the 2 for 1 special

aka: bad assery to the max!

a random photo of mt. olympus!

2 men, 2 mountains, 1 day:

olympus

the journey began around 6 pm on wednesday evening, waiting in a mcdonald's drive through in the bustling metropolis of blackfoot, idaho. we were told to wait, and they would bring the food out to us. after like 20 minutes this guy walks out and hands us a bag of "food". my cohort, land, was pissed off. this had taken way too long! but to pacify us, they had decided to give us a baked pie for free... they really, really shouldn't have...

blazing down the highway, listening to npr, rain beating down on land's corolla, we made our way into utah. we were en route to a friend's apartment in provo. we arrived, i met a lot of strange/outrageous people, one of whom, bronson, lived in the apartment we were staying in and didn't know that his heat had been on at 81 degrees for the past three weeks... ("are you serious! i thought i was saving money by not having the A/C on, and i had the heater on this whole time!") and we went to the nearest village inn. (basically a denny's, but sketchier). at roughly 1am we tried to get to bed. mind you, it was fucking hot in this place... even with all the windows open, the ceiling fan on, and the front door wide open.land and i woke at 3am, and headed off on our adventure.

first up was mt. olympus, 45 minutes to the north in salt lake city. so, we had no idea where we were going. land had climbed most of it before, but still... no idea. then out of no where, land points off into the distance and says, "there it is dude." what! how the fuck did he know that? it was 4 am, pitch black... and he found the outline of mt olympus, drove to a random culdesac, and right there, was the trailhead. the first bit was fully overgrown with bushes and trees, and guarded by a massive spider, complete with huge web, and a deer carcass. it was dark, and my headlamp died... so we were both traveling by the headlamp i lent to land. as we got higher, the sun started to rise, and we found the "west slabs". roughly 9-12 pitches(yeah the guides we found later weren't very accurate) of 5.5 slabs, with a lot of trees. the climbing was really easy, and seemed to go on forever despite moving pretty fast, soloing, and not even in climbing shoes. (note: it was really really really easy climbing... not a problem at all) we gained a ridge, and continued up, forever, to finally chance upon a summit register. ahh yeah! 7:49 am, summit of mt. olympus. 

we couldn't find a realistic trail down... ended up going down this loose rocky(emphasis on both!) chute. oh my god, it went on forever! totally almost died like every 20 feet. we slid down some waterfalls, bushwhacked through thickly overgrown trails, and after that ended -there were serious doubts about completing this epic day...- we popped out at a parking lot. we had no idea how far away the car was... we decided to just hoof it on the roads till we found it, oh and also, we haven't eaten yet... and it's like noon. some dude was nice and gave us a lift. we eventually found the car, and headed to a grocery store.

next up, notch peak

we drove about 3 hours south to find this peak. by now, it was raining. we seriously thought we might have to bivy up there... hoping that we might finish this in 24 hours. the hike started pretty mellow. everything was wet though... all the plants we had to walk through, everything, was wet. we kept going, and came on this wash. a dried up creek of sorts. it was really chill, slightly uphill, but flat. every time we wondered where the trail was, we found a cairn. like magic, only better. we came across a humongous tree(like 5 feet in diameter, maybe 50 feet long) that had fallen into the wash, and pretty much ended the wash. we moved up onto the hillside. there were so many cairns, there was no chance of loosing the trail. seriously, every time we thought, "huh, where do we go?", we looked ahead and found at least 3 cairns. we scrambled up for a bit, and the trail opened up into a hillside. no more cairns, plenty of fog/ rain, and the summit in view. we walked up to this ridge, and peered over the edge. one of the largest walls in the world was on the other side. roughly 5,000 feet tall. really big. we kept going up the ridge, and found the summit. there was a huge cairn, more of a box made of rocks, that housed the summit register. 4:50 pm summit of notch peak. we ate our sandwiches, then headed down. it wasn't raining anymore, but we were soaked, and it was fucking cold. the hike out went super smooth, minus us being super tired, aching...

the final leg

the drive home was epic. we decided to listen to techno, really really intense techno, and drink lots of red bull. only way to stay awake. i was at the wheel, land was asleep. i was practically hallucinating behind the wheel. all the reflector things on the side of the road looked like cars, and the lights from oncoming traffic scared the shit out of me. it got to a point where i just couldn't drive anymore. i had just clipped one of those orange barrels for road construction. land thought we hit a deer... he took over. we stopped at a gas station for more red bull, and they closed while land was in the bathroom, while they locked the doors. we decided to both stay awake this time, and talk the whole time, for safety's sake. we eventually made it to provo, parked at the apartment, and stopped the clock. 

19 hours, 27 minutes exact

made another trip to village inn with land's friends, then collapsed... around 1 am... "men's men" as his friend taylor said. and yeah... it took a fucking loong time....