Grizzlies, Fish and Fires, OH MY!

                Bears, fires, fish. If I had to describe my trip with my dad and step mom to the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana in a couple words, they would be it. This is a long one, so grab your coffee or a beer and get comfortable.

                My dad (Bob, but not "The Bob"), step mom (Brenda) and I left with 8 horses and mules from Minnesota early one morning with the intention of doing a 11 or 12 day, 75 mile loop in "The Bob" with the image of riding underneath the Chinese Wall and catching fish in all three forks of the Sun River. It turned into an adventure. And by adventure, I mean shit went wrong. "It's not an adventure until shit goes wrong", a wise traveler once said.  I would have liked another soul to come with to make packing the mules easier along with a fishing buddy. As with most of my adventures, it's hard to find someone that can take that much time off their job.

                Getting to and from "The Bob" wasn't too exciting except for our nights at the Bar X Ranch in Medora, ND. We have stayed there before, and this time we actually had to drop off a mare for Doug the owner. We got camp situated on the trip out when an obviously drunk, overweight, shirtless man with a beer in his hand asks if we can pull out his little car down by the river. Before we could say ok, he said he'd pay us 20 bucks. Deal! We drive over to a little Kia Soul buried in sand and wedged up against a tree on the rear end. The dumb son of a bitch backed right into it while trying to get out in his drunken stupor. We pull him out, and then settled down for the night shortly after. Sometime during the night we got woken up by a crunch and his girlfriend screaming at him ramming into her little car with his Kia. Now you can't call someone a drunkard based on just one experience with them.

                 On the way back home, the man and his girlfriend were still there but didn't talk to us. This doesn't mean you can't come to conclusions about one's character without words. They left shortly after we got there and returned not after too long. Next thing you know, he's prying at the door to their motor home with a piece of metal and she was on the roof trying to figure out how to get in through the roof vent! Well after an hour of course words and blaming, they ran off to bring back a locksmith to get them in. Then just before dark, dad glanced over there to see the man naked (except for a beer in his hand of course) just walking around the motor home. He wasn't just dashing quick to the car or anything, he was just strolling around with his big belly and white ass hanging out. Let me reiterate that we only spent about 20 hours next to them and only about 4 of those were us being awake! Can you imagine what goes on in the rest of this man's life? I'm sure if there was a reality show about the failures in his life, it would be bigger than anything on TV right now.

                Now, on to the trip proper.  We rode in about 8 miles through some interesting country. The first part was through straight as an arrow Ponderosa Pines. Then after crossing the West Fork of the Sun River, it was mostly all burned with some undergrowth coming back. It was kind of a Mordor from Lord of the Rings looking landscape. It was a bit eerie. We camped right next to a bend in the river with a nice deep pool with a log jam in it. It looked perfect for fish, but first we had to set up camp. We hobbled the horses (tied their front feet together), so they couldn't get too far from camp. I noticed that Freckles was looking intensely at something in the woods. I went up to look and saw a grizzly snarling and swatting towards her! I quickly ran back and grabbed the .44 Mag and called for dad. We ended up getting about 30 yards away and we tried shouting to get it out of camp to no avail. I ended up picking up rocks and throwing it close to him. He didn't finally start getting out of Dodge until I hit him with a golf ball size rock. That was the closest I had ever been to a Griz and my heart was beating a little hard, and not from the elevation!

                The fishing was pretty good. I ended up getting a bunch of smaller 10 and 11 inch rainbows and cutthroats, but the real prize was a 17 inch rainbow in that deep pool on a small Mepps spinner. Since the fishing and camp were good, we decided to stay another night. I decided that I would go to the top of Prairie Reef and check out the lookout up there. It was the highest point for miles and miles around and I needed to see how good of shape I was in for my upcoming NOLS trip. It was about 2 miles to the trail that headed straight up the mountain to the top, then another 5.5 miles to the top with about 3000 feet elevation gain. I packed up a day pack totaling about 5 pounds and starting trail running the fairly level first two miles. I then hiked fast on the steeper parts going up and running the flatter sections. I finally couldn't run anymore at about 1 mile left to the top. I ended up making it to the top in 2 hours flat. I putzed around up there for about 20 minutes. I climbed to the roof of the lookout, took some pictures, and ate my sandwich. I tried to start running down, but decided that I had done enough and took it easy on the way down. It took my 1:53 to get down. Needless to say, I was in plenty good shape doing a 2.75 mile up 3000 vertical feet .

