Tony has joined me for countless adventures from motocross, to alpine ascents, summiting peaks, huge cycles, hikes, and more and it was the first of what will be many with Andrew and Jason I suspect!  As a matter of fact, we are already planning the next adventures in TRUCKEE, CA on SEPTEMBER 8 and 10^th.  BIG Gravel Ride on FRI SEP 8 and BIG Mountain bike Ride on Sunday SEP 10^th(all the way around Lake Tahoe).

It was a long day but went smooth as can be and the weather was PERFECT.  We were scheduled for the event on THU but had to bring it in at the last minute to WED to accommodate the bad weather that rolled in.  If we had waited, there was no chance we would have been able to summit The Grand.  Some of the highlights include:

• Jason hearing about and signing up for the event just a week in advance AND him being able to make a flight 24 hours earlier than anticipated at a full sprint before the plane took off from the boarding gate!
• The 2:30 AM swim in the dark went perfectly.  Temps were good (water and air) and the full moon was a huge cooperation!
• Hearing a (grizzly?) bear up close and personal at the trailhead from the parking lot was a first…that deep guttural noise was an unforgettable one!
• We met our exceptional guides from EXUM 7 miles into the hike where the trail meets the boulders heading up The Grand.  We planned on 6:30 AM and nailed that arrival time at 6:31 AM after a 22 mi bike, 1.3 swim, 7 mile hike and the necessary transitions.  That was pretty amazing.
• I was thrilled to see a couple of my friends summit the Grand with little technical, exposed rock climbing experience but a lot of extreme endurance racing under their respective belts.
• Feeling strong on the pedal back to Jackson was a real highlight….and it made mee realize that next years Big Belt Buckle Challenge “BIG” event HAS to be bigger and more bad ass than 20 hours…..
• Finishing at 19.5 hours was right in alignment with expectations. I was thinking 18-22 hours so under 20 was all good.  Worth mentioning that the record for The Grand Picnic is probably less than a third of that time!

We started again at 4 a.m. We began with skis on our back and hiking in ski boots for only about an hour and 1,000’ gain, and then we were able to start skinning. We skinned for a few hours, then transitioned to crampons with skis on our backs. 

It was a grind at elevation with full frozen conditions, but I said a couple of times to my friend that there was no place I would rather be. It was really ideal—not easy but perfect. With work, life, stresses, and everything else coming at me, just like everyone else, that was exactly where I wanted to be—with a great friend and phoneless on an epic adventure. It was all relatively straightforward until we got over the hump toward the top with about 800’ to the summit. As we got over that hump, it all changed! The wind was driving at I estimate 80 miles per hour. We gave it a push and after about 30 minutes, one of the guys we hooked up with, an experienced Swiss climber, was in essence picked up by the wind and bounced along the rocky, icy landscape. Some of his gear was blown off the mountain, his clothes were shredded, and fear rose high, so he and others turned around immediately. Being this close to the top, I wasn’t ready to call it. The wind was consistent, with intermittent gusts that required me to drop down to all fours, helmet on the ice and ice axe dug in. Despite these conditions, I was still comfortable and confident, without too much fear or enough to make me turn around.   

Tony and I summited and started the ski descent. The summit is only half the effort and the descent is where many fatalities and injuries occur, so it was with focus, caution, and happiness that we proceeded. We were about a fourth of the way from the summit when the potential for injury struck!  

It’s worth mentioning that the temperatures remained freezing all day, so what was great skiing the day before was a sheet of ice today. I compare it to basically skiing down an ice cube. Tony caught an edge, lost a ski, then a second ski, and the fall went bad quickly. He slid down the ice and it reminded me of the cartoon of a cat clawing and trying to stop! He slid on his belly and burned through his gloves as he shot down the mountain for about 500’. Eventually he was able to flip over and dig his heels in, carving out two boot trenches 30’ long, and he finally stopped! If he was 30’ in either direction during the slide, the outcome would have been a LOT different and potentially fatal as it was covered with drops and rocks. We collected his gear, took a breather, and proceeded to ski down. It was actual skiing for a bit and then turned into bushwhacking and skiing until we hiked out the final section of the climb, successfully completing the first two mountains and the first event of the Big Belt Buckle Challenge. 

