MANTI-LA SAL NATIONAL FOREST, Utah — You never know who you’re going to run into on a snow-covered trail overlooking the desert at 6:30 a.m. in April.
So it came as much by surprise as not that there among the bear and bobcat tracks along the unplowed Geyser Pass road into the heart of Utah’s La Sal Mountain Range, our two-man team crossed ski paths with a Grand Junction endurance guru known, to the best of almost anyone’s knowledge, simply as “Espresso Bob.”
The shock, given the dawn light yet to crest the 12,645-foot peak of nearby Mount Mellenthin, was in the direction of travel. The coffee man was already on his downhill slide and headed toward a mountain bike.
“I just came up for a quick loop this morning, to give the dog a run,” Bob explained, an obedient Rhodesian Ridgeback standing sentinel by his side. “It’s going to be a warm one today. I’m sure you saw it was already 41 degrees in the parking lot.”
The truth is we hadn’t paid that much attention to the predawn temperatures. But the afternoon forecast for Moab, only 15 miles northeast, called for sunshine and 82 degrees — a perfect day to go skiing.
For that matter, the day would have served as an ideal do-over of our previous adventure, a 17-mile splash down the Colorado River through nearby Westwater Canyon, complemented by a morning mountain bike shuttle ride. Combined, the multiday escapade served to complete the elusive pole-pedal-paddle recreational relay available only on those rare occasions when snow, dirt and water align like the stars of Orion’s belt.
“We can do this pretty much any year in the Arkansas River Valley,” said Mike Harvey, a Salida resident who helped rekindle last weekend’s “Salida 3P” after a seven-year hiatus. “But with the conditions we’ve got now, this year is especially good.”
Despite the lengthy layover between races, nearly 100 competitors ranging from age 13 to 65 showed up in Salida on Saturday — more than the last event in 2001 — to ski from the summit of Monarch Pass (pole), bike to the banks of the Arkansas River (pedal) and kayak into town (paddle) in the name of charity benefiting the Arkansas River Trust. Fastest among the finishers was Jesse Rickert, 45, of Gunnison, who completed all 36 miles of the tweaked triathlon in 2 hours, 25 minutes for his fourth victory in as many attempts. Maria Kallman of Boulder won the women’s individual event in 3:04:09.
“I always thought this was one of the coolest races around, and this was the year to get it going again,” Harvey said. “It’s cool that it follows the spring runoff, downhill from the top of the pass to downtown Salida. We all spend our winters driving up to the top of Monarch Pass to ski, spend our summers playing on the river and the shoulder seasons biking in between. This event ties that all together.”
Perfect blend of sports
Whether for race or recreation, 3P options are in rare abundance around the region this spring as rapid warming follows one of the most intense winters in Western history. From Salida to Mount Sopris, the state’s deep snowpack has begun to run down the mountains in a transitional ritual that has met its metaphoric match in sport: Drop your boards in the garage after one last run, grab your bike and roll to the river. A more perfect picture is difficult to paint.
“We try to do a pole-pedal-paddle day every year, not as a race, but just as sort of an underground thing,” said Brian Gardel of Fort Collins, founder of the popular river runners website and its sister backcountry ski site, . “There are a ton of options for all that stuff around the Poudre Canyon. It just depends on how big you want to go and how you time up the conditions. But there are some really fun ones.”
With that image in mind, I joined Vail Ski Patrol assistant director Billy Mattison in loading skis, boots and, of course, poles into the truck for an annual end of season paddling adventure through the swirling whitewater of Westwater Canyon near Moab over the weekend. The waves of Funnel Falls, Skull Rapids and Sock-it-to-Me are always exciting, and the rolling 15-mile mountain bike ride from take-out to put-in serves as a perfect way to shake off the morning chill.
Time for spring skiing
More enticing, however, was the prospect of skiing the nearby La Sal Range, its heavily frosted whitecap peaks towering over the red desert canyons.
“I haven’t been up here on skis for 15 years,” Mattison, a former Eco Challenge adventure racing champion, said as we awoke well before dawn and headed up the La Sal Mountain Loop Road toward the approach. “I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get back.”
A quick change from sandals to ski boots, climbing skins attached to ski bases, and we made our way toward Gold Basin and the impressive peaks of Mount Tukuhnikivatz (12,482 feet) and neighboring Tuk No (12,048 feet) before the deep snow turned too soft under the sun’s intensity.
Surprisingly, that never occurred. And even by noon — a typical deadline for scaling backcountry snow in avalanche terrain so late in the spring — the sunny slopes we selected to ski remained treacherously firm underfoot, a howling wind scouring the snow.
“It looks like this is turning into more of a mountaineering trip than a skiing trip. That’s just the way it goes in the backcountry sometimes,” Mattison commented as the now-inverted view of the Colorado River and legendary mountain bike terrain of Moab almost 8,000 feet below left us suddenly longing for pedals and paddles. “But look at that view. You can’t find anything like this anywhere else in the world.”
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