On top of Prairie Reef 8868'

                The next day was another interesting day. Brenda's horse, Rex, didn't like to cross muddy creeks for some strange reason. She would try to kick him across and eventually get him across. This time though, he wouldn't come and the pack string was getting anxious. I saw her get off and start to lead him across. Before I could say that she shouldn't do that because he would jump it, he did just that. He bulled her over and I could see and hear that he stepped on her. I quickly got off and ran over there. She was in a depression and couldn't see her until I got over there and I was expecting her to be seriously injured. She was lying down but conscious. She was holding her stomach and I immediately feared a ruptured appendix or internal bleeding, because Rex is a big boy. She eventually got up and I helped her back up on Rex. We were about 16 miles from the trailhead with no way to contact emergency services. I told her that if things got worse we would do the best we could to try to get her to help, but if it was something serious she was kind of S.O.L. That's the cognitive risk we take when we go on backcountry trips. We deliberately don't take devices to contact Search and Rescue (SAR) or anybody else. We feel that if you get into the wilderness, you get your own ass out! If you die in the process, at least you died in an amazing place doing something you love.

                The fourth day was what we all came for, the Chinese Wall. It is a 15 mile long escarpment that runs north and south with the east face rising up about 300 feet or so for the whole length. It such a pleasure to have a spot like this that didn't get swallowed up into a national park. You have to work hard to get back here. It's a minimum two day adventure to the wall no matter what trailhead you take. It was absolutely awe inspiring to be able to ride under it for roughly 7 or 8 miles. During the day, I noticed smoke out to the northeast of us. It didn't seem like a whole lot, but it was noted since that was the direction that we eventually had to head.

Riding into Chinese Wall

                We camped at the fishless Your Lake that night and got out early. After a 1500 foot decent down into Rock Creek into very heavy timber we had a chopper come overhead. This was quite strange because helicopters are only allowed in a wilderness area for SAR missions. I figured that someone got hurt up by the Chinese wall or beyond and called for help. We couldn't see any smoke down in this valley so we figured it was just a small fire that had died out. We contemplated hard camping at roughly the 6.5 mile mark for the day since it had decent grass for the horses, something that we hadn't had in 2 days even though the Forest Service said that there was plenty of grass along our whole route. Good thing we had brought 150 lbs of hay pellets along! I am the navigator on trips and said that I thought we could find a decent campsite along two more creeks about another 3 miles or so ahead. I wanted to get to some good fishing and felt that we needed to make up some miles for some shorter days. It was a damn good thing we went farther. We came out of the heavy timber and saw a huge plume of smoke and we were headed right to the right of it! Dad was a little concerned about it until the trail turned straight into it and we saw flames shooting 30 feet high scorching trees about 600 yards away. He then seemed to be VERY concerned and asked "Where in the hell are we going!!!!" I told him that we would cross Red Shale Creek and turned east and out of it, which fortunately is what happened. Not before another little escapade happened though. While crossing the creek with the heat of the fire very noticeable, I was leading Rex (with Brenda riding a mule now) and the son of a bitch wouldn't be lead across the creek! I wrapped his lead rope around my horn and tried pulling him twice, but he stood fast and almost pulled my saddle of my mule twice! I don't get angry very often, but I started cussing up a storm and trying to slap him in the ass to get across. I wasn't about to become a fried delicacy for a Griz! I finally got him to go the third time, both wet from the hoofs splashing me in the creek and sweat from the heat of the fire. Of course during all of this, dad was nowhere to be seen. He took his pack string and beat cheeks away from the fire. I didn't get the memo that it was every man for himself! We ended up trotting up to him about 300 yards away.

Too close to a fire for me!

                We ended up running into some Hotshots that were on their way to look for us since we registered our route at the trailhead and we were the only ones unaccounted for I guess. They said that the chopper was for us! It was supposed to turn us around, but we got into such thick timber, that it couldn't see our string. They suggested going another 2 miles to a campsite. Well this turned us into about a 15 or 16 mile day and we were wiped!

SCARY!!

                We got to an excellent campsite right on the North Fork of the Sun River the next day and stayed a couple nights. We had morning sun to warm us, and afternoon shade to stay cool. Fishing was superb with me catching many trout in the 14 and 15 inch range on dry flies. I would catch a fish on about every 7 casts or so. It was almost easy!

