It was Friday night, the eve of my departure from an incredible week of rock climbing and trail running adventures in Utah. As my friend and I lounged in her Ogden living room, we mused about plans for one last adventure before I was to fly back east to North Carolina. “What about Pfiefferhorn?” she asked. Having just been introduced to many of the awe-inspiring peaks of the Wasatch, this one was unfamiliar to me, but it didn’t take much to sell me on the idea. We both got excited on the idea – 11 miles or so with almost 4,000ft of gain, reaching a summit just above the 11,000ft mark. Our eyes bulged when we checked out the Saturday morning forecast. Twenty-two degrees, harsh winds, and a chance of precipitation around lunch time. Steff, much like myself, is a minimizer, so after a few back and forth shrugs and exclamations of “It’ll be fiiiiiine,” we gathered up our gear and caught a few hours of sleep.
Morning came early and we began the drive to Little Cottonwood Canyon with Saves the Day, Minor Threat, and plenty of other angst filled songs from our youth blasting through the speakers. We arrived a little later than we’d hoped to the LCC, but quickly got layered up and down to business. Snow had already fallen over the last couple of days, so we quickly donned our spikes within the first mile of trail. A mix of running and power hiking got us through some of the early climbs until we reached the incredible Red Pine Lake. I had certainly been rewarded with beautiful mountain lakes on my runs earlier in the week, but this one definitely took the cake. We wove our way around the lake side trail and the terrain turned significantly rockier. Around this point, we crossed paths with a fellow by the name of Abe, who was also on a quest for the summit of Pfieff. We shared the remaining miles and some great conversation with him as we continued upward.
As we looked up towards our objective, I was overwhelmed with how steep the final push to the summit looked. We still had to cross a sharp ridge that was composed of a string of large boulders stacked upon each other. In less snowy and windy conditions, this might not have been as daunting, but there was something chilling about being able to look down to my right and take in the potential fall risk. Luckily, we found a line that kept us somewhat out of the wind and picked our way across the ridgeline. Before stepping out on to the final summit push, we made sure that we had every layer of clothing on so that we could actually enjoy a few moments of celebration at the summit. The final push began, post-holing through the snow to make our way to the top of Pfieff.
Before we knew it, we were scrambling across the top of the mountain and shouting with joy! I felt like I was in another world as I took in the 360 degree view up there. I saw Mount Timpanogos off in the distance, which I had made a solo push up just two days before. It was wild to comprehend how large it looked, even being over an hour’s drive to the south. Abe was kind enough to snag some summit photos for us, then we all began the trek back down the mountain as we saw the clouds making their way for us.
The descent felt like a slow stumble at times, mixed with some highly technical butt-sliding and eventually some trots that became running. If there was one piece of technology I learned to appreciate on this trip, it was the breadcrumb trail screen on my gps watch! I would probably still be wandering around in the Wasatch on snow covered trails if it hadn’t been for this. A light snow began to fall as we finished an incredible run descent back to the parking lot. My poor yak traks took a beating on the few sections of rocky trail that weren’t covered in snow, but otherwise there was nothing but joy for this final day of Wasatch adventure! If that all wasn’t good enough, Steff and I made it to the Ethiopian restaurant just in time to devour huge platters of delicious food as a reward. Can’t beat that!
-Lyle Mitchell