peak bagging
January 17, 2009
We’re in the middle of an 8 day (so far) warm dry spell here in Salt Lake City, and when that happens in January in the Wasatch, that means one thing:
Peak Bagging.
When you get a week of warm clear weather, the snowpack consolidates, and melts during the day and freezes at night. And melts during the day. And freezes at night. But more importantly, it melts during the day.
Which makes climbing to the tops of big peaks safer and a bit easier, and also tends to make nice “corn” or “spring” snow for the ski down.
In the spirit of peak bagging, me, Kim, her Dad (Senior), Rick S, Rob S, and Mark got up at 4am Saturday to bag Lone Peak, which is the 11,200 foot mountain on whose foothill I live.
4:30 am, getting ready to roll:
and 5:30 at the trailhead:
Does it look like Senior has electric boobs. I think Kim is afraid.
A little obstacle. We had trouble with obstacles.
Alpine in the distance.
A snack is in order when you’ve just climbed 3,000 feet.
Are you wondering where Rick and Rob and Mark are? They are waaaay too fast to be caught on camera.
2,000 feet to go.
And so on.
And by now Kim wishes I hadn’t brought the camera.
Senior practices his Yoga. It’s the upright turtle pose.
Finally, some skiing.
Writing about taking pictures of filming:
Rick is done waiting.
Our own private playground.
More obstacles:
Seriously, how hard can one city make it?
Mark tells his wife not to worry, and sorry we’re two hours late.
Done. Yay.
dug 
January 18, 2009 at 12:28 am
Sounds like an excellent adventure. Nice photos – good to see some non-crud air and sunshine.
I take it the sushi fueled you well.
January 18, 2009 at 10:10 am
very nice backyard, dude.
oh, do bears poop in the woods? didn’t know if this was an urban legend i needed to look up on myth-busters.
January 18, 2009 at 11:06 am
nice pics. I wish I had the shepherd with me at the bottom. Rob and I spent a good hour playing in the thick scrub oak the last 1,000 vertical down to the car. Did you know sliding rock road is far away from where we parked?
January 18, 2009 at 1:43 pm
How many hours was it up? Down? Did you go up the same route you came down?
January 18, 2009 at 4:54 pm
That looks amazing…so wish I could have been there.
January 18, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Oooh, that looks like FUN! Except for the climbing through obstacles part.
January 18, 2009 at 9:37 pm
lewis, for this adventure, rick’s time is the one you’re looking for, since he scampered on ahead with his brother. i think it’s about 4 hours to the summit, and two hours down, but he peppered his down with about an hour of hard core bushwhacking, since he can’t navigate worth a damn.
he descended to the second hammongog, and went west around it, and kept drifting right, and ended up in fort canyon. i descended to the second hammongog, and went east around it, and had nice spring snow all the way to the first hammongog, after which it’s a nasty 4WD road (albeit snow-covered) skid back to the car.
January 19, 2009 at 9:37 am
I would have killed for a nasty 4wd road skid back to the car…
January 19, 2009 at 11:28 am
I think yer supposed to try to miss the trees.
January 19, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Hey, the “Shepherd” is always available – and he’s cheap! Just a little “slow”! 🙂
Great narration, Dug! Route finding skills are a high priority, but it limits your experiences, right, Rick and Rob? (given my station in life, i am big on the route finding skills – thanks again, Dug!)
January 19, 2009 at 1:13 pm
We got to a point where we were about 20′ of vertical to the ridgeline that would have put us onto the right side but I told Rick – lets just ski down a little further and we’ll pick up something that will bring us back – I mean, it’s only scrub oak, Right?
Did you know that scrub oak can grow to 4″ caliper and can grow as close at 2′ apart over several acres?
January 19, 2009 at 1:18 pm
What the heck is a Hammongog? And how would one know to go east instead of West. Didn’t Rob and Rick read the turtle and the hare several times when they were kids? What’s the point of these learning stories if they are ignored?
January 19, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Wait, the post is titled “peak bagging” and that seems to have been the intent, yet I didn’t see any photos from the peak. Rick had some peak-looking footage in his video. So was the peak bagged, or bagged it?
January 19, 2009 at 4:21 pm
steve, a hammongog is a meadow. or a large ball peen hammer. one of those.
and one would know to go east instead of west . . . well, i’m not sure how one would know, except one did and one didn’t.
January 21, 2009 at 8:22 am
I could of sworn the title of this post was “tea bagging” and was expecting something completely different.
I’m glad I was mistaken.