                Nothing particularly interesting happened except for dad deciding to try to have us all become that fried delicacy for meat eaters once again. He was trying to light the charcoal starter for his Dutch oven. The paper underneath didn't seem to light so I was down there lighting it, and he starts pouring Coleman fuel on it. In any other circumstance, it would have been just fine. He looked at me and kept pouring though. I mean an extra second makes all the difference and that second seemed like it was forever. I looked at him and just as it dawned on him that he should have stopped "awhile" ago, everything went ablaze! I felt the intense heat and saw the fire shoot up the starter and up into the fuel can. So with the can on fire, he dropped it and this poured fuel over very dry grass and his pant leg. Both started on fire but he had the presence of mind to put the can upright before I could tell him to start rolling. The problem with fuel fire is that you need to smother it though. So with him lying down frantically trying to take his pants off, I could see his shoe rubber starting to melt. I started curb stomping his leg to try to get it out. Fortunately I was successful, but now had the issue of the grass fire to deal with! I quickly ran over to the kitchen area and grabbed water. I got most of it put out with one bucket, but made sure it was all out with the other. We both said everything up to the point of the inferno was slow motion and then all hell broke loose and time speed increased dramatically. He thought the paper wasn't lit yet, and kind of forgot he was pouring while looking at me. Luckily, he didn't get burned except his hand a little bit and his pride for a little while I'm sure.

Gorgeous Pool

                The next couple days weren't too exciting thankfully. We ended up camping on the South Fork of the Sun River right next to the trail that headed up to one of the few lakes in The Bob. I decided to pack up my backpack and spinning rod and head up there one morning. With already having a grizzly experience and not carrying my .44 on me, I was whistling the whole way to let anything know I was coming. The far away scenery of mountain tops were hazed by the fire still but the meadows and trees were still fun to look at, until I came upon a Grizzly sow and her cub at about 35 yards! Apparently bears don't know to run away from someone whistling "Mickey Mouse" loudly. I immediately stopped and started to back up immediately (no I didn't get a picture you vultures!). Fortunately, the never looked up from eating their berries and I went back to about 100 yards and starting banging sticks and shouting. I came back in about ten minutes and they were gone! That was one of the few times in my life that I felt that death was knocking on my doorstep. Just like the time falling off the rock in the BWCA and my head whizzing by the rock at about 6 inches! (Go back to read that one if you have no idea what I'm talking about). I also scared up a black bear at about 60 yards a mile down the trail but now I was shouting things like "COLD BEER, POPCORN, NACHOS!" or whatever I was thinking about at the time such as "NOLS COURSE, CLIMBING FEST, and SOLAR SYSTEM!". I wasn't taking any chances of another run-in!

                I found an awesome campsite on a bluff about 20 feet above the lake that was shelter on three sides by stunted pines. The fishing was absolutely the best with every fish about 14-16 inches, all being cutthroats. It was a struggle to catch fish for supper and took about 4 hours to get one under 12 inches with about 50 being caught. I built a small fire in the fire pit and found a thin flat rock to put over it. I spit on it to make sure it was sizzling hot and threw the fish on whole. It took about 7 minutes and the fish was done and was absolutely amazing! I noticed during the day that a huge cumulus cloud was to the north while fishing. Little did I notice that it never moved! It was the plume from the fire and it was humungous! I kept an eye on it the rest of the evening and said that if I could see orange in it at night, that I would descend in the dark and get back to the horse camp. Turns out that Dad could see it, and was freaking out. He wanted to come up and get me, but thankfully he didn't and everything worked out fine.

Campsite view with smoke

                Well, that was the last story, we got out safely and headed home. The naked drunk was the only exciting part, and that was already told. I hope you're not bouncing off the walls with caffeine or in such a drunken stooper that none of this is making sense anymore! Next post should be about my NOLS trip and the adventure that it was to get to Lander, Wyoming. Cheers!

P.S. Remember what James Taylor said. "The secret to life is enjoying the passing of time"

The Wonderous International Climber's Festival

         
                I finally started getting on some trips and having some fun once again. I'm going to break each trip into its own post even though the two trips were back to back totaling 22 days.

