2012 Adventure Plans

It's New Year's Resolution Season. Every year I seem to resolve to sleep outside more often. In 2011 I'm happy to report that I spent more nights outside than any other year of my life except 2009 when I thru-hiked the Colorado Trail and spent four straight weeks sleeping outside. For 2012 I have some more concrete outdoor goals. I'm laying them out here in public to provide additional motivation to make these trips happen. In chronological order:

AIARE Level 2 Course

I moved to Colorado in September 2007. During the 2007/2008 ski season I started backcountry skiing. I took a two week NOLS Backcountry Skiing course in February, an AIARE Level 1 avalanche course in April, and the Colorado Mountain Club's Ski Mountaineering School in March/April/May. I went from a total noob to a proficient backcountry skier in a few short months. Since then, I've backcountry skied dozens of days each season (my season typically runs from October to June or early July) and have continued to volunteer as an assistant instructor with SMS. This winter I will be taking an AIARE Level 2 avalanche course, which I'm super excited about. The Level 1 covered the basics: understanding avalanches, recognizing avalanche terrain, creating a framework for decision making in avalanche terrain, and companion rescue. The Level 2 builds on this introduction and adds to it "the evaluation of factors critical to stability evaluation." In other words, snowpack development and metamorphosis, snowpack observation guidelines and recording formats, avalanche release and triggering mechanisms, and snow stability analysis. Even better, I got a scholarship from SMS that pays for half of the four day, $400 course. Thanks SMS! This course will come in handy in May when I attempt the...

Trooper Traverse

In February 1944, 33 10th Mountain Division soldiers participated in a World War II training mission from Leadville to Aspen, tackling a direct 40 mile ski mountaineering route through the dead of winter in the Colorado Rockies. The soldiers were undoubtedly preoccupied with the thought of being shipped off to war (the 10th saw combat in Northern Italy in 1945, suffering 992 killed in action and 4,154 wounded in action in 114 days of combat) but this route "ended up being one of the most forward-thinking and aggressive ski traverses ever done in North American mountaineering."

Map from www.wildsnow.com. Click to enlarge.

Lou Dawson painstakingly researched the exact route the soldiers followed in 1944 and in May 2001 Lou, Brian Litz, and Chris Clarke successfully completed the Trooper Traverse and celebrated just like the soldiers did, by drinking Aspen Cruds (a vanilla milkshake spiked with three shots of bourbon) at the famous J-Bar at the Hotel Jerome in downtown Aspen.

Following Dawson's lead, a handful of other ski mountaineers have completed the route since 2001. In May of 2012 I (along with a few to be determined partners) hope to do the same. This will be great training for...

The Bob Marshall Wilderness Open

My friend Dave C. and partner Paige Brady raced the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic in the summer of 2011, finishing the approximately 150 mile race in 84 hours, good enough for second place. Dave decided to organize a similar wilderness race in the lower 48 and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Open was born.

The "Open" is an unsupported east to west traverse of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, starting at 9:00 MDT on Saturday May 26th at the Bellview-Teton road bridge over the Teton River, 20 miles west of Choteau and finishing at the parking lot of the Hungry Bear Steak House approximately three miles south of Condon on Highway 83. The distance is 57 straight line miles, but my preliminary route (a mix of hiking and packrafting) is closer to 90 miles. Dave sums it up best:

- Be prepared, psychologically, physically, logistically. The Open will take you through big wilderness during a time which will provide perhaps the most challenging conditions of the whole year. If you're not prepared, your chances of dying are decent.

- There is no required equipment. Suggested equipment would include, but is not limited to, gear (and knowledge) to deal with flooding rivers, bad weather, over-snow travel, avalanche danger, hungry Grizzlies not long out of the den, and the unexpected (i.e. a broken ankle).

This trip will test me in ways I haven't been tested before. I'm nervous and excited. Look for a post-race report in late May.

Bob-Glacier Grand Tour

I'm planning a return to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in August for the Bob-Glacier Grand Tour, a (warmer and less scary than the Open) 13 day south to north backpacking and packrafting trip through the Bob and Glacier National Park. I spent several summers in Glacier while in college and have returned for a visit almost every summer since that first one in 2002, but I've never undertaken a trip of this magnitude there. I can't wait!

Of course, there will be other trips. Hopefully lots more. Schedule permitting, I'd love to return to the Wind River Range in Wyoming for another adventure. I've been contemplating a route that would require an ice axe, crampons, and a packraft! I also hope to find the time to backpack into Chicago Basin in the San Juans in southwestern Colorado to climb a remote group of fourteeners (Eolus, North Eolus, Windom and Sunlight).

Any other suggestions?