TreeFighter

Semi-plagued by injury and rain, and because I was asked, I’ve resorted to nerding out on my picnic stats so far: 30 attempts since July 2011. 21 finishes. 5 halted midway. 4 false starts, where I barely got out the door before turning around. Most repeated: 6 Grand Teton Picnics 3 Moronics 2 Winds Picnics (one w 5 lakes, one w 10) 1 full Hoodnic, 1 partial, two earnest attempts and a painful false start. Mt Hood, you are my Rushmore. 💙 Other finished routes: Moranic, Bucknic, Triple Buck, Symnic, Disnic, Spudnic, Hyalicnic, and the Upper Exum Picnic. I also did a Pupnic with Pepi in Montana’s Hyalite Canyon I can’t leave out. I’ve picnicked 10 times alone and unsupported, and swam 106 miles of open water while picnicking, the most exciting while crossing the Columbia River, which I’ve swam 10 times now, and will swim again. I have more picnics I’d like to try, and hope to repeat the Hoodnic and Winds picnic because they’re dreamy if you’re ready, and scary but also safe-ish. I’d also like to try the Yosemite Picnic, @jasonhardrath ’s and @climbingryantetz ’s masterpiece route in the high Sierras that vexes me with all its soloing. Which is why I have to do it. Finishing is the goal but an unfinished picnic is still a picnic because it’s such a savory experience to feel granite in your hands, cold water cradling you, and the earth spinning underneath. Great memories often come from failures, which are just excuses to have all the fun again. If you’re thinking of giving the Picnic a go, but you’re having doubts … those doubts are the whole point. Be persistent, be prepared, and have a ball proving ‘em wrong. 👊🏼 #WTFN? Pic by @davidstubbs1 from the first Moranic, 2014.

I wanted this one. I wanted to do it right. It took a few tries, lots of thought and prep, and much hope and worry, but this week I finished a Winds Picnic, aka the Green River Ball. The route: start at Elkhart Park, bike through Pinedale and Cora to the Green River Lakes Trailhead. Swim the 5 lakes on the way to the west face of Gannett Peak. Climb over Wyoming’s highest point (13,804 ft.) and continue south to Titcomb Basin, swimming 5 more lakes on the way back to Elkhart, for a total of 65 miles biking, 32 miles hiking, 8K (or so) of vert, 10 lakes, and 10 miles of lake to swim. It’s my first picnic loop and a route I tried to make worthy of the Winds. Now that it’s done, it all feels like a soggy, scenic dream where I crossed the unblinking eyes of giants to crawl over a citadel of scree while eating a metric fuckton of gorp and gulping so many fluids I almost drowned from the inside out. Burly bliss, end to end. On my first try last year, I did the route but swam half the lakes; it took me 6 days. This go-around I savored all 10 lakes and finished in 3 days 20 hours. I think you could shave hours off that time, but days? The 20 transitions between rock and water kinda slow you down. So does lugging all your stuff over Gannett in a tuxedo. I was hoping to wear the tux the whole way, just for kicks and to celebrate this crucial and beautiful watershed, but the hiking was murderously hot. I wore the suit on the bike and the climb, and I wore the wool dress pants start to finish. I might wear them again on the next one. Much thanks to @noahwaldron.mov for the company, filming the whole rigamarole, and showing superhuman patience during all the maddening transitions. I’m not sure the world wants a film of DG in a rubber suit grunting and cursing through the Winds, but it may happen. I’m currently so thrashed that thinking about standing leaves me winded, but summer isn’t over, and my head still swims with visions of smashed granite cathedrals, streams tinkling amid riotous flowers, and alpine lakes as icy and irresistible as your worst ex’s heart. If I can rest a bit, there’s time left to picnic. Maybe time to go bigger. I mean, why the fuck not? #WTFN