                It all started about 5 years ago in college when I heard about this climbing festival out in Lander, WY. It was supposed to be this big, five day climbing party with exhibitors, prizes and fun. The International Climber's Festival had such a magnificent ring to it and seemed to have such a mystique about it, plus I had been to Lander on a backpacking trip back in '07 and loved the little town.  I made rough plans to go every year, but something always came up. The world's largest volleyball tournament a couple times over in the cheese head state, "working" in Cali, buying my new home and some other lame ass excuse one year kept me from going. This year I made it a priority to get my ass out there.

                Originally I had thought that I could make enough money before the ICF back in MN to sustain myself for the rest of the year. A late spring and not a whole lot of work made me realize that I had to delay my parting and buy a plane ticket. I called up an old climbing friend Caity, who lives in Denver, and asked if she wanted to go up and experience it. She was on board, along with her sister Jaimie and I was stoked. Ticket bought and bags packed, I jetted out on a Tuesday morning and before I knew it, we were in Lander on Wednesday night about midnight since Caity had to work.

                We set up our tents in the middle of huge cottonwood trees right in the Lander City Park. They let you camp or park there any time for three days with no charge! The rule is overlooked during the climbing festival and I'm planning on seeing if they actually enforce it after my NOLS course. 120V receptacles are in the pavilion for your electronic charging pleasure if your passing through, and clean toilets are right in the parking area. I digress. I would guess there were 50 tents spread out over the property. Not too crowded at all and no one being too rowdy. We were in bed by midnight every night and most others were also.

                Lander is known for its sport climbing up in Sinks Canyon and way up at Wild Iris. Sinks Canyon is called so because the Popo Agie (pronounced Poh-poh Zha) River disappears underground for about a quarter mile and then reappears down the canyon a little farther. Pretty nuts! Most of the climbing is in the sun on the north side of the canyon, but thanks to my newly bought guidebook, I found a crag on the south side and called "Shady Side". I figured that would keep us comfortable and out the 90 degree heat down in the valley. Caity, Jaimie and I climbed 5 routes at "The School" crag before the sun started to hit at us about 3 or so in the afternoon (list of all climbs on trip at the end of the write-up).  We met Zach who was traveling with the "Solid Rock Climbers for Christ" group out of Houston, Texas. They had gone up to Smith Rock in Oregon, over to Squamish in British Columbia and then were hitting the fest up. He was driving himself and going to stay in Lander for a little bit and climb in the Cirque of the Towers with gal. This gal was Christina from Milwaukee/ D.C. She was on a road trip living out of her little Honda Civic. I ended up chatting with her a bit on Friday and climbed with her on Saturday over on the Shady Side once again. We went to the Heavy Metal Rock Band wall, after some vague description in the guidebook telling us to follow faint game trails to find a main trail. We got turned around a bit but finally found our way to the main trail just below the wall. I was set to lead the warm-up climb and we noticed that the rock seemed a bit fragile. Neither of us had our brain bucket with, but decided to stand off to the side and chance it. I didn't break any holds, but she broke a softball size foothold about 30 feet up that came whizzing down. A bit spooky for the "warm-up"! Luckily, the rock on all the other climbs were much better. The other must have a different perception of what is quality and what isn't. We thought the no-star .11a was the best route there and the 2-star .11a was convoluted and garbage. This was also the case over on the .10's. The pocketed dolomite was a bit tough on the fingers since it was a bit sharp due to lack of folks getting on these climbs very often. We did four routes and decided to run down to the nice sandstone in the bottom of the canyon. We decided to do a 2-star, 2 or 3 pitch  5.7 chimney trad climb. We ran down there and found the route. We decided she would lead and I would follow with a backpack with our shoes since there was a walk-off. After a run-out start, a slippery crux, 5.0 top and fighting with a backpack in chimneys (my fault), we both decided that this once again was nowhere near a 2-star route. It was an adventure none-the-less though.

