2020 Bob Marshall Wilderness Open
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I’ll add a little to Andrew’s trip report. Â This was my snowiest Open to date; always expect snow high, but the mid-level snow was impressive (and slowed us considerably). Â I estimate that out of roughly 90 mile route we were in pretty significant snow for ~ 30 miles.
Dave’s choice of starting and finishing points also allowed us to travel several stretches that we hadn’t been in before. Â The Inspiration Point area was truly inspirational and I’ll definitely be back to check more of it out. Â Lower Gorge Ck was really neat and I’ll let the water go down a bit before giving Picture Ridge a go :) Â The route up Helen Ck and down Pagoda Ck, while certainly arduous (and as Andrew pointed out- nerve racking, I almost brought my whippet and kicking myself for not doing so) was really nice. Â I’ll be bringing my wife back there this summer (but probably not covering 30 miles a day).
The Wall. Â Even though I’ve been through that area a few different times (including a trip down the entire length on top), in the deep snow it was surreal. Â Watching mini avalanches (well below runout) was definitely cool. Â The wolverine traveling through was icing.
The North Fork of the Sun is always gorgeous and was especially elk rich this year.
It was a grade A trip, with a bunch of guys that are fun to share a little suffering with.
Well, wow, that was everything I could have hoped for in an adventure. Being a first time BMWOer I feel like the socially-distanced event this year keeps me from fully appreciating the camaraderie and getting a chance to connect with all you like-minded folks, but reading these trip reports is a good substitute. And since I started on Monday, a couple days after most everyone else, I had the luck of following tracks through all the snowy sections. Many thanks to the folks who went before me for leaving those tangible reminders of the camaraderie in this event.
Seems like these were pretty ideal conditions this year. Very little rain, pleasant temps, firm snow for the most part, and trails that weren’t near as muddy as they could’ve been all made for fun, efficient movement. Of the whole trip, I actually only used my snowshoes for about 15 minutes between Napa and Inspiration Pass, and even there they weren’t really useful; I took them off because they were more trouble than they were worth while sidehilling. Kinda blows my mind that the trip would have been possible without them, but not taking them would be such a gamble I don’t know how a person could ever commit to it on a trip like this.
I purposefully set out with as light a pack as possible, trying to complete the route in two days by jogging whatever I could of the runnable flat and downhill sections. Running with this kind of weight on my back (started with a 21-pound pack; finished around 17 pounds) was doable, but just barely. It was a fun way to see a ton of new country while still camping, but I don’t think I’ll be making a habit of it (versus multi-day hiking or doing day-trip running with minimal weight). I started at 6:30a Monday morning, went up Napa Point, over Inspiration Pass, down Bunker Cr, up SF Flathead and Helen Cr, and camped about 2/3 of the way up Helen Cr after about 47 miles and 14.5 hours that first day. Got going at 6:30a again Tuesday morning, crossed over the head of Helen Cr into Pagoda, schwacked my way down into the White River, up over Larch Hill and along the Chinese Wall, then out Moose Cr and the NF Sun River, making it to the boat launch at the reservoir at 10:34 Tuesday evening for a total of 40 hrs and 4 minutes on the move.
There are some amazing highlights seared in my mind. I was completely fogged in while crossing the head of Helen Cr into Pagoda, and I followed what I’m pretty sure were wolverine tracks for a while along the headwall, then seeing the White River valley open up as I descended out of the fog was special. Hearing a wolf pack howling behind me as I hiked up the White River valley. Following bear tracks step-for-step most of the way up to Larch Hill. Seeing the Chinese Wall for the first time, and watching a few cornices collapse in the afternoon sun into mini-avalanches down the face. Experiencing a truly beautiful evening along the NF Sun river with everything so green and sunny, and groups of cow elk and whitetail in seemingly every open glade. Except for my friend Alex who joined me for the first few hours up to Napa Point and a couple I saw picnicking by their truck at the Meadow Cr trailhead, I didn’t see another soul for the entire trip. It’s pretty special to move for two days through such a wild place and not run into a single other person on any trail. Cheers to everyone else who attempted or finished & hope to cross paths in person sooner rather than later!
Awesome write ups! Rob, congrats on putting some new ink on your packrafting map: that’s always fun. Dave: thanks for putting together a real doozy this year. As far as I can tell not many duplicate route selections here and some real creative approaches.
Heading into this year’s open, the route selection kept me up at night. I wanted to bring a packraft and was eyeing the North Fork of the sun. Picture Ridge sounded, well, picturesque and I thought I could maybe time that for sunset on day one followed by an early morning traverse up and over Pagoda. All that changed on day one with snow conditions.