I believe in doing something wild for one’s birthday, and I don’t know of anything wilder to do from the front door than the Moronic — cycle to Jackson Lake, swim to Mt. Moran, climb the NE ridge, and return the same way. Now I’m sorry I gave it that name (to distinguish it from the Moranic, which crosses Leigh Lake) because this is picnicking at its most exuberant, encompassing both the Tetons’ widest lake and the wildest approach to any of the high peaks. I will do it again. 60 miles of biking RT, 10 miles of swimming RT, 6K ft. and 6 miles of hiking/climbing, with some 5th class moves at the top. This time I swam from Signal Mountain Lodge to Donoho Point, tiny Marie Island, Elk Island, then Bearpaw Bay, stopping for snacks or a nap at each isle. From Moran’s pebbly shore the ascent follows a mile-long steepening curve without a trail, the bottom guarded by a savage bushwhack, the top by a maze of ledges, slabs, and rubble, the steepness creeping up on you so when you turn around to gaze out at the lake, you find it below your feet. As to what I forgot and how I dealt: even in dry years, mountains are still wet early season. Duh. The chimneys up high were slimy with remnant snow, mud, and water. The weather was gorgeous on the summit, but I didn’t sit down or even stop, because I felt the need to reverse the topmost scary moves immediately. Didn’t enjoy them at all. Aside from these few moments, and the sobering contemplation of the 1950 DC-3 plane wreck on the ridge, where 21 bodies are still buried, the experience was one of meditative awe and joyful preoccupation with the now. I’ve finally figured out how to stay happy and strong while picnicking: don’t go too fast or too slow, don’t stop drinking and eating, make the most of good conditions, and don’t fret about the next bit until the next bit. When an enterprise is sufficiently daunting, complex and strenuous, every decision and action is an indelible addition to one’s experience and ability. I wish I made better use of the lessons picnics provide, but I figure as long as I keep going, I’ll keep getting better. Thanks to @hoffsbikesmith and @rendezvousriversports for getting me out the door!

How it goes. W/ @Vientanyl .

Twenty years ago today, Doug Coombs died in La Grave. It sucks that younger skiers barely know about him. When I met him, he’d recently been called “the greatest skier in the world” on the cover of Outside Magazine, and had also been infamously expelled from @jacksonhole by a patroller nicknamed Dr. No, whose Subaru I gently totaled the first week I moved to Jackson in a completely separate incident. It didn’t take long after meeting Doug to see in him the big brother I’d never had, and to realize there was a whole tribe of Doug’s friends, fellow guides, ski partners, clients, filmmakers, and execs at K2 and Marmot who felt the same. As I found in the Tetons and the Alps, everyone deigned to Doug’s mastery and authority in ski terrain, even all the French guides. But he was never authoritative about it, just grinning, gracious and excited to have you there, which was his secret guiding power. He routinely took clients and less capable partners like myself to places we weren’t ready for, by elevating us with optimism, flattery, and what I’ll call sibling gleefulness, while demonstrating, with perfect, swooping ski turns even in terminal terrain, how easy it all was. He hypnotized me through the ski runs of my life. And when his luck finally failed on April 3, 2006, I and everyone who’d had these experiences, and loved him, realized what we’d lost, and the shock still hasn’t left. All my love today to Emily and David, whose loss is far sharper. Hug each other. We’re not here long.

Rigged for pleasure, i.e. nothing on my back while cycling. Makes all the difference between heaven and hell on a bike imo. There’s always a better way. * Skis on the bike frame are easy with a few @voilestraps . Scooch your @igneous_factory Dreamweavers farther back than seen here to keep front bindings from irritating tender thighs. * Skins on skis for better weight distribution and base protection. * Spring ski pack (sharps, sunblock, sunnies, pb&j, chips, DMT toad, jelly beans) lashed to a cheap seatpost rack, which is all you need. * Aged @konabikes steel hardtail I once rode across Mexico solo and mapless … was missing it recently. * @scarpana F1 LTs on my feet because I drove in em, might as well bike in em. They’re like slippers you can put in bindings. * @truckgloves for freezing biking and spring gloves for faffing about in the sunny alpine. I think we’ll have at least one more winter/spring cycle … and with the @grandtetonnps inner road open to bikes, the Bang to Buck ratio in the Tetons is high, and fleeting. Just don’t fall in any lakes, the ice is as good as gone.

