Tourin' Tuesday: Champagne on Nebo

Before I delve into this nightmare I just have a quick announcement: Next Thursday, May 24, I will be showing some of my photography at an art show here in Salt Lake city. If anyone would like to attend, tickets are $22 and can be purchased here: http://rawartists.org/patrickpfister Any support would mean a lot. Now let's get to it... Mt. Nebo is the highest and southernmost peak in the Wasatch Range. The 75 mile drive south is enough to deter most people from going there. A few years back, I stumbled upon a photo of the Champagne Couloir and it immediately went to the top of my hit list. A week ago, riding it became a reality. The snow has been melting quick in the Wasatch this spring. Chalk it up to a poor snow year (2nd worst in history) and well above average temperatures. There weren't many more opportunities to go big. May 5th Tony and I took advantage of the weather and Snowbird still being open to go ride Liam's Pension (another line high on the hit list). With the forecast showing highs near 70 mid week, I suggested we get one last mega Tourin' Tuesday in and go ride the Champagne off Nebo. Lucky for me Tony agreed. He'll probably start saying no when I suggest these big stupid asinine days, but for now I'm grateful he's willing to go suffer for the sake of snowboarding. The alarm went off at 245 am Tuesday. Part of me just wanted to stay in bed knowing we were in for a fairly big day. Tony showed up a little after 3, we loaded up the Falcon and headed down the road. That was the mellowest part of the day. The adventure truly began after exiting I-15 in the town of Mona. We were going off directions from Summit Post, which were definitely lacking in detail. It started with turning down the wrong dirt road (the sign for the gravel pit was not obvious). Once we found the correct dirt road, the adventure scale was turned all the way up to 11 for the remainder of the day. The road becomes a single lane jeep road that barely passes for a jeep road. It was steep and littered with boulders and obstacles that made it a white knuckle thrill ride. Without 4x4 and ground clearance it would be impossible to make it up. The Falcon always makes it though cause she's the best ship in the galaxy (and has 4x4 and ground clearance). Still, the drive up that "road," and I use the term "road" very loosely here, was fucking heinous. We made it though. We parked in a nice meadow pretty much where we wanted to start walking up. Summit post also said to start the climb at an avalanche path that crosses the road. It said this was also very obvious. Much like the sign for the gravel pit, it was obviously not obvious. Also there are no established trails on this side of Nebo. The summer hiking trail goes up from the south side of the mountain. Since the Champagne is on a northwest aspect, attempting to follow the summer trail would be pointless, especially for the exit. We found what looked like an avalanche path and started booting up. It was a long walk in the dirt. Bushwhacking and soul searching through some of the thickest oak scrub I've encountered made the climb pretty difficult. We followed a gully up for quite a ways, periodically poking out to check where we were and to try and find a spot to traverse south where the bushwhacking would be tolerable. It was always a little demoralizing to come up on the high ground and see no possible route over. Eventually we found a semi less thick patch of bushes to go through after gaining about 2,000 vertical feet. At about the 9,500 ft level we finally started to walk on snow. Not quite enough to skin on, but enough to cause the bushwhacking to finally relent. Now, at this point, I figured we were back on track with the route from that ambiguously worded summit post. We finally had enough snow to skin on, which despite being steep was nice because it meant less weight on our packs. I kept thinking once we gained the basin we would be right at the base of the couloirs with a clear view to the summit. Wrong. However, it ended up working in our favor. We were still north of the true summit of Nebo. This worked in our favor because we were able to skin the north ridge in the trees instead of booting a steep couloir exposed to rock and ice fall the whole way up. We gained the false summit on the north ridge. The whole way up, we felt it wouldn't be very far to the actual summit once we gained the false summit. Wrong again! The true summit looked absolutely beautiful. However, it was still a long way to go from where we were. And the summit ridge looked terrifying. There were bits and pieces of the trail showing. But for the most part it looked like an old slumping cornice on one side and loose scree above exposure on the other. This