Day 6

Today was the day we got in over our heads in the back country. The day started off nice enough with a Blueberry waffle, and some coffee. Our plan was to take the gondola to the mid mountain and start our hike. From the mid mountain we were to hike to 12,700' to the Wassatch Connection trail that went off the backside of the ski resort down to a valey, eventually leading back into town. On the way up we ran into 3 guys coming back down the trail. We mentioned we were heading to the Wassatch Connection, and they voiced concern about their being snow on some of the sections. We told them we thought we would be okay, and continued on. As we jumped onto the trail we ran into a few small snow crossings, that had pretty good footholes and weren't too scary.

As we continued on we ran into a snow crossing that was fairly steep with no footholes. We looked at the crossing, thought we could make, and started the crossing. I got about 3 steps and realized I had minimal traction, and sat down to figure out a plan. By this time Kelly had made here way out on the snow. I told her to try and head back off the snow. About this time I lost my footing, started sliding on my back, flipped over on my stomach, heading towards a large area of rocks. Right before I hit the rocks, I flipped over on my back again slid another 20 feet, and eventually slid off the snow onto some super loose rocks. After checking to make sure all my parts were still attached to my body, I looked at Kelly and told her not to move. At this point she was going nowhere, as she had her nails dug into the snow. After trying to figure out a plan, Kelly finally lost her grip and slid about 15-20 feet. Luckily she was in much more control, and didn't slide as far as myself. The slide also put her in a position to make it to the edge of the snow and onto the rock. At this point she had to make here way down another 20-25 feet on the really loose rock to an area where the snow was narrow, and she could make it to the side of the trail where I was. A half hour later she was able to cross to my side and our near death experience was almost over. We stil had to make it back to the trail, and the hike was barely starting, but we were off the snow. Looking back at the snow crossing, if I had slid another 10 feet, the snow passage opened into a 100 yard wide snow field. I would have slid 300 yards, instead of the 25 yards that I did. We were both really beat up after the event, with a ton of cuts and scratches.

That night, Kelly and I didn't sleep at all. The both of us kept playing the situation over and over in our heads, and how we could have been smarter, along with how it could have been much worse.