2025 Bob Marshall Wilderness Open

Thanks Mike and JScott. My original plan was to do this event with Keith, my Bob Open partner over the last 2 years. But he unfortunately got hurt at work 2 weeks before the Classic. I was super depressed for 48 hours until I asked Jacob to team up. I met Jacob at this year’s Open, essentially through this message board. We had the same route in mind and the same general goal > make it to the finish.

Once we started hiking, it became clear that I was the faster hiker. This wasn’t a big deal at first; someone has to be faster. After a day a slow bushwhacking, we finally hit the alpine and some steep  snow pitches. It was here we discovered our difference in risk tolerance. I mashed up the climb without thinking much of it, while Jacob moved slower and without confidence. We decided together that it was not going to work out over the next 6-7 days and made the tough call to split ways.

He ended up putting together a cool route and scratching near Whittier. Most participants would go on to scratch; only 7 of ~25 people made it to the finish.  I finished with 2 very experience guys who had completed more than 20 Classics combined. This year was the longest Classic either of them had ever done. Nobody really understood how terrible the brush was going to be. Think of those dudes carrying skis!

No snowshoes, but I did have microspikes. I ended up not needing them. There were a lot of teams that took a glacier route instead of the long ocean paddles. They all carried ropes, minimal rescue gear, and crampons or micro spikes. One dude drilled holes into his paddle to fit his crampons and he slapped some skinning tape on the bottom, thus making some multi-purpose/UL snowshoes. Pretty clever, although I haven’t heard if they worked well.

My pack was 38lbs, which seemed to be heavy compared to others. A lot of these guys are cutting serious corners to keep the weight down > no sleeping pad, no sleeping bag, no insulated jacket, no spray skirt, no bear spray, no maps, no trekking poles, and very little food. Its pretty competitive and dudes want to win. I never carried any water. Water was everywhere and I was constantly wet.

One interesting difference compared to the Open is that my feet never really complained. Of the ~180 miles, only ~8 of them were actually on a trail. All the slow moving bushwhacking and off trail rambling made repetitive foot placement impossible, which kept the feet happy. But my shoes got shredded. Regular trail runners wont cut it out there.

Thanks for watching!

Dave is putting together the final details now, and it should be posted in a week or so.