We solved the problem by melting snow from rapidly-dwindling banks under trees. Since we melted the snow in an open kettle over a wood fire, the water acquired a unique hickory-smoked flavor - which, we found, goes much better with the taste of spareribs than the taste of water.


Next morning we drove about half a mile NE of camp to where the road crosses a pretty little glacial end moraine. We rambled north up the valley between Mt. Peale (12,721') and Mt. Tukuhnikivatz (12,483'). The south side of Peale is not appealing. It's an appallingly steep pile of loose, piety, ankle-twisting, cussin' chiprock. A steep hard snow couloir providentially lead through this teetery crud. The couloir flattened out near its top, and patches of tundra grass appeared on either side, enabling us to gain the west ridge of Peale fairly painlessly. The summit register, in an RF'D-type mailbox, competes for attention with the view. Something about the highest point on the Colorado Plateau seems to bring out the literary bent in climbers (except for Ed Abbey, who just wrote his name).


We then headed west on the' 2-mile ridge run to Tukuhnikivatz ("where the sun lingers" in Ute language), a peak celebrated by its own chapter in Desert Solitaire. The ridge is mostly a walk, dropping to 11,700' halfway between the two peaks, except for a short gendarme ridge on the way down to the low point. The word "rotten" just doesn't convey the feeling of climbing on La Sal rock. Try "cancerous".


From the traverse, Tukuhnikivatz looms as a steep, symmetrical, snow-streaked pyramid - a cartoon version or what a mountain should look like. But, when you're climbing that loose summit pyramid, the aesthetics are lost at close range. A phrase from Abbey's new book The Journey Home ran through my mind - "trudging toward .... one more ugly, meaningless, and brutal rockpile in the sky". I'll bet his climb up the mountain where the sun lingers inspired those words. But from the top ... you feel that you could take off and soar like the hawks over the whole impossible landscape of southeast Utah that is spread out before you - Arches to Canyonlands and beyond to the distant Henrys, cliffs and slickrock and canyons further than you can see, "an exhilarating vastness ... room enough for a lifetime of exploration". Aw hell just get a copy of Desert Solitaire and reread the 15th chapter. Better yet, reread the whole book.
Ram
Bob Michael
Brown Bear Mountaineering    Club
Arvada, Colorado
 
Page Index Prev Page 10 Next Issue Index