My Sentinel Salute

Inspired and intimidated by the “Sentinel Salute” farewell tours of Justin Yates (17 laps in 24 hours back in 2014) and Mike Wolfe (19 laps! last june), I always told myself I would throw down my own “Sentinel Salute” if/when the time came for me to leave town.  After graduating and accepting a job in Driggs, Idaho, I found myself both excited and scared by the task that lay before me.  Granted it was completely voluntary, (not to mention ridiculous and meaningless to most other people), but it held significant meaning to me.  Over the years I’ve ran Sentinel hundreds of times and I even had a childhood birthday party at the cave.  So it felt fitting to spend one of my last days in Missoula pounding out lap after lap on this iconic mountain.

 

Given the relatively light running volume I’d yet accumulated this spring (and the fact that I was still on the tail end of a nasty 2 week viral sickness), I opted to “dumb down” the Salute to my level, with a goal of 10 laps in 12 hours.  What unfolded was a memorable goodbye to Missoula, capped with a beautiful sunset on the summit on my last lap with two good friends. 

With a well stocked cooler in the back of my pickup at the trailhead to serve as a self-serve aid station, I started up the ridge trail at 9am with mixed emotions of excitement, trepidation and nostalgia.  After 4 solo laps, it was awesome to enter the parking lot to see Jeff with my tailgate down, campchair and waterjug at the ready.  The conversation with Jeff on the ensuing lap was a nice reprieve from the mounting fatigue in my legs (mostly on the down) and the glaring hot sun (80s and bluebird).  After parting ways with Jeff back at the trailhead, I opted for a quick dip in the river to cool off, which was nothing short of spectacular.  

I bumped into Jeffrey on the way down from lap 6, who demonstrated tremendous support by joining me for the remainder of the day.  By the end of lap 7, it was evident from my splits that I wasn’t going to get in a 10^th lap before dark, which has a little disappointing but also somewhat relieving.  Lap 8 came and went, with poles providing a nice boost on the climb and my downhill pace slowing to a mere crawl.  On the final climb (#9), we bumped into John a few minutes up the ridge, which was an awesome surprise, who would join us for the final climb and descent.  On the summit, we relaxed and watched a beautiful sunset, a fitting end to a memorable goodbye to Missoula. 

summit #9 (photo: john)

A big thanks to Jeff, Jeffrey and John for coming out and helping keep me motivated and to all those who couldn’t make it but were there in spirit.

Stats – about 34mi and 18k vertical in 13 hours

Rose: mid-day swim in the river, mid-day gatorade courtesy of Jeffrey and Teresita (thanks!)

Thorn: relentless sun and heat

Bud: although leaving Missoula will be challenging in many regards, I’m really excited for life in Driggs and having the Tetons practically in my backyard     

Apathy in the Missions

In early May, Jeffrey and I were able to connect during a spell of high pressure for a day in the missions.  With an early departure from town and a nice forecast, we had high hopes for an awesome day.  Our plan was to head up to lucifer and picture lakes and then ski “whatever looked good.”  The dry trail to mission falls went smoothly but we lost the rough climber’s trail once or twice on the way to lucifer lake but eventually found our way, 3.5 hours into the day (slower than planned).  We skated across the lake before making the short climb to picture lake.  

garden wall, from picture lake

With the strong sun quickly warming E and S aspects, we opted to climb and ski the S face of shoemaker before it got too baked.  We managed to skin about halfway before transitioning to spikes and booting to the summit.  The ensuing run was marginal, already being too soft and grabby despite being firm enough minutes prior to warrant crampons.  From the bench below the run, we sought shade to discuss our next move.

climbing shoemaker, with the E side of sonielem ridge behind

nearing the summit of shoemaker, with S glacier peak behind and N glacier in the distance

Despite our gorgeous setting and the nice weather, we were both feeling rather uninterested and unsure of what to ski next.  Lots of recent wet slide debris on and below most runs and the blazing hot sun already having cooked E and S aspects left us with limited options.  We lazily decided to start up the garden wall couloir.  Mid-way up with very firm conditions in the shade, we decided to bail, not wanting to wait for the sun.  We skied down towards picture lake til we found access to running water.  In a huge departure from our usual style, we spent a solid 30+ minutes sitting around BSing and refilling bottles. 

sonielem ridge dominates the view looking west from atop shoemaker

Both in agreement that our stoke and motivation just wasn’t happening today for whatever reason, we decided to bail and make it back to town by dinner time.  Our egress took longer than expected, due in part to our decision to skin around the N side of lucifer lake, due to the amount of open water on the eastern shore that we hadn’t seen in the morning.  Even from the outlet of lucifer it took us nearly 3 hours to get down to the car.  Despite our funky mood and only skiing 1.3 runs, it was a beautiful day out in the rugged mission mountains. 

N and S glacier peaks from lucifer lake

About 6k vertical in 12 hours car-car

Rose: incredible views of the mission range atop mt. shoemaker

Thorn: weird, apathetic mood

Bud: returning for a ESM to lucifer lake traverse

Thoughts: while there is a tremendous amount of good ski terrain around lucifer and picture lakes, the approach is more challenging than the riddell lakes trail, ESM trail or ashley creek in my opinion.  Next time I would do a traverse from ESM to or from lucifer so that you only have to cover that approach/egress once in the day rather than twice.