We Do Stuff: May 2024

May 25-27, 2024

Escalante Canyons - Ringtail, Choprock and Neon

Laura and I met Joshua and Kelsey at the Egypt parking in Escalante on Friday evening. We hung out and slept in cars that night, ready for an early start the following day, hoping to beat the heat to our camp where fence canyon trail meets the Escalante river. We hiked in, taking just under 2 hours and set up tents before heading along the trail to explore Ringtail canyon. After ringtail, we returned to camp and enjoyed the evening, chatting and making bets on if our friend Lin would make it to camp to join us as he had planned. Lin did arrive just as we all had began to retire to bed. He set up his tent and we all agreed to get an early start the following day, walking by 6 am.

Sunday, we left camp at 6 am and made our way along the 5+ mile approach Choprock canyon. Upon entering the canyon, the scenery was amazing as we passed though a lush area that held a ton of poison ivy. The next section of the canyon was scenic and beautiful before it slotted up and dropped down in elevation. The final areas of the canyon, the "grim section" was in low water, or easy mode and we were able to make our way through efficiently and actually really enjoyed the area many are so wary of. The swims were long and cold, but with heavy wetsuits we all stayed mostly warm. Round trip time camp to camp for Choprock was 11 hours.

On our last day, we ran Neon canyon. This is a beautiful canyon too and was very enjoyable. The final rappel into the golden cathedral was spectacular! Our group spent some time at the golden cathedral chatting and enjoying the special places we get to visit before hiking back toward camp. We made one more stop along the way to view the amazing petroglyphs on the canyon walls.

We all packed up and hiked out of camp right around noon, staying cool by dumping cold water over our heads and clothes as we hiked back out of Fence canyon and to our cars, arriving at about 2 pm.

May 18, 2024

Silver Couloir, Buffalo Mountain

Laura, Justin and I left the trailhead at 6 am and hiked to about 9,700' on mixed dirt and snow-covered trail before reaching continuous snow. We skinned to the summit of Buffalo Mountain, 12,777'. We reached the summit at 8:30 am and after a short break were stepping back into our skis to descend the classic Silver Couloir. The snow was still pretty firm up high in the couloir but became almost perfect as we skied our way down the 2,500' snow line.

The cut off out of the couloir was a bit misleading and we exited about 100' too high. Traversing the forest and reascending the 400' back to where we had hiked in was a bit tedious but well worth the amazing ski.

We were back at the car at 11:15 am.

Justin and Justin leading the way at the trailhead

The views were incredible on the hike up

Justin and Justin skinning up Buffalo Peak

Justin and Justin contemplating the conditions

Laura enjoying the ski descent

Justin skiing the Silver Couloir

The couloir was wide near the top but narrowed up a bit as we got further down.

Justin skiing the Silver Couloir on Buffalo Mountain

Looking down the Silver Couloir

Justin and Justin hiking back to through the woods

After the amazing morning skiing, we decided to grab lunch with Justin in Dillon before heading back to the cabin. That's when we got the emergency alerts on our phone warning people to shelter in place if you were near the town of Blue River. We did a little more research and it seemed there was someone armed and dangerous that the police were trying to apprehend. I immediately called Grandma to alert her since our cabin is near there to make sure her and Hazel were aware of the situation. We initially just sat in the car waiting for the road to reopen. We saw several armored vehicles followed by a badly damaged pickup and eventually the police with their speakers telling everyone to get back in their vehicles because they were reopening the road. We jumped in our car just to drive about 100 yards before another stop. More waiting. More police. More waiting. Eventually we walked up the road and saw a powerline had now fallen onto a semi. The police informed us that the power company would have to come and it would likely be a couple more hours. We went back to Breckenridge where Justin fished for a while and we hiked to see Isak Heartstone (the troll).