The Bob Marshall Wilderness Open

[David Chenault]

If you've gotten this whole backpacking thing fairly well down and have been wondering what's next, I have an answer for you:

http://bedrockandparadox.wordpress.com/bob-marshall-wilderness-open/

A speedy, mass-start, unorganized traverse of the Bob from east to west over Memorial Day weekend. The Open is just that, so anyone may come. Conditions will be exceptionally challenging, perhaps the "worst" to be found all year, so that should be taken into account. I did a traverse of a shorter, less-challenging route this time last year, and in some respects it was harder/more dangerous mile-for-mile than the Wilderness Classic.

I'll gladly answer any questions here or on my blog. For those interested, we'll discuss transportation logistics closer to the race start.

[Jack H.]

cool

[Ken Thompson]

That has the making for an excellent trip report from all entries.

[Eric Swab]

Dave,

Thanks for putting this together, I enjoyed reading about your Alaska experience. My uncle did the classic several years ago and I have always wanted to give something similar a try.

Will using a pack raft be essential to completing the event? Does "Suggested equipment would include, but is certainly not limited to, gear (and knowledge) to deal with flooding rivers" mean yes?

Highly considering joining the adventure.

[David Chenault]

I specifically chose this route for the first year because a packraft is not essential. While cool, they're darn expensive and I was on the outside of packraftland looking in for quite some time too.

If you go raftless there will be a few river and stream crossings you'll really want to scout before hand, but there is also one pack bridge where you'll really want it.

[Eric Swab]

Thanks for the forethought and insight, sounds like you have been thinking about this for quite awhile.

[David Chenault]

I've been planning this for a while. While much of the area traversed will be new to me, much will not be, and the vicissitudes of that time of year are quite familiar. There are at least several co-equal route options, which might be best will depend on conditions (progression of snowmelt, presence or absence of recent snow) and personal preference. The terrain traversed will be impressively varied, and I'll be quite surprised if you see anyone not associated with the Open once you get into the wilderness proper.

To be clear: if you've got the wilderness chops and fire in the belly, I want you to come do this. It'll be awesome. Flying into MT is expensive from just about anywhere, and the start and finish are both quite remote. I've got plenty of ideas to make these things easier. If ~20 people fly into Kalispell to do this, you can all camp in our backyard before, and we'll pool funds and rent a van to get us all to the start. Etc.

[Brendan Swihart]

Sounds like a blast…definitely might be interested…

[David Chenault]

The mud slogging you did recently is perfect training!

[Cyrus Dietz]

Would love to be part of this one. I have covered a couple hundred miles of trail on the eastern side of the Bob, but have not made it much west of the white river.
I will be watching the snow build this winter. With the snow this year the benchmark trail head was not accessible till the middle of June and the white river pass was still covered with snow on the fourth of July.
Please keep me posted on your plans as they develop and I will put this on my calendar.

[Ben Egan]

When I saw you're original post on your blog, I got very intrigued. I'll be following the progress. I've considered doing a Yo Yo–fast one way and a slow return. Because as I saw written on your site: if not now, when? Silly question but I'm not so sure: vertical ice climbing with double axes won't be necessary, will it?

Thanks for setting a date so far in advance.

[Morgan Rucks]

scares me a little, but I want to do this.

[tyler marlow]

Ive been dreaming about doing the Bob Open ever since you posted it but in the last week Ive started actually considering doing it.

My problem is, I have ZERO experience with this kind of conditions. I live in Georgia where the most snow we get is a few inches and I have never hiked in it. I've thru hiked the AT and hiked through a few inches of snow in the Smokeys but nothing comparable to what I assume we will see in Montana.

I also dont know much about the area, the only Western hiking I've done is the Colorado trail.

SO, just for some preliminary info does this sound like a general bad idea? I have no intentions of doing this trip by my self, I'd love to be able to hike with someone with some real experience to guide me.

Anyone else in the same boat?

[MFR]

I'm with you Tyler. I'm strongly considering it too, and even though I live next door to the Bob, I just moved to Montana. So it's pretty daunting for me as well.

So even though it's scary, it is tempting. Right now, though, the snow pack here is very low (we're supposed to be getting a lot this week, but it hadn't started in Glacier at lunch today or in the valley yet. It may not be as hazardous as Dave's trip last year.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I started planning my route last night and I ordered the Cairn Carto map. I'm stoked.

[David Chenault]

Tyler and Clayton, I didn't see this until just now. As you can imagine, it's a rather impossible question to answer, and comes in a few different parts.

Depending on what the snowpack does, and even more on when it begins to melt, the complications directly related to snow are several. One is floatation, but anyone can snowshoe. Another is traction, and those with no experience with alpine snow travel will want to plan their route accordingly. It's quite possible to stick with mellow terrain on this. Much the same can be said of avalanches. The most likely difficulty, again depending on the pace of melt, is route finding. Once you get more than 5-6' of snow following the trails in the Bob gets a bit complicated, especially down in the spruce. Up high there should be enough snow to make straight-line travel unproblematic, but you'll want to find the trail as you drop lower least you end up bushwacking and dealing with 2-3' of rotten isothermic snow at the same time.

Previous experience helps a lot with all that, but (and I say this with trepidation) a mentally and physically strong pair or group would probably do just fine (ie be scared occasionally but make it without danger).

[tyler marlow]

Thanks for the response Dave, some metered encouragement is good. As my summer plans pan out its looking more and more likely that this could be a possibility for me logistically. I will definitely be doing some research and closely watching the snow reports.

[David Chenault]

Bump for event specific discussion and planning forum: http://bobmarshallopen.proboards.com/

[P. Larson]

Is this thing still happening? Any new news on it?

[Sean Staplin]

I am seriously considering doing this if it is still on. Not too far for me to go.

[Kyle Crawford]

Man I cant wait to see the coverage on this one!

[Rich S]

Anyone from the Colorado front range going to this?

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I'm going to be getting a little more serious about planning my route in the next couple weeks – hopefully the other half of the Cairn Carto BMW map is released soon. The biggest question in my mind is the snow conditions this spring.

Not being from the USA, is there some sort of government service that provides information on the snowpack levels / elevations? Or what are the best resources to use? Anecdotal / speculative info would also be appreciate. From Dave's blog, things look pretty snowy still but hopefully are changing quickly.

Perhaps most helpful would be a rough guess of what elevations are likely to be snow free in late May, so I can figure out roughly how much snow travel I'll have.

[Rob Vandiver]

http://tinyurl.com/7c34pfo

They used to output KMZ data for Google Earth, but I couldn't find it now. It was pretty nice for a early Sierra trip I had planned last year. Accuracy is questionable, and resolution is poor (passes that were supposed to have 10'+ of snow pack were snow free on the ridge-line), but better than nothing, I suppose.

From the same site:

http://tinyurl.com/7hz2hgd

The "animate last two weeks" feature is nice to see trends. Again, this data is questionable.

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