Love hotdogs, always have. As the itchy seven-year-old son of trustful and oblivious ‘70s parents, I’d pocket hotdogs, matches and a knife and wander into the west Texas desert that began at the end of our street. Alone, I’d hike scraggly canyons and turn over rocks looking for scorpions til bored. Then I’d make a little fire and char a hotdog on a stick, wrapping its savory corpse in a flour tortilla, the best way to eat a hotdog. Then I’d go home. I did this almost daily til I got a bike and discovered convenience stores. It’s hard to believe I wasn’t abducted by a drifter or struck by a rattler; surely it was the lucky dogs and that’s why I still eat ‘em, usually in tortillas. I am made of tortillas. I’ve heard every hotdog you eat removes a day of your life. Doing the calculations, I estimate hotdogs have removed 21 years and 4 months from my life. Meaning at this point I’m actually 79, and goddamnit I feel great for 79. Pretty sure it’s because of all the hotdogs.

Dear Dendrite Sniffers and Column Tappers, While I appreciate all you do to keep yourselves and our community informed and hesitant, I ask that you please fill in/smooth over your holes after you’ve gloried in their mysteries and recorded it all in code. This pit is an 11 on the FYSU (fuck your shit up) scale as it’s on a popular run in Teton Pass and invisible from above. As pow season ramps up again 🤩 let’s be conscious of each other, and maybe not pee in the middle of popular transition spots. And could you throw some snow over your golden doodle when you’re done? And pleeeeaase pick up your dog 💩 on Glory. When the opportunity arises, a minute of effort is all it takes to keep this place paradise. Thanks for tolerating my rant. 🤍🩵💙🩵🤍

One thing I’ve learned about a McDonald’s quarter pounder (QP) is that you should eat it in your car as soon as the guy hands it through the window. When it’s fresh and hot (even better it’s night and you can’t see it) it’s like a salty meaty mouthful of America. I’ve done big days and maybe a picnic or two after a QP meal deal the night before. (Also real peeps know @mcdonalds_jackson is the bomb. In terms of freshness and consistency, it may be the best McDonalds in the country, I shit you not.) If you delay your gratification to eat your Mickey D’s under the harsh lights of home … a QP on a kitchen table is so limp and pathetic. You can nuke it, but then you’re nuking McDonalds for dinner and that can’t be good. Bereft of all seductiveness, a lukewarm QP in the kitchen is a heartless puck of flavored malaise you won’t even let your cats at. I know a lot of you would never allow such things to pass between your lips, but for the rest us, scarf that shit down asap with one hand on the wheel. It’s just better for you that way.

The skiing is frickin awful right now. Yes there are pockets of fluff n whatnot but @devonpalmer ‘s “woods guys” clip could not apply more than it does today on #tetonpass. See ya up there for the pm shift!

The rainbow thingy is a #BrockenSpectre, first one I’ve seen around myself while skiing! This was Sat in the park on Albright. ❄️

Overly brief video of an avalanche on Albright Peak on Sat., Jan. 10 at 10 am. Sorry for turning the camera off prematurely but I thought I might have to join Zahan and Cary (just below me) in poking around for the guy. Luckily it didn’t propagate much and he rode off. (*Edit* I’d previously suggested the rider didn’t see the slide and that it could have buried a skinner below. Both the rider and his partner assured me they knew if anyone was on the track below. I have no doubt they checked thoroughly. I never suggested they hadn’t, just that the slide was big enough that it could have buried someone. I apologize for the misunderstanding through my poor choice of words.) Albrighteers, be aware of this wind deposition pocket where the summit block meets the ridge from Wimpy’s. Also, it’s always a whacky ‘pack in the Tetons until we get a lot more snow, so let’s all keep our heads on a swivel. No 💀 please. 🩵