Utah’s forsaken backcountry

Ophir Canyon, Utah – People from all over the country flock to Utah and resorts such as Snowbird to ski “the greatest snow on earth.” With only 45-minutes separating world class lines and the airport, it’s no wonder the resorts are the only thing people think of in Utah. The only problem is: there’s far more to Utah than Mormons and the Wasatch.

So I know what you’re thinking, “Uh yeah, don’t forget about the watered down beer!” Well don’t you worry, where we’re going, you won’t want to carry the extra weight anyway.

“It’s not much of a climb to where we’ll set camp,” Dave made a point of emphasizing. “It’s maybe 3-miles in, but the worst part about it is all the creek crossings we have to do. But we just follow the creek in, there’s not much climbing.” That was the first of Dave’s famous sayings, the other was, “The one thing you don’t want to do is get blisters.” Can you see where the foreshadowing is taking us?

About two hours after we left the car on a surprisingly beautiful sunny day I found out the truth. We had just entered the thick of the aspen forest and in the shade of the mountain I had to add a layer over the shirt sleeves. We were all sweating our asses off though with 40 lb packs on our backs. To his credit, Dave’s pack was heavier than all of ours and in addition to packing a queen size bed and head board with him, he did pack most of the food. Honestly though, you should have seen his sleeping set up, all I can say is plush. I was jealous. I digress though.

So we’re all huffing and puffing taking a quick breather when Brian says, “Apparently there’s 2,000 feet of climbing before we even get to the cabin. Then it’s another 12-1,500 to run laps on the peak. We’ve got to be halfway there.”

“2,000 feet you say? Hmm, interesting.” I couldn’t help but start laughing. By this point Dave wasn’t though, the massive blisters had started their incessant spread across his heels. Then it got better.

Out in the sunshine all day we had glided pretty nicely across the snow. Now, entering the colder, tighter canyon, our wet skins began picking up snow like wet cement. For the next two hours the four of us added about 10-15 lbs of wet snow per foot. There’s no way to dress it up in fancy words, it was freaking brutal. We got our asses kicked. Particularly on the climb out of the canyon. There wasn’t a sweeter sound than when I finally heard Brian yell out, “Wooohooo!” and I knew the cabin was close.

The cabin itself is an historical artifact. Built in the 1930s as a mining cabin, its interior bears the scratched and scribbled names of many of its visitors, all the way back to 1936. Now don’t get me wrong, this is no deluxe fortress in the woods, it’s a bare bones shelter. But a shelter with an old defunct wood stove that could at least knock the chill off. Pat, the constant tinkerer, got it working in no time. We spread our mats out, wolfed down some lunch and chilled out for a couple hours before heading up for a summit.

The hike up is mostly through perfectly spaced aspen trees, which with the clouds and fog rolling over the mountain presented an eerily lit setting. With our legs torn up from the hike in with our packs on, the ascent to the summit took us for ever. Our timing was impeccable though. After it had snowed on us pretty much the whole way to the top, as soon as we got there the clouds broke and allowed us to see the sun set. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty sweet.

The turns down through untouched powder were even sweeter. With just enough light to make it back to the cabin we hooped and hollared our way down the mountain and like always, it was over too soon. Every turn was heaven though. Well, except for the really painful burning sensation in my legs that quickly gave way to uncontrollable shaking and eventually buckling and a bomb hole in the snow the size of one of the craters on the moon. To my credit, I crash a lot so it was nothing new. It was still awesome.

After a slow morning we finally slapped our skins back on and hiked back up, this time dropping down through the perfectly spaced aspens. Dave’s blisters kept him back at the homefront, which sucked since he put the hole trip together. The rest of us weren’t good for more than one run anyway. Back to the cabin, back on with the too big and too heavy packs, and off back down through the woods we went. The nice thing was that traversing out we were able to stay high enough to be able to avoid about half the creek crossings, which there are about 8 of.

All in all, a weekend of backcountry up Ophir Canyon is amazing, a lot of work, but amazing. Don’t go if you’re looking for the most epic terrain in Utah. Don’t go if your looking for an easy approach. Go because you want to explore what else is out there. Go because you want to be rewarded with solitude and silky turns after working your ass off to get to a special and forsaken place.