For the Love of the Sufferfest: Poppin' Champagne

Continuing the countdown... This was the day that sparked the conversation. Which, in turn, sparked the storytelling. The 2nd most heinous day was also the most unrelenting. If you stalk me on social media, you know where I'm going with this: The Champagne Couloir on Mt. Nebo. Bring all your sharp, pointy things... The Champagne was high on my hit list for a while. It was also high on Tony Aadland's. So early in the morning on May, 8, we made the drive down to the southern end of the Wasatch range to climb its highest peak. The end...Just kidding... The day was a clusterfuck from the get go. Thanks to ambiguously worded directions on Summit Post, we got lost trying to find the proper dirt road outside of Mona. Not an ideal start when it's spring and time is of the essence due to daytime heating. Luckily we left Salt Lake at 3am to give ourselves plenty of time, but still...So the adventure had begun. After driving down what we thought was the proper road, only to reach a dead end 2,000 feet lower than where we wanted to start, we found the correct road with the obviously not obvious gravel pit sign that marked the turn. And then the adventure dial got turned up to 11. I don't really get freaked out driving in sketchy conditions. I'm usually driving up canyon for work before the snowplows in the winter thanks to my early hours. However, this wasn't U-210 in 2 feet of blower pow. This was a barely passable Jeep road that felt more like a haphazardly cleared, boulder strewn path up the side of a mountain. It was the epitome of white knuckle driving conditions. Finally we reached a meadow at our target starting elevation of roughly 7,000 feet. It was time to gear up and start walking. And to calm the nerves a little from the drive. It's worth mentioning that there is no hiking trail on the north side of Mt. Nebo. It is also worth mentioning that the hiking trail on the south side of Nebo isn't really an option for the approach since the Champagne is north facing and exiting via the trail would mean booting back up a steep couloir being heated by the hot spring sun, exposed to rock and ice fall, followed by a ride down fully saturated south facing steep, open terrain. So before anyone asks "why didn't you just take the trail?" that's why. The next obviously not obvious part of the day was the "obvious" avalanche path Summit Post recommended booting up. There was no snow, first of all. And there wasn't a super obvious slide path that crossed the road (we didn't even find it on the way down at the end of the day). So off we went. Up a slide path, but not the slide path. It wasn't long before we were thrashing our way up a steep ravine littered with oak scrub and downed trees. We knew we had to start trending to the south in hope of ending up at the base of our line. We abandoned our ravine for some really, really heinous bushwhacking. I remember at one point right before our next ravine crossing, we just sat down and stared off into the valley for a while. We still had a long way to go and we felt like we weren't making any real progress. Hell, we hadn't even reached snow yet. The day had already beat us down pretty good and the sun wasn't even fully up yet. We aren't ones to give up, though. Up we went. Across the next gully. Then across two more. Thrashing and cursing our way up. Finally, we reached snow. Splitboards came off our packs and onto our feet. And then we proceeded to skin up incredibly steep and firm spring snow. At this point I would like to than Spark R&D for making awesome splitboard crampons. The approach wouldn't have been possible without them. Sharp pointy things are a must have for spring chuting missions. Chapter 12: False Hope I really thought we would be at the base of the Champagne when we crested the steep face into the next valley. Wrong. In fact we were in a completely different drainage. I think in the end this turned out to be a happy accident. It meant we would walk the ridge instead of booting up our line in very firm conditions. Skinning up the north ridge was steep but safe. Once we broke above the tree line we switched back to booting. Both of us thought we were almost to the top. We had a feeling we would reach a false summit, but that it would be a quick and easy walk to the true summit. Well...we got the false summit part right. There isn't anything worse than reaching a false summit, only to see that your objective is a long and very daunting ways off. Nebo wasn't gonna give it up easy. We stood there for a while and contemplated our route up the summit ridge. Time wasn't as big a factor at this point since our pace had been pretty brisk up to this point. We reckoned it was another 1 to 2 hours to the top of our line. I was gripped. The ridge looked steep with loose scree above large cliffs on one side and a slumping cornice on the other. There were bits and parts of the hiking trail visible, but nothing substantial enough to follow. We'd already come a long way. And there was no turning back. Up we went. One slow, carefully placed step at a time. The ridge was scary. Poor footing was made poorer by our snowboard boots. The margin for error was close to zero. We made it, though. The top of the Champagne wasn't exactly an inviting place to sit or change over our boards to ride mode. We were precariously perched on the ridge, high above the valley below, aware for a moment how small we are. Luckily neither of us lost anything on the change over. We ate lunch. Well, I tried to eat lunch. My nerves were fried at this point from everything we'd already done and from thinking of what we still had to do. Strapping in was an adventure in itself. The top of the Champagne was almost melted out. It was basically loose scree and ice strip above a very steep slope. Tony went first and I got in position to take pictures. He very carefully got strapped in and started jump turning his way down the upper part of the line, sending scree and ice down along with him. When we watched his GoPro footage later we saw a piece of rock buzz his head like a missile. Making things kind of more heinous in hindsight. It was my turn. I used my ice axe as a cheap anchor to help me get strapped in. Luckily Tony was in a safe spot out of the way of all the scree missiles I was inadvertently kicking off. After a few careful minutes, I was strapped in and ready to go. Jump turned my way down the steep upper section, then made a few actually fun turns down to our rendezvous point. We rode the remainder of the line, then rode as far down as the snow would allow us. At this point, you would think the story would be over. Well, you'd be mistaken. We still had to make our way down with no trail to follow and then walk about a mile back up the road to where we parked. Back through the brush we thrashed. Scrambling over large downed trees and boot skiing down 40 plus degree slopes. Now, it would have been really funny had someone been driving up the sketchy road at the moment we got back to it. Anyone would have been really confused at the sight of us, carrying snowboards out of the woods, covered in mud and sweat. It also would have been nice for hitching a ride back to the car. But let's be honest, we were in the middle of nowhere. And no one else in their right mind would be where we were that day. So we ditched our gear by the road and walked back up the road to the car. Epilogue That was the happiest I've ever been to see my car. Off came the boots and snowboard pants. On went the flip flops. Down the road we went, stopping to collect our gear. Down the road we crept, finally getting back to the valley floor and paved highway. We missed our turn once more in Mona for good measure. Then we pulled into the Mona Park N Pump, grabbed a 12 pack, parked at pump 13, pulled out the lawn chairs, cracked a couple cold ones and toasted the day. It was apres-ski at it's finest. Days like that really make you appreciate good touring partners. It was a good old fashioned sufferfest that for sure beat the shit out of both of us. Even the Millennium Falcon collected a few battle scars. But we won the day. Stay tuned for the final story in the countdown. It's one I've never really told before. I promise it will be worth the read.