| |
The snow has melted in the mountains, for the most part. At the beginning of this training camp, I tried to climb the white-faced mountains northwest of Midway. It ended well, and I returned to the truck alive, but only after nearly falling off a cliff and down a rock slide into a ravine. Since then, I have been doing real biathlon training. Though it involves shooting, it is a lot safer than the combination of the mountains and I.
Because the real training is done for the camp, I have two days to do as I please in the mountains. I glanced at the white-faced mountains, which are pale because of the rock type, not snow, and wanted to give it another try. Then, I thought, you will only get stuck again and end up surviving because of a scarier escape than the last time. So, I flipped a coin, and fate – or gravity – instead decided to send me to Cascade Springs, an easier and safer place to hike.
That wasn’t the end. The gravel road to Cascade Springs was closed for construction, so the coin toss really didn’t make a difference. To Snake Creek it was!
On the way, I decided to try starting at the trailhead that I had passed the first time. I had no idea where the trail would lead to, or if there even was a trail. Fortunately, there was a trail, because if there wasn’t one, then I would have gone back to where I started the first time. It was extremely steep in the beginning, but because it was in a dense forest, there was nothing to worry about.
The trail bisected an off-road vehicle road after two miles of steep climbing. For the entirety of the hike, I was on the opposite side of the canyon that I was on the first time I tried to climb the mountains. Eventually, the narrow and beat-up road led to other trails, on which I saw a few people riding around on their annoying ATVs.
The road that seemed to lead to the summit the quickest ended in a boulder on the side of a mild slope. There was a trace of a trail on the ground, which I decided to follow. Like the other side of the canyon, it became steeper and steeper, but this slope had many trees and abundant grass on it, making it easier to climb.
Below me, in a grove of thick pine trees, I heard something moving and groaning. I could hear it walking around, breaking tree limbs, grunting as it moved. It must have been an elk or two.
I kept climbing up towards the ridgeline, eventually reaching it. From the top, I could see the small canyon below that I was stuck in a few weeks ago. However, between where I was on the ridge and the summits of the white-faced peaks, the ridge had a large gap in it, with cliffs on both edges. It was time to turn back anyways, so I did.
Across the valley, I could see the trail that I had started on a few weeks ago that led me to disaster. I saw that if I had taken a different switchback, the road would lead to the summit easily, with only a few additional switchbacks. So, I decided to leave the white-faced mountains of the Southern Wasatch to a future date.
Peace,
|
