In a galaxy far far away snow and ice were falling from the sky a massive peak lurked in the distance obscured by the blizzard in front of us. Should we turn back, should we call it quits before the storm unleashes its fury on our backs. HELL NO, FORWARD!!!!!!! That was the theme of the trip. Wendell and I decided to make a trip up to Flagstaff with the goal of climbing the peaks and skiing or boarding down. We arrived in Flag about 7:45 in the am and headed for some eggs and bacon at The Place, it was really good. After breakfast we went to the summit to rent some snow shoes for me Wendell was using his skis with skins. Paid a whopping $10 for 2 day rental of shoes. After talking to the local ski bum he advised us that our planned route was going to be pretty sketchy due to the damage done to the forest by the Shultz fire. So plan B had us driving up to the Snow Bowl parking lot and taking the Humphrey’s trail up the mountain. Now the adventure starts. Knowing that a storm would be coming in later that day, we hustled up the mountain and after a few wrong turns we took up the trail. All was great and peaceful for a while then the wind started kicking up. No big deal, a few ice chucks falling from the 100 ft. aspens added to the adventure. We were now far along the trail happily minding our own bizz when out of nowhere a gust of wind blows through and all hell starts breaking loose. Trees are screaming and creaking, groaning from the weight of snow and ice. Next thing you know BAM a tree falls, I scream like a crazed Beiber fan while running for cover. We are kind of in a pickle we are at the half way point do we go back or go down, Shits getting real now so of course we decide to keep going up. The trail is getting clogged with fallen trees, branches and scary sounds so we start humping it as fast as we can after jumping a log jam we come across something very bizarre a set of footprint tracks headed straight up the mountain. Since we hadn’t seen another soul out in that area it kinda creeped us out. I’m say it was the yeti out for a stroll but who knows these things. The wind was getting worse so we traversed through the woods back towards the ski park skiing the nasty snow back to the jeep. We spent the rest of the time trying not to get the jeep stuck as we look for possible locations to ski. There wasn’t much snow on the ground so we went back into flag for some much need nourishment. Hitting up Salsa Brava for some Pork tacos and habanero pineapple salsa, it was awesome. Now to the scariest part of the day off to our $30 a night motel. We get there to find out that the rooms aren’t $30 at all but $21 and comes with a continental breakfast! The room was like staying at the fanciest Hilton except for the stains, clogged toilet, quirky shower and 1960 décor.
We awoke the next morning to find it dumped snow all night long. We are talking feet of fresh powder had been laid. We hit up the awesome continental breakfast and headed to the snow bowl for round 2 but the road was closed so we hit up the areas we had scoped out the night before. The roads were blocked but we were fortunate enough to have the combo. We drove up to Hart Prairie and found some great snow. We hiked a few of the cinder cones and had a great time making turns in the powder. All in all it was an awesome trip and even better adventure.