For background, I previously summited Whitney about 17 years ago. It was FULL SNOW conditions at that time as the Sierras received 14′ of snow in 10 days right before we started the ascent. At the time, I was a lot younger, dumber, and much less risk-adverse! I lived in Boston at sea level at the time and flew out with a friend of mine as we were trying to summit some of the tallest mountains in a handful of states in the U.S. Up until this point, if I remember correctly, the only 14’ers (14,000 foot or taller mountain) that I had climbed were Mt. Rainier in Washington state and Mt. Elbert in Colorado. The majority of my alpine ascent experience (snow, wind, elements, ice axe, crampons, etc.) was in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where the tallest mountain is Mt. Washington at 6,288’.   

As part of this series of adventures back then, we had also summited Wheeler Peak in New Mexico at 13,167’; Mt. Elbert in Colorado at 14,440’; Humphreys Peak in Arizona at 12,637’; and some smaller ones like Baldy, San Gorgonio, and San Jacinto (that was a crazy one!).  

My first Whitney summit adventure was admittedly foolish! We did not have the right/enough experience; the mountain was basically shut down because of the amount of snow, and we ended up climbing for up to 20 hours a day for 3.5 days straight. The amount of snow on the mountain was difficult to conceive! It eliminated all routes to the summit, and the wind was fierce.   

This effort was by far the greatest of my life up until that point. It was the most life-threatening. It was the most terrifying. There was a complete avalanche four feet from us, and we had to traverse snow crests with 3,000’ of vertical air underneath us multiple times. The ascent STILL claims two of the top six scariest moments of my life! We were able to summit Whitney on a bluebird day and then the certainly eventful (to say the least!) descent began. We got down safely on the night of Halloween, way after sunset. 

My previous experiences on Mt. Shasta were FAR less eventful. I successfully summited the mountain three times. I was 3 for 3 making the top, which is RARE in mountaineering. For example, Capitol Peak in Colorado and both the Matterhorn and Eiger in Switzerland took three attempts each. I did Shasta the first time with a guide, the second time SOLO, and the third time was just three years before with two friends of mine. 

Back to 2022…We decided to attempt Whitney for an April Fools’ Day summit. Tony and I drove my van up the road that leads from Lone Pine called Whitney Portal and parked on the side of the road. It was a really awesome start. The road is unique, steep, and one of the most elevated drives in the Sierras. Lone Pine sits at 3,727’ and the road climbs quickly to about 7,000’ in 24 miles or so. Then a gate stops the drive and you have to rely upon your own power to get up Whitney. 

We started at 4 a.m. with a unique approach—we pedaled the first couple of miles with skis strapped to our backs. This was primarily so that at the end of the day, we wouldn’t have to hike down the road after a long effort. We locked the bikes at the trailhead and started the hike shortly after 4. We hiked with skis on our backs till about 8 a.m., then skinned for a couple of hours. We summited by 1:30 p.m. after shooting for noon. Then we skied and hiked down to the trailhead by 6 p.m., then rolled down the hill (gratefully!), finishing just over 14 hours after we started. 

Mt. Whitney is the tallest mountain in the continental United States at 14,505’. It is typically not a great skiing mountain, but I thought for the first event it would be cool to ski down the tallest mountain in the U.S. followed by Shasta. We LUCKED out with the weather—it was as perfect as I could ask for. I was thrilled with the completion and a successful summit. Leading up to the event, I was definitely concerned that it would be a tough one to check off the list. 

In my opinion, some of the best ski resorts in the country deserve a shout-out! Check them out: 

Alta  

Brighton Resort 

Solitude Mountain Resort 

On February 5th, we took sleds into the Uintas. It was the same threesome that did the Mud Peak adventure, and fortunately we were all laughing about it at this point. I definitely had some lingering sentiments and unease after that one, but I figured we would get out, try for an objective, and see where it took us. It was a perfect blue-sky day and COLD, so the powder remained in the trees and on the trails even though it hadn’t snowed in weeks. 

We ripped in full throttle 21 miles deep into the Uintas on existing trails that were pretty smooth, flat, and fast, as they’re dirt roads in the summer. It was a serious blast-of-adrenaline thrill ride! We came across Kletting Peak at 12,041 ft. and it looked to be a pretty achievable summit objective. As we turned off the existing trail into the fresh powder in the trees, it immediately got very deep but still navigable. We crawled through the tight tree forest until we couldn’t go any further, parked the sleds, and started skinning. About four hours later at 1:00 p.m., we still were not at the summit and it made the most sense to me to put on crampons, strap the skis to my back, and boot step to the top.  

