COLUMN: Dusty Trails
Here is a formula to make things sound impressive: first, choose the thing that you want to describe. Then choose the comparative adjective that you want to describe it with. Then, plug it into the following sentence formula.
“The (proper noun) is the (descriptive adjective) (general form of the noun) in the world.” These last three words – “in the world” – are of utmost importance in establishing the legitimacy and force behind your statement. It conjures visions of grandeur and greatness in a way that few other verbal descriptions can attain.
Check it out. Watch how impressive this sounds. Last weekend, I backpacked across the steepest mountain range in the world. All right, everyone please replace your pants, which have just been impressed off. It turns out that hiking the steepest mountain range in the world doesn’t even involve leaving Cache Valley.
The Wellsville mountains lie some 10 miles southwest of Logan. If one casts their view outwards from the top of Old Main Hill, they provide the westernmost border to the south end of Cache Valley. As everyone who has ever had the pleasure of being enrolled in a Math 1010 class can inform you, steepness, or the slope of a grade, is a measurement of how much height is gained over a certain vertical distance. The Wellsvilles, though not exceptionally tall, are almost completely lacking in foothills, making them very thin. Plug this into the rise-over-run equation, and you get the most elevation gain over the shortest distance of any mountain range in the world.
Don’t blow this out of proportion, though. The Wellsvilles are certainly no Patagonia, definitely no Himalayas. Box Elder Peak, the highest point on the range, has an elevation of 9,372 feet. From trailhead to peak, one gains 4,000 feet, all of it on well maintained trail. Still, one cannot deny the mystique and thrill brought on by the hiking of the steepest mountains on planet earth.
It is 3:24 on a Friday afternoon. I am just walking out of Old Main, having finished my last class of the week. In addition to my books in hand, I have my full overnight pack – complete with a sleeping bag and pad, two headlamps, five liters of water, 12 granola bars, a freeze-dried meal, and three pieces of fruit – on my back. I had been instructed to take my pack to campus with me that day, as we were in such a hurry to leave, that I didn’t even have time to go home. I was too busy smiling to mind the odd glances my oversize load attracted as I hurried down the stairs.
It was one of the last few warm weekends of the year and the weather was ideal for a pack trip across the Wellsvilles. Despite being the steepest mountain range in the world, the planned hike was only eight miles long. I jump in my buddy’s van at the bottom of Old Main Hill, and soon our group is at the trailhead to Deep Canyon, which we would follow to get up to the ridgeline.
Shouldering our packs, we set off at a quick pace, hoping to reach the ridgeline by sundown. We hike amidst the changing colors of fall, breathing in the crisp fall air. As we reach the ridge the sun is sinking over the west end of Box Elder County. My legs are burning, as one would expect, from climbing such a steep grade. With the last remnants of the light, we roll out our sleeping bags and boil water to reconstitute our dinner. We will finish the other four miles, tomorrow.
As I settle into my sleeping bag, the lights from the valley floor on either side of the range stretch out beneath me, with an expanse of stars above. A smile creases my face as I ponder upon sleeping here upon the steepest mountains in the world. So maybe they win by a technicality. I don’t care, as far as I am concerned, I am on top of both the Wellsvilles and the world.
– dustin.nash@aggiemail.usu.edu