Commemorative Lederhosen Run

by Sam

A little more than a year ago my wife was out of town with the kids so I took advantage of the spare time and summitted Mount Olympus after school. Rarely do I get a chance to run on a nice winter afternoon. I spend most of my time running in the dark during the winter. Just as I reached the top of Olympus and was cracking open my traditional summit beverage of choice, Mtn. Dew, I heard the sound of a helicopter close by. Before I knew it, Chopper 5, a local news helicopter was circling me taking footage of my would-be solitary summit.

Little did I know, KSL news aired the footage that evening while I was still on my way down the mountain. As I got home and checked Facebook I found Davy Crockett, among others, inquiring on the Wranglers page about who had been caught on the news. Kendall Wimmer commented that it was "none other than Mr. Peakbagger of the year." Just one week prior I received an award from my running group as Peakbagger of the year for 2014. What a coincidence! And I hadn't even seen the footage yet. Through the help of Aaron Williams we were able to acquire the footage from the news reel and an Instagram post, which I included in my video of the pics I took that day, seen below.

During the news segment, Kevin Eubank said, "This guy finished his homework, and then went hiking...He's up on top with the lederhosen." He had no idea how right he was about finishing my homework, being a school teacher, and going hiking. But lederhosen? Really? Those were just my running shorts and compression calf sleeves, which I could just have easily not worn that day. The calf sleeves, not the shorts, unless I got the 5 second grumbles...

Anyway, I found this quite hilarious and almost immediately vowed to do an anniversary run the following year with actual lederhosen. In the meantime, my friendship with a fellow Wrangler, Matt Van Horn, grew deeper as he gave me a 12 pack of Mtn Dew in honor of the news clip. Matt has a drone and mad video skills. Just one month after the KSL shot he filmed another summit Dew video on Grandeur. It can be seen below.

Fast forward to the present. I made plans to summit Olympus again near the same date that the helicopter caught me up there, but this time with actual lederhosen and friends to boot. Unfortunately, the timing didn't work out with everyone and we had to wait a month, mainly because my wife was due to deliver our third child. So instead of a news report that said, "Woman gives birth in a car on the way to the hospital while her husband climbs a mountain in lederhosen" I chose to wait. :)

Last weekend, one week after my child was born, I climbed Olympus with a few of my friends, Matt Van Horn, Aaron Williams, Brad Sween, Dave Crookston and Logan Ledford. Others were invited but couldn't make it for various reasons. Unfortunately, none of the womenfolk could come, so it was a sausage fest.

About a month ago I helplessly tried to convince my wife to let me purchase some ornate expensive lederhosen. But alas, I settled for a cheaper plainer kind, at least it came with a cool hat. Aaron also bought some lederhosen. The others were a bit more creative in their lederhosen. Jeremy made some out of duct tape, Brad had some fancy schmanzy suspenders with a shot glass elastic on each strap, and Logan was more...white trash-like. It sure would have been cool to have some women in dirndls, but alas, FOMO for them!

We all met at the Olympus trailhead at 5:30am, which would put us just about on the saddle during the sunrise. Almost all of us anyway, Matt decided to get a head start in order to set up and get his drone ready. He actually walked right by us without saying a word. We figured it was someone else and kept waiting. What a douche! :) By the time we found out we started a good 20 mins late. No matter though, we enjoyed each others company and made our way up the steep trail to the summit.

Aaron and I reaching the summit. Ice axes are totally necessary here. :)

The views from the Olympus saddle and summit are spectacular. I never tire of them. Sure enough, just as we were about 1/2 way up the scramble, we heard a swarm of bees descending upon us. That would be the drone. As far as planning goes for these events we actually don't put much thought into them. It's amazing they turn out at all (thanks Matt for spectacular editing). Just think how much better they'd be if we thought it through first. We did have a general plan to have me alone on the summit first to simulate last year's chopper 5 footage. Then have my buddies join me for a toast...or was it for some toast?

And that's what we did, but what really made this video spectacular was the well practiced Bavarian jig. Which Kalina, who couldn't come, suggested we do the night before. I had seen it only in a GIF, you know... one of those silly short clips to present feelings and ideas in messages. So...basically I made it up on the spot. Then, also on the spot, someone threw out the idea to do-si-do. In the end, the candid ideas turned out better than we could've planned. Thanks again Matt for some awesome editing.

We all did a bit of yodeling here and there on the trail but the best was when Aaron did it on the summit to the dismay of some people on the saddle. They seemed scared and quickly decided to turn around and get off the mountain. All the videoing and toasting done, we packed everything up and got ready to head back down, when out of the blue these four dudes in masks robbed us of our lederhosen and had a battle on top of the summit, Lucha Libre style.

Santito Feroso, Pico Paquete, Desierto Monstruo and Campesino de Oro

I've heard of these masked menaces. They call themselves Wrangladores. I think that's some sort of combination of Wrangler and Luchador. Anyway, they like to have luchas right here in the Wasatch. They really got into the spirit of the lederhosen and did the can can together before quickly breaking into a classic battle of epic proportions that just has to be seen. Tossing our lederhosen aside, they left just as quickly as they arrived. I've always wanted to see them in action. Maybe someday soon I'll get to see them again.

Today was too much fun not to do it again next year. In fact, I plan to make this an annual tradition. When it comes down to it I'm just a big dork with dorky friends who happened to be in the right place at the right time last year with the helicopter. Any of my running buddies could've been up there instead of me. However, we'll do anything to climb a mountain with some weird quirk involved, albeit Mtn Dew, lederhosen or carrying watermelons. What's next, Elvis jumpsuits? Only time will tell.

Big thanks to Arianne Brown for writing an article about our shenanigans.