                The festival itself was an awesome time. There were crate staking, rope coiling, table bouldering, cornhole , tug-of-war and a dyno competition. Caity and I lost out in the first round of cornhole due to winds pushing my bag and a lack of practice, we will call it, on her end. I attempted the rope coiling comp and was doing really well until I lost the loops in one hand. The winning time was 23 seconds and I wouldn't have beat it, but wouldn't have been far off I feel. Crate stacking was awesome to watch.  The premise is to stack standard milk crates as high as you can while standing on them the whole time! Women did the best and I think a gal got 19. Lots of balance and concentration involved. Probably the coolest contest I saw was the table bouldering. It was pretty much a standard 6 foot table with metal folding legs, but they put heavy sandbags to hold down the legs and a long custom pad underneath to protect the "boulderers". They had to complete 3 separate actions to win a pair of fresh shoes from Salewa. Competitors had to go around the middle of the table, which wasn't too hard. Then they had to go head first through the legs and under the table. That gave the taller folks a major challenge, but stunted peoples didn't seem to have too hard of a time. The hardest for everyone was to go feet first through the legs, SUPER tough. I think only 2 folks completed all 3 tasks. Some burly little woman and some skinny little dude.

                Tons of stickers were hoarded by yours truly, and I also won a prize pack from Paradox Sports (organization for disabled outdoor adventurers) for donating a couple bucks to them. The only thing I kept was the Patagonia shirt and hat though. I got an Otterbox, but I'm going to take it to REI for in-store credit. I also got a ton of organic bars, but I couldn't fly them back in my carry on, so I decided to throw them to the crowd and score some good karma. A really nice Black Diamond chalk bag was thrown in there too, but I had heard that a guy from Oregon had forgot his, so I traded it to him for a beer. He got a smoking deal, but I got more of a buzz and maybe some more karma.... maybe.

                I signed up for an American Alpine Club membership so I could get rescue insurance in backcountry situations and they have climber friendly health insurance. I also get sweet perks like a pro-deal on gear and free camping down in Joshua Tree, California along with discounted huts around the world.

                One of the coolest things of the festival was Tommy Caldwell's (world class climber) speech during the keynote speakers presentation. He started off by saying that he wasn't sure what he was going to talk about that morning but decided to speak in public for the first time about his kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan back in the early 2000's. The room got dead silent but you could tell that everyone was super stoked. For all the other speakers, there had been a little white noise by people talking lightly. You could hear a pin drop now in a room of 200 people. He went on to talk about how they were getting shot at by rebels when they were 1000 ft up a wall, had to rappel down and got taken. They didn't have any food for 6 days when they were finally forced to hike back to their stuff to try to get supplies. They only had one guard trailing them on 4th class terrain who was scared shitless. Tommy said he pulled him off the cliff and killed him! He was a little shaken after saying that but finished his story of finding safety quite well.  I was super excited to be a part of that speech. He will go down as one of the greatest climbers of all times.

                I took a hands-on clinic up at Wild Iris on Friday dealing with improvised rescue on climbs. It was stuff I had all read before, but it was super helpful to physically tie the knots and go through the processes involved to keep yourself safe while extracting an injured climbing member. There was also a little climbing festival that included Wind and Rattlesnakes; The Birth of a Western Climbing Town. It was an excellent 45 minute film about the climbing history of Lander with great cinematography and narration. It was really cool to see how Lander has become the town it is today, being both a ranching and climbing town with their differing personalities yet coexisting properly.

                Overall I had an excellent time and would definitely make it a priority to go again if I'm not working during it. Cheap, wholesome (minus the beer) fun. I thank Caity and Jaimie for hauling my butt around. I'm also super excited to climb again someday with new friends made.

                For now, it's working my butt off to try to make enough dough to try to get me through until next year. Sorry for the lack of photos. My DSLR wouldn't fit in my carry-on and my phone was dead the whole time... deal with it! I'll get on writing the Montana trip with its stories of up-close grizzles and wildfires! Stay tuned, it should be out in a week or so!

Jaimie right of Killer Cave in Sinks Canyon

                Climbs:  Shady Side crag, The School Wall

·         Sorting Hat Right 5.7

·         Sorting Hat Left 5.10a

·         C'est Fini 5.9

·         Imaginary Fans 5.8/10c

·         Banish Misfortune 5.6/10a

                Shady Side crag, Heavy Metal Rock Band Wall

·         Indian Summer 5.10c

·         George's Last Stand 5.10d

·         Dennis and Jacque's Excellent Adventure 5.11a

·         Variation to D and J 5.11a

                Sandstone Buttress

·         Sentinel Chimney 5.7 two pitch, trad

                                Harvest Moon Wall

·         Firecracker Kid 5.10b

·         Bush Doctor 5.12a (project)