I’m not going to lie—I voted to turn around at this time, with the memory of Mud Peak so recent in my mind. We talked through it and instead forged on, getting to the summit at 2:20 p.m. For much of the day, I was definitely concerned with the time, sun setting, and the cold, so I pushed about as hard as I could travel and took breaks as sparingly as possible, only stopping to eat and drink in order to keep going. 

It was a great ski down, sled through the powder, and a cold, fast blast out of the mountains. We made it out a bit after the sun set, loaded up the trailers, and called it a day. At the end of the day, I was glad we were able to summit, even though it isn’t a huge objective or anything. However, the top is always better than not, and that area of the Uintas is beautiful—they are some of the greatest and most stunning mountains in the U.S. 

The return from covid took a lot longer than I expected. 

By January 22 and into early February, I was able to start getting out on the powder sled and learning how to ride that thing! Learning how to carve and get a powder sled on edge was one of the coolest sports I’ve ever participated in. We had some epic days in February—wide open fields, tons of residual or fresh powder, and endless mountains and valleys in the Uintas. A mind-blowing experience! 

It is a workout; it’s totally different from the trail riding I did in my 20s in New England, and it’s beyond a blast! Fortunately, I have a lot of experience riding dirt bikes, and am not afraid of the throttle so it came I thought pretty acceptably. Powder sledding is unlike anything else. It is a cross between snowmobiling and jet skiing, really. The concept is that to turn that 450-pound machine, you have to lean it over, steer the opposite direction (like drifting a car), get it on its side, and give it enough throttle so as to not tip over, but not so much you lose control. It is an art and a science and requires a bunch of hours of practice to get decent, and a lot of time to get good. The learning curve is steep. 

After getting out a half dozen times, I was able to go most places, but at times it required a LOT of work. It is necessary to learn to ride many different environments—wide open fields, very fast trail rips at around 70 mph, very tight tree groves, steep up and downs, and side tracking. You’re often standing on one side of the sled on a very steep hill where if you slip, the sled can roll a number of times down the hill. A day doesn’t go by without getting stuck at least once if you are really ripping it up in the snow and getting outside your comfort zone, and more likely you are good for three to eight good “stucks”! Sometimes you can get out pretty easily, but sometimes the amount of digging is difficult to imagine.  

Digging out from getting stuck can be a 15-minute full effort or an hour-long ordeal—most times requiring multiple guys digging, pulling, and tying the stuck sled to a free sled and hoping that both don’t get stuck, which definitely happens. My experience learning to ride was typical and learning to unbury is a BIG part of the learning curve. There are a lot of techniques to wrestle and launch out of powder—which, without exaggeration, can be up to your neck and beyond. For example, once I got stuck in some trees and when I jumped off the sled to start digging, I was in snow up to my neck! I couldn’t believe it. Another time I was going over a crest and then dropped eight feet into a river. Both of those incidents required hour-long efforts to get free…and your heartrate gets throttled at the altitude and with the effort needed. 

Death Valley Training Pedals 

By the end of January, I was feeling like I could do some nice, steady, consistent miles on my road bike, so I headed to Death Valley National Park with my friend Tony and girlfriend Kara to do some bigger miles and bigger climbs. 

We chose Death Valley because I had never been and always wanted to go, the weather looked perfect and it was still COLD in Utah, and most importantly, we wanted to get a feel for what the area is like for when we do the final of the BBBC events in late September/early October: pedal 140 miles through Death Valley to Mount Whitney, then climb it. 

The trip went perfectly. We really lucked out on the weather—it was perfect and not too windy during the days. We did 5,000 ft. of climbing and approximately 38 miles a day for two back-to-back days. 5,000 ft. in 19 miles is a great, long, steady climb and then a smooth, fast descent back to the van. 

Towards the end of 2021 and into the beginning of 2022, I decided to tackle some BIG adventures I had heard about and always wanted to do. I figured that if I could get in shape for one, two, or three of them, then I would go big, get that fitness level, and do six!  

