Where Worlds Collide
By Mack Lambert, FOW
There's snow up there somewhere. Mack sets off on a solo human powered adventure. Southern UT. Photo: Mack Lambert (@mountainsforbreakfastt)
“A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.”
—Edward Abbey
Something feels so wrong yet so right as I toss my avalanche beacon and camera gear into a backpack and strap skis to the bike. Massive canyon walls hulk overhead and funnel down to the Colorado River below. A thin band of snow-covered mountains looms in the distance. “I'm gonna ski those today,” I say to the vast expanse of red rock desert as I mount up and pedal off.
For the past few years, I’ve been biking, climbing, and running around Moab while looking up at the La Sal mountain range that crowns the canyon country. Since my first visit eight years ago this place still seems otherworldly—nothing like the Sierra, Cascades, or the Rockies where I've lived, and certainly not like the White Mountains in New Hampshire where I first began to toil in the mountains. From the burly canyon walls and spires that sprawl across the desert to the pristine high alpine peaks near the state’s border, the stark contrast between desert and snow is unique. My mission was to find the confluence where opposing worlds join; it wasn’t intended to be easy.
So I mapped out a route that twisted up to the base of the La Sals and lashed a pair of Reason 120s to my bikepacking rig.
Up before the sun, I find myself keeping a good pace and enjoying the empty and pristine gravel roads. This solitude is eventually broken by other cyclists, slowing and matching my speed for a moment to admire the ski/bike rig. A Moab hard-o with calves the size of my head drops the affirming head nod before buzzing by in a cloud of dust.
Dry dirt roads soon turn meltwater soggy with the occasional mud pit to steer around while gaining elevation to the snow line. Due to Utah’s impressive winter precip, my intended road into the mountains has been cut short by six miles of snow cover, forcing me to break down into skinning mode sooner than expected.
Southern UT. Photo: Mack Lambert (@mountainsforbreakfastt)
After hours of bushwhacking, I finally find my way into the confluence of winter trails maintained by the Forest Service, making skinning a much smoother task. A large burn zone wraps around the southwest aspect of the La Sals and up into its interior—I weave through an ominous yet beautiful forest of charred Pinyon before starting the actual climb into the high alpine. At a pause I notice the impressive footprint of a cougar that makes its home somewhere in this stark landscape.
Southern UT. Photo: Mack Lambert (@mountainsforbreakfastt)
As ghostly as the forest seems, it’s still a refuge for life.
Cresting the apron before the summit I can see the final climbing route to the top. I switch to booting on a rocky technical section before joining a moderate skin track established by a previous party up the mountain's southern shoulder—the track is just engaging enough to be interesting and more than slog. In no time, I’m on the top and eyeing my line back down the mountain. The other party—who had established the skin track after approaching from Geyser Pass—makes the mountain’s fall-line look unappealing as they fight chewed-up and variable snow on their descent.
Southern UT. Photo: Mack Lambert (@mountainsforbreakfastt)
Southern UT. Photo: Mack Lambert (@mountainsforbreakfastt)
Still giddy from the payoff of linking turns in great spring snow, I chug back through the burnt forest hoping to find a better vantage point toward where I had ditched the bike.
The sun is low in the sky now as I navigate and thrash back through the maze of dense shrubs and over the plains to where I began the tour. Seven hours after switching to skis, I’m standing above the valley where I left the bike, transitioning for the last time to ski a small hillside down to the dirt. I kick off my skis and boots, racking them on my bike frame just as the sun sets.
Riding by headlamp down the dirt road, I see the sunset peel through the alien landscape of Canyonlands National Park on the horizon. I’m thankful to be able to enjoy this place so freely, to be able to just pack my skis onto my bike beside some random canyon and set out to ski far-off mountains without waiting in line or paying a toll. Excited for the prospect of my sleeping bag, I ease off the brakes and fly down the remaining dirt roads until the skis sound like machine guns rattling on the bike frame. “Tools not jewels,” I mutter to myself, slamming into another unseen big pothole.
Thirteen hours after setting out I steer into my campsite. A feeling of liberation washes over me, closing the circle from where I had started to where I finished and everything in between. Covering so much terrain and seeing so much in a one-day push is one of the main sensations I value from long distance biking. Combining that with the freedom of ski touring is another unexpected contrast to the less-than-liberating sensation of waiting in line for one of Utah’s crowded national parks.
Leaning my bike against a tree, I dive into the back of my truck and fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.
The next morning while the coffee percolates I think back to the Spanish explorers and how they couldn't fathom the snow on the La Sals, naming the range for salt instead of snow. I compare myself to them and how ludicrous I would seem setting off up some dry canyon with skis on a bike. But they didn’t go far into the mountains. They didn’t see the red slickrock give way to rolling prairies and small streams or witness dense Junipers commiserating with charred Piñon in a sub-alpine forest. They didn’t clamber over craggy snow-covered rocks to see the far-off furnace of canyons; they never traveled by bicycle and planks shaped for mountain exploration.
Southern UT. Photo: Mack Lambert (@mountainsforbreakfastt)