With the mass start cancelation and the option to start anytime on or before the official start, I decided to head in a week early. Some memorial day plans combined with wanting to see what a week difference makes, I toed the line early Saturday morning and, well, started walking east.
Day One:Â
Point Pleasant Campground to Mid Creek
Unlike everyone else, I walked the mile in the highway 83 ditch to the Soup Creek forest road. In 2017, I spent some time on overgrow mosquito infested forest roads that crossed the bushwacking option off my list early this year. In hindsight, probably should have straigh-lined it.
Soup creek deserves an honorable mention as a great way to access the Bob this time of year. Seems like everyone then curled around and found their way to Inspiration Pass. I chose to head down the Gorge Creek drainage: a little more remote than the bunker creek option and I was hoping to get on top of Picture Ridge and down into Hungry Creek. The walk from Inspiration Creek to Inspiration Point gap was arduous and I had snowshoes on for probably ten miles between Soup Creek and down into the drainage. The direct sun was cooking the snow and snowshoes were doing nothing to keep me from knee deep sloshing. I knew this was also a sign that we were officially in the wet-slide red-zone. Navigation was also a little strange here as I didn’t want to go too low into the wrong drainage but also didn’t want to stay high enough to be in danger of any natural slides in the chutes above me. When I crested the inspiration point gap looking at the bowl, I knew my route might be seriously altered.
The first few steps into Inspiration creek drainage were eerie. I couldn’t find a great slope angle and all the routes down seemed to be on convexing slopes. I could actually hear and see the snow collapsing but the slope angles I was standing on were low enough that nothing slid. I managed to find a somewhat safe way down and earn stability through grabbing pines along the way. A couple other steep drops and scary woomphing sounds and I was out of the red zone and into a winter-wonderland of creek and snow-pillow hopping. Once on dirt (which took a while) I pretty soon saw the largest grizzly bear I’ve ever seen: including in movies! This thing was massive. Seems like the griz population in the Bob is doing very well. I was being very loud and this thing was sitting right on the trail as I came around a dog-leg bend. Maybe 20 yards away it bolted in the other direction. Remarkable power and speed. I had my bear spray in hand safety off for about the next mile or so.
So I had my packraft and ambitions to complete a high route into the North Fork Sun valley. Now what? The snow instability scared me straight enough to alter my route in a significant way. Climb picture ridge at dawn? There’s still lots of snow and that traverse seems like a terrible idea. Pagoda? East facing slopes looked awful one hour ago. I wouldn’t be excited about jumping down into White River valley. So I bailed on that route and decided on the long haul down Bunker Creek, up the South Fork, Over White River Pass and down the West Fork/South Fork of Sun to Gibson. As Rob said, not the most inspiring route, but perhaps the only one at that time I felt comfortable taking to get me to the finish safely.So I went and looked at the Gorge Creek crossing (doable the weekend I was in there) and happily said goodbye to my original route. As Mike mentioned: for another day. Feeling like I was making the right decision, I enjoyed the walk along Gorge Creek and even the road walking was pretty enjoyable as I’d never driven up that way.
Day Two:Â
Water levels were very manageable for crossings up the South Fork. Seems like the CFS gods gave the Bob Openers a window this year. I knew my stopping point was going to be the South Fork of the White River so I was able to move at a pace that allowed me to stop from time to time and check out one of my favorite places in the world: the South Fork of The Flathead River Valley. New trail for me since all other times in this valley I’ve been in a packraft.
The lower White River was spectacular. The clouds broke and I took my time walking up. Ticks on this walk were a bit out of control. I had planned to packraft across the White at the marked ford. In looking, the first part might have been doable on foot, but it starts to run fast and deep and definitely would have been a swimmer even at maybe 6 or 7k CFS that the South Fork was at? Let’s just say I was really glad to have a packraft and without it, probably would have been a bail year for me. As anticipated, I inflated the boat and cruised across. As I was ferrying across, a LARGE part of me wanted to continue down that pristine section of wilderness river to the confluence of the South Fork. And maybe just keep going to the Mid Creek takeout!