I fortunately had a decent base level of fitness but needed to add consistency and increase volume across a handful of disciplines to complete the events: road/mountain and gravel biking, skinning (uphill skiing with special bindings that allow uphill and downhill travel), alpine ascent (with ice axe and crampons, typically with skis strapped on your back), hiking, and technical rock climbing. I settled on six events in a planned order of completion and named it the Big Belt Buckle Challenge. 

Mud Peak 

After about 10 days of getting in a good routine, I decided to give it a little push and see where my fitness level was. A “little” push turned into something a little more than a little. My friend Tom and I loaded up skis and our brand new, never-been-ridden Ski-Doo 850 powder sleds and headed to Wyoming, where we met his friend John on December 22. I had a snowmobile around 15 years ago and used to ride trails in New Hampshire and Maine so figured that, like a bike I would be able to figure this one out. That was trail riding—powder sleds are a totally different game. However, early the next morning, I got the basics down quickly. We were psyched as about 20 inches of snow had dumped on the Tetons, so we headed into the mountains.  

After we parked at the trailhead, it was a seven-mile shot into the woods. We didn’t see a single person all day and ripped a new trail deep into deep powder. We had to keep on the throttle or the sled would slow down and get stuck—it was that deep. Like I said, it was my first time riding a 450-pound powder sled, so it was hard work, intense, exhilarating, and a real thrill. When we couldn’t go any further, we worked to turn the sleds around on the narrow trail to start the skin. Turning these machines around was no easy task. We were working hard, shoveling and lifting and turning them around for the return trip later.  

Our objective was Mud Peak. Admittedly, it’s not a very impressive sounding name, nor is the picture online. It looks more like “the hills are alive with the sound of music,” but we figured for our inaugural snowmobile approach, it would be a good day and a good adventure.  

By the time we got off the sleds, it was 8 a.m. or so, and we figured on five hours up and two to three hours down, plus one to get out and load up the snowmobiles, so we would be back in Jackson Hole for a huge dinner. There was a LOT of snow as we started skinning and breaking trail. It was beautiful and it demanded a hard, consistent effort. As I often like to say when I am doing these things, there was no place else I would rather be! It’s a serious effort, but there is also no cell service and nothing to worry about: just the mountains, friends, and the clearing of the mind to a much more basic place.  

We reached the summit of Mud Peak after a non-stop push at 2:11 p.m., six hours later, and we decided to do a loop rather than ski descend the way we came up. The way we went up was HARD work. We were constantly taking skis off, climbing over fallen trees, and sinking up to our thighs when we took the skis off, so we figured that there must be an easier way to actually ski down. We had one decision to make—which ridge to descend, so similar to Yogi Berra’s saying—when you come to a fork in the road, take it! It was an amazing run down. The powder was up to our thighs. It was a blast, but we started getting concerned. The run out was taking us too far to the west, and the contour lines on the map showed steep cliffs to the south and a big ridge to the north. We knew where our sleds were to the north and started realizing there was no way we could get to them down this ridge.  

Here we were in the middle of nowhere, 10 miles from a road, slow moving in huge snow, and we had to strap the skins back on and head north toward the snowmobiles. As we started skinning, we all realized that it was going to be a bit of a haul, but all good. Then, things took a scary turn at 3:41 p.m., When we were traversing the side of a hill, the snow at the bottom gave out, causing a “small” slide. It was small, but if you were in it, it would have been bad.  

Then, a couple minutes after that, the snow cracked right under my feet. If you haven’t heard or felt that feeling, when snow breaks, cracks, or gives, it is SCARY A.F. The snow separated exactly on our skin line and dropped about a centimeter, but held on. Just as I finished my traverse of the hill, the second, larger avalanche occurred—I’m talking just as I got to the tree line. The snow we had stood on just a minute before fell down into the lower riverbed. It was very scary.  

OK—let’s get back at it. It was now 4:00 p.m. and the sun was going to set in an hour and a half or so. We had to get up and over the next ridge, so we had to focus and moving and not stopping. We put on the skins and started zig-zagging up the steep mountainside. We had around 850 vertical feet to ascend to the point where we’d find our up track and follow it out to the sleds. The vertical uphill was steep—very steep—but we were making progress until we encountered another setback. This one really sucked.  

