I empathize with the campers since I've been on their end; awakened from sleep by a straggler disturbing the nocturnal solitude with V6 pistons in a low hum. When I reach the end and discover that I have met a dead end, I turn around and repeat my mental mantra "Sorry, sorry, sorry".
It's high season in Moab. Everybody who has ridden a mountain bike, thought about riding a mountain bike or knows somebody who has ever thought about riding a mountain bike is in town. As I drive through town I note more of those blinkity "No Vacancy" signs lit than not.
I drive south of town, which borders expand ever further southward to my dismay, and hook on to the La Sal Loop Road. After several miles nothing is looking promising. Getting slightly frustrated, I turn the trusty Tacoma around head back north through town and head to my backup camp spot.
A dirt road shooting off the highway that dead ends at Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands, I bypass the group campsite and soon see silhouetted against the starry sky two bulks showing RVs have laid claim to my backup spot.
Further into the waste I drive until many miles later I spy a smaller dirt track branching off to the right. I turn and follow and then take a left branch, and another branch that I'm pretty sure is made for ATVs, not my trusty 4WD companion.
I see a lone tree and a tall black mound in front of me. I pull off and park. Works for me. I can scan slickrock slabs that then rise vertical beyond the span of my headlights.
I set the tent up. It's past 2 am. I scan the stillness -- utter stillness that I can hear my ears ringing from the lack of stimuli -- to see if green irises are lightly illuminated. I read that the pupils of mountain lions refract green, and this outcrop in a land smooth for miles like a sanded table top would seem like a good perch. Satisfied that I would not wake up becoming Meow Mix, I crash.
I'm stirring by 8:30 am to escape the radiation that is slowly cooking me in the tent. There is no sleeping in with the desert sun. I finally take a look at my campsite and proud that I can even pick pretty ones in the dark.
Who needs coffee to help circulate the blood and arouse the mind when you have sandstone beckoning you in a murmur, "Climb me". Who am I to deny?
Looking down from the summit
Plenty of nooks and crannies and general desert beauty
And some desert ugliness
Into town for some breakfast. My original hopes of an early start are thwarted by my very tardy arrival. The impetus of this journey was to ski/climb up Mount Tukuhnikivatz, second highest peak in the La Sal Mountains and ski down. Truthfully I just wanted to stand on the top of a mountain and gaze out and down 8,000 feet onto canyon country; look at prehistoric slickrock fins, buttresses, arches, windows, mesas and buttes stretch out to eternity until buffeted by the Henry Mountains over 80 miles to the southwest.
I decide to scout out the road to my trailhead anyways, being curious as to how far/close I would be. Well, it's not close, but it doesn't seem impossibly far. Spurned on by the thought, "I might never have the chance again", I unpack the K2 Shuksans... and off I went.
Mount Tuk on the left. The right pyramid is actually part of its NW ridge.
Slow and steady I skin up and around, never stopping for more than a half minute to wipe of the sweat that is cascading down me or to catch my breath. I realize if I stop, I might not discover the drive to continue the plodding climb. And I might get lost in the views west which are beginning to arise in view.
The pictures do none of the vistas justice. Trust me.
As I discover getting to Mount Tuk won't be easy, let alone the ascent of it. I'm a drainage removed from its flanks. And the thought of dropping down the preciously won vertical feet to only reclaim them on the other side disparages me.
I decide to keep going to whatever ends this mount will lead me. I just want to rise above treeline and look out unobstructed.
After a calf-burning stretch up a steep ridge, I break through the trees. I spot a telemark skier ahead of me with skis lashed to his pack slowly plodding up through the alpine which is speckled partly with exposed talus.
I ski on with entire carpets of snow collapsing underneath me onto the talus, as if I am the action to cause the reaction of all air pockets trapped underneath to be exhaled.
I stash the skis and clumsily make my way in the ski boots up on talus and snow. I reel in my companion despite his headstart and we reach the summit at the same time. There is a weather station and we discover our "Summit" is really a knob on a ridge to a neighboring peak. We're both content with our high point and plop down.
Dana is a helicopter pilot in Florida who comes out west a bit in the summer to fight forest fires. We exchange notes of our trip and he looks at me surprised when I inform him it took me two hours to get to our location. Slow and steady and now long stops is the key to success in the alpine.
We make our way down, not skiing together but within proximity of each other. It's a refreshing change to actually be skiing in the backcountry with somebody else around; I'm able to unreign the skis and point them more aggressive downhill.
The skiing is terrible. The week before, I would later learn that night talking with locals at the Moab Brewery, a dust storm blocked out the sun and coated the area, it then rained, essentially raining mud.
That mud layer coated the snow so unless it was pure vertical, it felt more like standing glissading than actual skiing. I lurched down the mountain, with one ski getting slowed down by the crud, or the other, or both. I eventually unclip the heels on my randonee skis and started telemark turning or skating to keep the momentum up. I did one faceplant and chuckled.
The night at camp was dominated by a fire made with collected aspen branches littering the forest floor in the La Sals, Tecate beer and getting lost in the stars which stretch from horizon to the end of the Earth.
After a good night sleep, I'm up early due to some uncourteous neighbors. I hear the ground vibrate with thuds under my ear. I rise and yell out at my intruders. The bovines scamper off quickly, not expecting an oddly-green contraption to be yelling at them.
The day is spent soaking my feet and writing on the shore of the Colorado River.
A couple of hours of bouldering at Big Bend Boulders.
And scampering in and over a slot canyon in Castle Valley near Castle Tower
1 comment:
Wish we could actually see the vistas you saw, still some great pix, I like the one of you on the mtn top..the mtn goat looks like he's in his natural habitat lol :)
glad you had a good trip, top 5 huh? :) awesome
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