Hidden Peak from Tibble Fork with Je10, Neasts, Craig and Leslie:
This was one of the best runs I have done all winter. We have been running this route from Tibble Fork for a few weeks now and earlier in the week some of the group had tried to go all the way to Hidden Peak, but they couldn't get up the final steep slopes because they didn't have micro-spikes. We started around 9:00 PM in the dark and ran the graded snow covered road for 9 miles into Mineral Basin. The bottom half of the road isn't in very great shape because of all of the snowmobile traffic, but it isn't too bad. There are just a lot of moguls and bumps, but the last half is phenomenal.
We kept a pretty good running pace up hill all the way up to Larry's Hole which is a lift area on Snowbird property in Mineral Basin. The snow making machines were on and there was a shack there with two Snowbird employees that seemed rather shocked to see us there. They told us that we could go all the way to the peak if we wanted, so we all put on our micro-spikes and took a very direct route straight up the steep slope. After a few minutes the angle of the slope became steep and I was a little worried that we were going to run into some solid ice, but it never got too bad. It was just a touch sketchy. :) We ended up in a gully that we ascended and eventually ran into the track that had been graded by a snowcat just near the summit and we jumped on that for the final few switchbacks to the top. WOW! What a view. Hitting an 11K ft. peak in the middle of the winter is quite a rush and I felt a surge of adrenaline that prompted some high fives and hugs.
On the summit there is a ski patrol shack and thankfully it was open. The lights, water and heat were on, but nobody was in the main room, so we helped ourselves to some water, the toilets and the much needed heat. We took a group photo, grabbed some calories and then it was back out into the cold. We took the snowcat track all the way back down to Larry's Hole because we did not want to get back on that steep slope to go down, plus the running was much better. It was a blast running fast down the track and within minutes we were back down to the Larry's shack looking back up at the peak.
From there a few of the crew went sliding down on their butts and Leslie broke out a sled that she had hauled up the mountain and she took a few really long runs down. It looked like fun, but I wasn't in the mood for any butt busting, so I just ran down. The run back down to the car was fun. We were all pretty tired and the last few miles were tough, but we got it done. What an adventure!
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