Part of the uphill required a 45-foot ski down a steep grade on a little ridge of the mountain. As I went down that small section, I discovered that I lost a skin. It just came off my ski—something I had never experienced before and NOT a good thing with 800 vertical feet to go! I dug and searched for 30 minutes in snow that was literally over our heads. It was a real winter wonderland. However, the skin had vanished.  

We were deep in powder and had no way of finding it, so we tried the only thing possible: cutting the other skin in half and securing it with duct tape. Well, that didn’t work at all, so I started boot stepping up the mountain. Every single step required indescribable effort. I would sink up to my ankle, knee, thigh, hip, or chest with every step. Literally – powder up to my chest.  If I could make three steps up to my knee, it was a huge win versus sinking in. More often than not, I sank deep up to my hips and chest. It was BRUTAL. I was sweating like crazy, working like mad for every foot of progress.  

And then—it started nuking! It was a full-on blizzard. I couldn’t see anything. Occasionally it would let up for a second and I would see Tom out front. John was wayyyy out front. Tom was a godsend. He carried my skis, and we just kept pushing. It was the most difficult ascent of my life. My heartrate was throttled. At times when I was up to my chest, I could not move and felt completely hopeless. I admit that at this point I was having some desperate thoughts—looking back, pretty pathetic really. These words do not do the scene justice nor the feelings that were going through me. I was scared—it was maybe one of the top 6 moments when I was the most scared for my life – along with a Mt. Whitney summit avalanche, Whitney summit traverse, skydiving mishap, road bike near head-on collision in California, and an off-roading near-flip situation at Mammoth. All these come to mind as the top.  

I didn’t know if I could go on. I planned on going until I couldn’t go any more. I hoped and kinda sorta prayed, even though I’m not religious, and made all sorts of deals with myself—”If I make it out of here…” I thought about my parents, brother, and girlfriend. I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that the thought of dying in the snow on the side of Mud Peak was definitely front and center for that hour. It was one of the top 10 hardest pushes of my life. 

I finally got to the summit at around 6:00 p.m. as the sun was setting and the blizzard kept coming—when the snow stopped and I found Tom and John, I was so grateful. We were all so happy, but also knew it was going to be blackout dark shortly and we still had to descend, skin out, snowmobile out, and get to the trucks. 

Long story short, we ski/hiked through deep snow down the mountain and found our uphill track, which was another huge win. It was very difficult and can barely be called skiing, but we did have skis on and were going down the hill slowly, over fallen trees, roots, saplings, and branches. It was a mess—and did I mention it was not easy?  

To give you an idea: John, who is a worldwide experienced climber and skier, got his ski caught on a branch under the snow when he was right in front of me. He flipped like a slingshot, flew about eight feet down into a gulley and landed directly on an exposed log, ribs first. He broke three ribs. It was brutal to watch—it looked awful. We had to get him out of that gulley, back on his skis, and off that mountain!   He was in a lot of pain.  If you have ever cracked or broken a rib – you get it.  Every breath hurts.  Every core movement hurts. The ski part lasted about another 45 minutes, then skinning back to the sleds took another hour and a half or so. Then we had to get back to the trucks, load up the sleds, and drive back to Jackson Hole. 

It was an eye-opening adventure, and we were grateful to be done and back to safety. 

Worth mentioning that: 

Our meal at The Bird in Jackson was awesome – some of the best burgers and wings that money can buy! http://www.thebirdinjh.com/  

So is Sidewinders https://www.sidewinderstavern.com/  

And Persephone bakery one of the best….ever! https://persephonebakery.com/  

Mountain Modern hotel always does me right https://mountainmodernmotel.com  

I love Stio gear based in Jackson WY  https://www.stio.com  

New West KnifeWorks for a splurge https://www.newwestknifeworks.com  

The hotsprings near the Snake River Sporting Club worth a visit https://snakeriversportingclub.com  

[PHOTOS] 

The next day, I started feeling sick. I was drained mentally and physically from Mud Peak, there was no new snow at the Jackson Hole ski resort, and there was no way I was going back into the mountains without a chairlift. So, we decided to head home to Utah and cut the trip short. When I got home, the sickness turned into a Christmas and New Year’s serving of covid-19—my second round—so training was really put on hold for a month. We have all heard the stories: my first time was basically nothing, but my second bout with covid left me exhausted for a month. Around mid to late January, I started slowly getting back on the training track.