For the Love of the Sufferfest: August is for Snowboarding

First, some news: I am excited to announce that I am now part of the Locorum Art family. Select prints are now available for purchase, with more to come in the future. Check them out here. Continuing the countdown of my five most heinous touring days. Number 5 was a painful day in Logan Canyon. Number four was probably the hardest for me to figure out. 3-1 were very obvious. I thought of maybe putting Mt. Olympus in this spot, but after really thinking about it, that day didn't even crack the list. The fact that none of us ever want to do it again means that the Timp Snowfield in August of last year comes in at number 4. The Crew: Tony Aadland, Andrew Joseph, Zac Joseph, and myself Utah was blessed with a 600 inch winter in 2017, which led to many lines still being in play into July. However, things still eventually melt out and options become limited for making turns to keep the streak alive. August rolled around and we needed to ride something to get the streak to 22 consecutive months. The last spot to hold snow is always the Timp snowfield. It's north facing and at an elevation of 11,000 feet. It's also close to a 10 mile hike to get to it. Not in the mood to travel outside Utah and knowing the snowfield still fully went, we decided this would be where our August turns were made. The Timp snowfield is not a difficult line to ride by any means. If we rode it in mid winter in pow, it would just be a fun day in the backcountry. August is a different animal. The round trip hike is over 16 miles, which is big enough to kick your ass without bringing snowboard gear. Strapping a board and boots to your pack just adds to the sufferfest. Plus you also get asked by every hiker and their mother what you're doing with snowboards. We left Salt Lake pretty early in the morning on August 15, 2017. It's a long hike and a bit of a drive and Tony was supposed to be at work in the afternoon (what would a Tourin' Tuesday be without a time constraint?!). Sunrise was beautiful and the waterfalls were all raging. Nice moments for sure, but the hike is still a pain in the ass. I think going up is a lot easier than going down. Getting to the snowfield was a nice moment. Mainly because it meant we could put our snowboard boots on so our packs were lighter. We also got to see how interesting the ride down would be. Rain earlier in the week had taken its toll on the snow. Sun cups were now sun craters. Runnels had become trenches. Overall, the snow was far from smooth. It was August though, so take what you get! The highlight of the day occurred right before we topped out. A fighter jet buzzed us and did a sweet barrel roll over the saddle. Clearly the pilot was stoked to see us booting up to go snowboarding and decided put on a show for us. We had some summit beers (shout out to SolBrew in the Solomon Islands) enjoyed the view for a bit then started to make our way down the heinous snow. Everyone fell at least once in a giant sun crater. The turns weren't pretty at all. Honestly, it was exhausting to ride down. Then came the hike down. At this point we were all a little tired. We didn't have much time to rest though because Tony still had to get to work. It got to the point where we were just running down the trail, time was a factor and plus we were just over it and wanted to get the fuck down. He ended up getting the day off. We all went to Lone Star for tacos and beer to celebrate the day. If we ride Timp this August it will be three years in a row. Which for us means it will be tradition. I'd rather not be obligated to hiking and riding Timp every summer. Obviously I need August turns to keep the streak going. If it comes down to it, I'll go back. That being said, I'd much rather just leave Utah for those August turns this year.