Alpine/Mountaineering

More pictures of this trip available HERE

Got picked up by Howie and Jessica. We went up Little Cottonwood and started the hike. Pretty easy hiking up to the pass. After that there is just a long scramble ahead. I was surprised at how long the scramble really was. We hit a few false summits along the way. After topping out on Superior we could see lots of snow on the east ridge of Monte Cristo. We almost turned back, but decided to take a closer look. glad we did. The snow was easily avoided.. though we had to play around on it a bit. After summiting, we rested a bit and ran down.

Probably the most memorable part is the mountain goats. There were tons of them. We would come around a tree only to see a mountain goat 10 feet away. Pretty sweet.

Went hiking with Howie again. Decided to bag a peak before I went to california, and he went to italy. So we headed up to Ferguson canyon and reached the trailhead at about 8:15 AM. I had heard that the river was over flowing, so I thought "Hey, I'll wear Chacos". Indeed the river was over flowing, and when the river was over taking the trail, and at crossings the chacos came in very handy. However, overall it was a bad idea. My feet hurt for days afterward. No blisters, but the straps rubbed my foot raw on the top of my left foot by my big toe. Anyway, We got kindaoff route near the halway mark. I still don't know how we thought it was the right way, but we ended up going up some scree covered granite slabs on the south side of the canyon. There was a trail after so we were confused when it up and ended. I pulled out my map to see that we were supposed to be on the other side of the river... and canyon. So, we decided to bushwack it down the slopes untill we reached the river. After decending a good ways, we reached a good cliff. A good test of route finding skills as I was able to lead us down a class 3 scramble with minimum exposure. That dropped us right by the river. After walking up stream a few hundred feet, we looked across the river and saw the trail.. with a sturdy log to cross on. Perfect. Went across and continued up the trail. It went steeply and rockily through the canyon, but after a while we reached the upper meadow. From here the trail completely dissapeered. We decided to go up the west ridge scramble and so we made our way toward the ridge. The meadow was heavily forested so we couldn't really see where to get on the ridge. we guessed and went for it. After a short scramble we topped out on a false summit (it didn't feel right anyway). After a few more false summits and a half hour more class 3-4 scrambling we topped out (12:00 PM). We sat on the summit, looked in the geocache, signed the log, ate lunch, and headed back down. We had a water shortage so we made haste trying to find any stream we could tap. We found it a third of a mile back down. After getting water we stopped only breifly a few times, and mostly just ran down the trail. We reached the car at around 2:45.

Went hiking with Howie and Jessica. This was a good hike, but it was extremly hot and there aren't many trees on the trail to shade. It was a lot more intense than I thought it would be, so I have a lot more respect for the mountain now. It immediately is steep and doesn't let up for a while, and then not for long. The scramble at the end is sweet. No problems with the route, it extremely straight forward.

Another summit, one we've been planning for some time. Went with Jarom, Michael, Spencer and a co-worker of Jarom's named Jason. We went up the South Willow Creek route, and although it was sugested that an alternate descent be taken, we decided against it as it involved going down a steep glacial headwall. Overall, it was a good hike. easy terrain through beautiful forests up untill some switchbacks to gain the ridge. Once on the ridge, the wind hit me hard, so be ready before topping out on the ridge(batton down hats and put on a wind breaker). There are almost no trees on this ridge so, the wind was with my most of the way to the summit. Once at the summit, there is a small shelter of rocks acting as a windbreaker, the perfect place to eat lunch. Awesome views and a sense of being on top of the world as it is the highest point for miles around. You can see over the oquirs at some of the taller wasatch peaks (Broad Forks Twin, Lone peak, Timonogos, Nebo). The descent goes a little quicker but we took it easy. Great experience.

Went hiking with my brother Jarom and summited Sugarloaf Peak, an 11,051 foot peak rising above the Albion basin. We took about 5 hours to get up and down, including a half hour lunch on the summit. the trail takes you up past secret (cecret) lake, but after that we had to routefind up the ridge to the south a bit before finding a trail again. not very well established. After toppping out on the ridge between sugarloaf and devils castle (the crux) you traverse west and you'll find yourself easily on the summit. Not too exposed to Sugarloaf, but to Devils castle is was. we didn't go for it, even though i easily could have handled the exposre (climber...), but we were out of time. the descent went a lot faster than the ascent, and we followed the trail all the way back instead of routefinding. It didn't take us near secret lake, which was a blessing because it avoided some switchbacks and lots of crowds.