think to myself, "I've summited that."
As a gear nerd, I was excited to borrow the Grivel Mago 15 Trail. Ever since it came out I've been itching to see how the single-shoulder running pack would handle. So I put it to the test on this peak-link-up.
The best part of this traverse was looking ahead and behind us. It was amazing to see the terrain we were about to cover and what we already covered. Some of the knife-blade-ridges looked intimidating, along with the steep scrambling sections. But they weren't that bad.
Following a long ridge is kind of easy in at least one aspect, and that is the fact that you always know your path of travel...just stay on the ridge. The only tricky thing was figuring out if we go left or right of some major obstacles like cliffs and pillars.
Running the actual traverse is kind of hard when there is so much of this involved. I'd describe the traverse as a high-altitude-scramble-fest.
At the top of Dromedary (11,107') we had two unnamed peaks before hitting the lat two major peaks (Monte Cristo and Superior). The terrain between Dromedary and Monte Cristo seemed long but was pretty mellow.
For being a rock climber, the scramble up the west face of Monte Cristo was the best part of it all. It provided just enough exposure and vert to make you feel like you were doing something amazing.
At the top of Mount Superior, I felt accomplished. At that point I had summited ~10 peaks in 10 hours, with at least 7 of them being over 11,000'.
The Grivel Mago 15 Trail treated me well on the whole thing. The major benefit of having a single-shoulder pack is that you can quickly swing the pack to your front to access your stuff. Jennilyn and Craig had normal running vests/packs and always hesitated when it was time to get something out of their pack. The single-shoulder pack proved to be very convenient. I carried 2 liters of water, a rain jacket, small first aid kit, energy food, headlamp, thin gloves, sunglasses, and a buff in the Mago. Still had room for more. The pack did well with not bouncing around. I thought my right shoulder would be super sore after the trip was done, with all the weight sitting on one shoulder for so long. Besides a few shot moments along the ridge when my shoulder felt tired, the single-shoulder aspect didn't do any worse than a double-shoulder pack. That myth was busted...at least for me and my shoulders. My two critiques for this pack is that it needs a hydration-hose hole. It has the sleeve inside but no hole for the hose to come out. I had to have the hose come out the zipper. Second, the water bottle holder can be a bit flappy when running. It was great having a water bottle up front while speed-hiking and scrambling. While running, I'd advise to take the water bottle out to avoid the flapping effect.
If a co-worker approached me with a handful of papers saying, "Take a look at this.", I'd probably be concerned that I either did something wrong or they have a project for me to take on.
When this happened to me on a Thursday, my sense of concern turned into confusion when I took the papers and saw that it was a Zion National Park backcountry permit.
Either this guy is inviting me on a trip or he is showing off that he's about to do something super cool.
Seeing the confusion on my face, Christian Weaver explained that it was a permit for Imlay Canyon. "A guy in our group just dropped out. Would you like to fill his spot?"
I had only done two technical slot canyons before in the North Wash of the San Rafael Swell and I had actually been craving to try out any of the canyons in Zion National Park. The last thing I wanted to say was, "no." Thanks to my wife and her willingness to move around her weekend plans, as well as a friend that let me borrow his wetsuit, I was able to accept the invite and head out on a not-so-regular-for-me type of adventure.
There were five of us and we only had a day to get things done. Our objective was to do the Right Sneak variation of Imlay Canyon.
I'll let the photos tell the story:
Photos by Ben Eaton and Christian Weaver.
The few times I have climbed in Zion National Park, I have been confronted by random non-climbers that are always bewildered and in awe of what I'm carrying. Their slack-jawed expressions are usually followed by a collection of questions.
Here's an experience I had earlier this year, published on the Liberty Mountain Climbing blog.
I found it interesting that a lot of climbers were trying to climb their first or a lot of 5.12 rated routes during 2012. Then in 2013, a good amount of climbers had their eyes set on climbing their first ever 5.13. So when 2014 rolled around, I published a piece called Climb The Calendar - 5.14s in 2014 on the Liberty Mountain Climbing blog.
December of 2013 marked my first time ever ice climbing. I know...how did I ever abstain from ice climbing during my 10+ years of rock climbing? Well, I just did.
Thanks to my employer, I was able to attend the Bozemen Ice Festival with two other co-workers to represent Grivel as a sponsor. While we were there, we were able to spend two days on the ice. After experiencing that style of climbing and being surrounded my a ton of people that live for "slaying the ice," I came up with a list of reasons why ice climbers are tougher than rock climbers. I published the list and a ton of photos I took at the festival on the Liberty Mountain Climbing blog.