is why me and Tony make a great team in the backcountry. I was game for route finding through the bushwhack from hell. Tony was game for route finding on the summit ridge from hell. It took us just over an hour to get from the false summit to the top of the Champagne, just off the true summit. I was pretty gripped the whole time. Footing was far from great and falling really wasn't an option. Also snowboard boots really aren't the best hiking shoes. Better than ski boots I suppose, so it could be worse... Things got a tad easier once we got past the crux of the climb about halfway up. Finally we got to the top of our line. It was one of the coolest spots I've been. There we were, precariously perched on the ridge, 5,000 feet above the car and nearly 7,000 feet off the valley floor. It was the smallest I've ever felt in the mountains. A lot of times I feel it's hard to get a sense of scale in the mountains, especially in the Central Wasatch where you have big peaks in almost all directions and not as clear a view of the valley below. On Nebo, it pretty much just goes straigh up from the valley floor to the peak and you're looking down on everything around you. It was a powerful moment. Transitioning our boards from ski to ride mode was fun. There was minimal room to operate and again, footing wasn't great. The last thing either of us wanted was to lose a binding or half of a splitboard. The transition was done very slowly and carefully to prevent that from happening. Definitely the sketchiest transition I've ever done. Time for the ride down. Strapping in continued the overall theme of heinous sketchy adventuring. The top of the line was pretty much melted out. Meaning strapping in on a mix of loose scree and ice above a roughly 50 degree slope. Tony went first so I could snap some photos of him dropping from the ridge. It was probably the sketchiest strap in either of us have done. After some cautious jump turns in the steep choke, Tony opened it up a bit for some nice turns before pulling into his safe zone out of the way of rock and ice fall and waited for me to ride down. I decided to use my ice axe as a cheap anchor for some extra insurance while strapping in. Meanwhile each movement sent rock screaming down the chute. I finally got my front foot secured to my board. It's funny how once that foot is in the binding everything just feels so much more comfortable. I was pretty happy to get through the choke. The hardest part was over. Conditions in the Champagne were variable. There was a little bit of damp pow, followed by a little bit of corn. Some hard avy debris. Sun cups. Some rocks...We were still able to ride down probably close to 2,700 vertical if you count the adventure snowboarding in the gully below the apron. Once we ran out of snow it was time for the adventure hike down to the road. At times we were hopping from downed tree to tree. Other times we were boot skiing. There was quite a bit more bushwhacking. We felt a little lost at times. I knew as long as we trended right on the way down we'd get back to the road. Finally we did. I imagine if someone else was driving up at that moment they would be confused as all hell by the sight of us thrashing out of the woods covered in mud and sweat carrying snowboards. However, there wasn't anyone else because we were in the middle of fucking nowhere. It was funny to us though. We dropped off all our gear at the side of the road and hiked a mile or so back up the road to the car. It felt really good to take those boots off. Of course, the adventure wasn't over yet. There was still the sketchy drive back down the "road" to "town." It was a lot easier to navigate in the daylight. We picked up our stuff, crawled down in 4x4 low and first gear and missed our turn one more time in Mona because apparently in a town that small you don't mark which road takes you to the interstate. No adventure is complete without a cold tasty beer. So we stopped at the Mona Park N Pump gas station, bought a 12 pack, pulled into pump 13, opened the tailgate, grabbed the beach chairs and cracked open a couple of cold ones! It was the biggest day of the season. It was the biggest tour Tony and I have ever done together. The whole day was unrelenting from start to finish. That was the most mentally exhausting day I've had in the mountains since Pico de Orizaba in Mexico. I'm sure Mt. Nebo is probably a little easier to climb in mid winter when there is enough snow or in the summer when all the snow is gone. However, given the conditions we had on her, I don't think I have any desire to return. Once was probably enough. Of course, time heals all wounds. So who knows? There's still the Northwest Couloir to ride...If I do go back, someone else can drive at least.