Nebo in the Bag

From the time I first went to Snow College and laid eyes on Mt Nebo I knew it was a mountain I wanted to climb. Ten years later and after two failed attempts, I achieved my goal Feb 21, 2009. I used to look out the window of the Snow College library, when I got sick of studying and think about climbing the mountain. My first attempt was in the fall of 2002 (no snow) when newly married to Teresa while attending school at Snow College. I took the crappy dodge neon up and it ended up overheating, before I even reached a point to hike. The second attempt was my first winter approach, last year. While working up one of the bowls in a switch back approach, my ski binding broke, while still somewhat attached, I locked my heal back down and made my way back to the starting point, while my partner (also named Matt) reached the ridge and skied a chute on the other side, but not the main part of the mountain.

So Friday afternoon, out of the blue I get an email from Matt saying the conditions are great, lets go. After I made arrangements with Ski Patrol training, we were off the next day.

View of Mt Nebo from our North Approach.

(The left chute is our decent path)

We made the same approach as last year, except we traversed a different bowl to reach the ridge line, this worked well and were soon on the ridge. The ridge began easy but become more technical the closer we got to the peak. I began to feel the effects of altitude around 10,000ft. Traversing under one of the minor peaks and baking under the sun, I would rest my head on my ski pole and just feel like taking a nap. Reaching the main ridge line again, I felt slightly closer with Nebo insight. The ridge got narrower and steeper, the skis came off and it was booting from there on up.

Looking back on our upper ridge traverse
(Hold'er steady!)

My friend Matt with Mt Nebo.

The pitch before the top, skis off and booting

The tip top of Mt Nebo and chute entrance

Traversing across the chute entrance in an attempt to summit the peak

When we arrived at the entrance of the first chute, the peak looked literally a couple of feet away. I thought we should at least summit the main peak just for the heck of it. My friend Matt traversed across the entrance of the chute and made an attempt but the mountain all of sudden got really techinical. He came back and I thought I would give it an attempt with rock climbing manueverus. All of a sudden I realized what looked trivial was not. The rock was very loose, vertical and irregular, plus a fall hazard was very consequential and this was not a place to get hurt. The other option rather then the rock ridge was up the snow pack. But the grade increased so steeply that without an ice axe, it was sketchy at best. We both decided that it was not worth the risk, just to have to come back down. Later I checked on my GIS maps I found that we had reached 11,825 to the mouth of the chute. Mt Nebo was another 103 vertical feet, and 414 horiziontal ft away. We had essiential summited, but to actually summit was not worth the risk.

At this point we began our decent. I have to say, entering into the chute, I was a little sketched. My friend Matt stepped through the rocks with his skis, stating that he gets them for cheep anyway. I don't, I replied and down climbed the rocky section until I reached a good point to put my skis on. Its funny, at nearly 12,000ft, seemily easy tasks become labored, for example I was almost out of breath just putting my skis on and buckleing up my boots.

Looking down from the side of our decent route

Looking straight down the gut

My friend Matt working his magic

A short clip to get a feel of the exposure

I felt better once in my skis and more secure but the grade at this entrance point and the width of the opening, plus the fatigue of climbing and the exhustation (and dizzyness) of elevation, were all playing with my mental status, and I knew it. The snow was hard, variable and wind blown, increasing the difficultly of the decent. I side sliped a bunch of terrian before making my first couple of turns. But with every quick turn, I would have to slide slip so much terrian before regaining control, I decided that actual turns at this point were usless and only increased my chances of a fall, which if had happened, I would slide down the giant slippery slide for quite a ways before being able to self arrest. So I side slipped until the chute opened up a bit wider. At this point I caught up to Matt, who told me to keep going, my legs were absolutly hammered at this point and I wanted to stop and chat but kept going. The snow became softer but more wind blown variable which meant very tricky turns, you never knewn at what moment your ski would pop through the crust sending your momentum off in funny directions. Near the bottom thrid of the Chute I ran into a party of 2 guys attempting to boot up the chute directly. They were attempting to do this by foot from the valley floor in two days. I had to hand it to them. But with our description of the peak being difficult to summit, they sounded discourged, plus the day was getting late. Once we had reached to bottom of this main drainage I saw them skiing down, bailing out of their main attempt. It was probably a good idea as when I ran into them next down Mona pole road, they were taking down camp and it was nearly dark. Anyway back to the bottom thrid of the chute. The snow conditions were greatly improving and when I reached the exit point which opened up into the large talus field, the snow turned into super powder with excellent turning conditions. We did our best to enjoy this section, taking turns filming each other and resting our legs until we reached the bottom of the cirque.

Looking up at Matt about half way into the chute

Looking back at the chute exit and the nice open apron

The best for last

Out of the cirque and homeward bound

To exit we began the traversing out across west facing, sun baked, lower elevation snow. The traversing was necessary to conserve as much elevation as possible for Matt to go and retrieve the snow mobile. The traverse across the wettest section would send huge roller balls of snow tumbling down the slope, this made me nervous (but looked almost cartoonish). Matt laughed at me and said I should spend some time in California. We reached Mona pole road and Matt began trudging back up to get the snow mobile. It was only 0.7 miles and 414 ft of vertical but actually that's quite a little hike, especially after the day we had. He said it was quite gut wrenching. So I skied down Mona pole road, which wasn't terribly enjoyable either, trying to carve turns in a narrow, winding, steep road. I would have to take rests along the way, which is where I ran into the other party taking down camp. One of the guys whistled at me, then he said, "oh I thought you were my partner", to which I responded, "and I thought you were Sasquatch!" Once in the truck and down, there was a place called Big Burgers or something like that run by some people from India, in the little town of Mona, where we had dinner. (how you go from India to the little town of Mona to open up the only burger stand has got to be a cool story). Anyway, it was good long day and I was glad to get home. I was also glad to be able to tour with my friend Matt. He was a great partner to be with up there. I felt comfortable with his decision making and route finding and he also seemed to be looking out for me through some of the more technical aspects of our routes.

Dead tired

Map of the tour