Peak Health & Performance Coach

Photos from 22/23 winter training. Looking forward to winter 23/24!

The upside of being closed during the week is that you have fresh tracks on the weekend!

It’s that time of year again! ⛷❄️

Montana… Not too shabby.

It’s true… The climb is not done until you’re back at the car.

Johannesburg Mountain is a lot, in the best sort of cascade mountain kind of way. Long, annoying approach with a good amount of elevation gain AND descent, dirty gullies, loose rock, side hilling heather. All the good stuff 😂. The mountain itself demands your attention at all times. The terrain doesn’t allow for an absent minded climber. Steep terrain, a lot more loose rock, more dirty gullies, more heather, relatively complicated route finding. High consequence, high reward. An engaging climb that is worth the amount of effort it requires.

📸1: Heading down the Mix Up notch gulley, back toward Cache Glacier
📸2: Low down on the mountain heading up in the alpenglow
📸3: Looking down the long ridge traverse

Wait, I don’t have to bushwhack to the climbs?! How luxurious.

This was the first trip of the summer where I didn’t come back with scratches, gashes, and bruises on my legs from fighting bushes, branches, or downed trees. actually asked me if I was disappointed in that fact… At first I found the question was rather amusing and then I realized that they are a form of battle scars… so, maybe??? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Last Monday I had the mountains to myself. Being solo in a remote place requires slightly different preparation and a different mindset which are some of the reasons why I love it.

When I’m solo, I respect the fact that I don’t have a climbing partner to sanity check route finding or share miserable type 2 fun. More importantly, I don’t have someone else to assist if I’m lost or injured. I respect the responsibility of being solo in the backcountry.

What does this look like in practice?

➡️ Trip details left with a loved one (Trailhead location, intended plan/destination, estimated return time, type of trip (technical, bushwhacking, maintained trail), frequency of communication during the trip, panic time (911 time)
➡️ Downloaded maps for an area larger than my intended route
➡️ Route description downloaded, if warranted
➡️ GPX tracks downloaded, if warranted
➡️ inReach fully charged (note that these don’t work 100% of the time. Valleys, canyons, or tree canopy can make signal hard or impossible to acquire)
➡️ Mindset check-in (how am I feeling today and what do I want out of the day/trip)
➡️ Risk tolerance check-in (my risk tolerance is always lower when solo)

These are all things that are a part of every trip preparation whether I have a partner or not. The level of detail is the only thing that changes.

These are some of the ways I mitigate risk in the outdoors.

What are so ways you mitigate risk when you head to the hills?

Don’t go outside. It’s really ugly out there and not worth the effort.

Live the life you want to live. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Sherpa summit. That felt good… it’s like I’m remembering how to rock climb 🤔

Argonaut ✅

Lots of easy scrambling to the bottom of the south face. We opted to do the short “harder” scrambling route to the summit ridge instead of an actual climbing route since we had plenty of rock climbing the next day on Sherpa.

Once we were standing at the base of the south face, I was happy to have left the gear at camp. It looked like a really short climb and not really worth the extra effort of hauling gear. If that was our only objective, I’d probably feel different.

📸1: looking up toward the south face
📸2: looking up the 4th class scramble to the ridge
📸3: looking at The Almighty Stuart (can you decipher Sherpa from Stuart?)
📸4: me, always stoked to be on the summit.

For more route info, check out my short TR on Peakbagger. I actually wrote a TR on Peakbagger, crazy.

JB: “3k more to go!”

Me: “Damn, I forgot to set my altimeter on my watch before we started…”

There are two types:
1. Those who want to know how many more vertical feet you have left to gain or miles to go.

2. Those who don’t.

Which are you?

Also, somehow always manages to pose as I’m taking a photo of him…