It felt strange to stop so early when originally I had planned to push pretty hard on this trip. But it was the right move to let the snow hopefully harden overnight on White River Pass. I put my feet up on my rolled up packraft and fell asleep fast.Day Three:
I woke up at 3:30 and was walking via headlamp toward the pass by 4:00. I was not psyched climbing up Molly Creek to find the snow had definitely not frozen the night before. It was 5:30 a.m. at 6,000 feet and I was in a t-shirt sweating. Navigation was again a little tricky (something I need to work on a bit more). Natural avalanches, loose snow wet slide red-zone etc. etc. Maybe some of it was now in my head, but I didn’t want to rush anything and I wasn’t concerned with speed: mostly just safely getting up and over this thing and down on solid ground again. I found a nice band of rocks I could climb up to reach the gap, and then just climbed straight up to the ridge and back down to White River Pass proper. From there, I did find some nice tree-bands to follow down to flat ground and I zig-zagged like this repeatedly until I made it to a gentler slope-angle and found my way on and off the summer trail.
Snow persisted until damn near the West Fork of the Sun ford. I kept saying: I wonder if that’s the last step on snow of this trip? And sure enough: more snow banks. Lots. Of Snow.(looking back at the White River Pass are from West Fork of the Sun)
To float or not to float: that was the question I kept asking myself. Tired and still feeling like I got away with one navigating snow conditions, I was feeling like one foot in front of the other was the way to go. I remember hearing something about micro-gorges on the West Fork and the South Fork of the Sun I just wasn’t sure about. My gut told me to keep walking and I listened. I did, however put in after the Ranch and catch some temporary moving water, portaged a little elbow gorge because I had avoided stupid decisions thus far when it came to rafting, put back in the reservoir and paddled to the finish in hard rain as the sun went down behind me. Arriving a little after 8 to boat launch proper.(below, the long finish to the boat launch. Also with some pretty sweet packrafting straps by Dave!)
Lessons:
As for my packraft, I was frustrated to carry it as much as I did and learned a lot by bringing it. I need to check out bail options for rafting. Something I hadn’t done was look at Bunker Creek for rafting in case of bail. I have always had West Fork Sun on my list, but I hadn’t looked at any trip reports of that zone and just didn’t feel comfortable jumping into my boat without a little research. I had zero beta. Figuring the chances of getting into a point-of-no-return situation was low, it was still a risk I wasn’t willing to take, especially on day three when decision making can sometimes error on the side of not portaging! Still, I don’t think I could have completed the route without it. Crossing the White River would have been very sketchy and a guaranteed swim for me. Ultimately the right choice for me was keeping it on my back down the West Fork and South Fork of the Sun, but I’ll likely go back in a couple weeks and float it because it looked awesome haha.
Route:
The snow was relentless and without having the benefit of following tracks, provided some real navigation issues at times, though I only navigated two passes compared to everyone else’s three. Spent a lot of time on snowshoes. It was pretty cool finishing a week early and getting to watch the other groups head out via their blue-dots. The Bob Open delivers again. Great work to all who set out into the Bob. I know I always learn a ton and while I’m out there. I also haven’t stopped eating since getting back to Missoula.
Great trip reports everyone. I’ll keep this brief:
- 6th consecutive Bob Open for me, 4th finish
- So. Much. Snow. Broke my snowshoes on the first day so shoe packed the rest of the snow. Wet feet (totally expected for the Open) but my feet got extra wrecked this year (gross pic below). Luckily post-holing was minimal.
- Lots of new country for me (only the hike up the White to Larch Hill and trail through the ranch were previously walked).
- The Wall is always amazing. Semi-sketchy with blazing sun, large cornices and tracks in the run-out zones.
- The view of the upper White from the trail up Larch Hill is one of the best
- Weather was pretty great. Had a little rain on the last night camped at Glenn Creek.
- I was definitely hiking a bit slower due to my feet so missed some of the critters my crew saw. Did see some deer and elk.
- Morels!! Added to some ramen and was fantastic. Also some fresh watercress. Wondering how far you could go on just foraged foods…..
- As long as Dave keeps picking routes that put me in new country I’ll keep on keepin’ on.
- Great trail company as always with my crew.
Nicely done everyone! Glad to see so many people out, even without the group start. Hopefully we can all share a pre-event dinner next May.
I never got too serious about my route because the USA-Canada border closed before I started the serious planning. I was wanting to do a foot route and gain some experience with pushing right through the night (no sleep) to see if that sucks as much as I suspect it does.
I was looking at perhaps this route to get to the SF Flathead. Some nice alpine and a few off-trail shortcuts that might have worked but I haven’t looked seriously at:
Then up the Spotted Bear river, which I wasn’t too excited about because the roads in that area are a bummer and detract from the wilderness feel. Would have been much more excited about the route without those.
Then from from the headwaters of the spotted bear down to the NF Sun via this off-trail pass I was talking to Will about. And then hike down the valley to the finish.
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