5th Annual Beard Camp

Drew and Chris on the spine of the Sheeprock Mtns.

by Sam

This year's Beard Camp was well thought out and planned perfectly, except at the last minute I decided to throw the plans out the window. We wanted to go to Ibapah and get an amazing winter summit of that mountain, however avalanche dangers were high. So, we changed the location to the sinks in Tony Grove and planned to summit Naomi Peak. The day before our excursion Steve suddenly couldn't come due to health issues, naturally I decided to haphazardly pick an entirely new and unheard of spot. Ultimately, I chose the Sheeprock Mtns. located just south of Vernon.  

It has been a heavy snow year for the Wasatch Mtns. In the upper elevations there are several feet of snow. However the west desert of Utah generally gets less snow than the Wasatch Front. This was true for the Sheeprock Mtns. There was only about 2' at our campsite at 7,700' and there wasn't much more on the ridges we climbed, which were about 1,000' higher. That lowered the avalanche danger enough to try for Black Crook Peak.

Flash mobbers: Michael Samson, Arnold Crashanater, Mypackisnotheavy!

Apparently the 10 people that attended last year's beard camp remembered all too well those cans of chili I had for dinner so only two people were brave enough to put up with me this year. :) We had a short 2.5 mile hike to the campsite I'd studied on Google Earth. It proved to be a nice spot. We enjoyed the time sliding down hills, gathering firewood, and gazing out on the vast views.

We had as comfortable a night as possible in the dead of winter. It was serene most of the day and evening. After sleeping for some time I awoke to the sound of coyotes yelping not far away. This was not the first time I'd experienced this sound. Just this past summer I was in the Wind Rivers when a pack of coyotes woke me up yelping. I asked the others if they'd heard the coyotes but they were still asleep. Shortly thereafter a wind picked up and circled through the canyon. It took me a while to calm down and fall asleep.

Sunrise.

Again I awoke to the sound of coyotes; this time I guessed they were down by our fire pit, some 100' away. They were fiercely growling and must have smelled our food drippings from dinner. I screamed at them and they ran away. Again I slept. Some time later I felt something on top of my legs and I silently screamed as I tried to push it off. I found myself blowing calmly and steadily on the part of the sleeping bag that was covering my face. My heart was pumping as I assessed why I couldn't get a solid scream out. All the energy pent up for the scream needed to escape. Not long after that I again heard the yelping and felt something circling the tent. I mustered all my courage to yell the loudest scream possible and released a torrent of forceful sound that blew the ears off the coyotes. Again I found myself gently blowing on my sleeping bag. Finally, I came to my senses and realized I'd been dreaming the whole time. There were no coyotes, but I almost convinced Drew that I'd seen tracks around the campsite the next day.

I got out of the tent a little after 7:00, collected wood and got a fire going. I watched the sky turn from blue to pink to orange. Winter sunrises are something to behold. Pictures never do it justice. I always feel closer to God in moments like these. I love the quiet moments I have to reflect on life. With the others out of bed we ate breakfast and set to climbing Black Crook Peak.

Sam and Drew climbing the steep slope.

We had about 1200' to climb to reach the ridge in a little more than a mile. It was steep and slow. The wind blew but we weren't too cold. Hoarfrost coated the trees. Clouds obscured the view. After almost two hours we had climbed about 1.5 miles. The clouds parted for us. Unfortunately, we saw how much farther the peak was and that we'd have to do quite a bit of scrambling. I decided to call it a day. The scramble would prove dangerous and it would take too long. We vowed to come back when the snow melts. On the way back down we enjoyed the view of the ridge with the sun obscured by the clouds. What took us two hours to climb only took 30 mins to descend. Of course we spent a lot of that time sliding on our butts.

Where we stopped on the ridge.

Once back at camp we slid down the hills a few more times packed up and snowshoed out. A storm followed us out. I was glad we decided not to try for the summit. We could have been caught in the nasty wind and clouds and pelting snow on the ridge and the entire way out. That would not have been fun. The Sheeprock Mtns. were unknown to me before this trip. I hope to go back many times.

Map & Stats.