We’re still up at the cabin in Brian Head while Nicholas and Pokin do their Everest Base Camp training thing. Every day it’s the same story. Wake up, put on seventeen layers, strap a bunch of gear to themselves, and go look for a mountain to suffer on.
This time the target was Brian Head Peak.
About seven miles round trip, around 1,200 feet of elevation, plenty of snow still hanging around, and enough altitude to make everyone look like they were preparing for some kind of polar expedition.
I, meanwhile, had my usual excellent system.
Nicholas carried me up the mountain in his backpack.
There was still snow all over the mountain, but the sun was out and the sky was doing that ridiculously dramatic deep-blue thing it does up high. The place looked good.
The trail was actually pretty decent. Snowy in patches, trees everywhere, good open views, and just enough uphill to make this count as training instead of a casual wander. They were carrying extra EBC gear too, because apparently just walking up a mountain isn’t enough any more.
At the top there was the Brian Head Peak sign, which informed us that we were at 11,307 feet. Useful. It also had the far more interesting detail that the stone structure up there was built in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, then renovated in 1995. So this wasn’t just some random pile of rocks Nicholas got excited about. It was an official historical pile of rocks.
The sign also said that from up there you can see parts of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Not bad for one little summit. Below us were ski runs and tiny people sliding around on them. Beyond that, mountains layered off into the distance doing the usual mountain thing.
At one point Eric’s shadow made him look weirdly Darth Vader-ish, and between the trekking poles and the shadows on the floor it looked like somebody was about to have a lightsaber duel in a 1935 CCC shelter. Completely normal mountain behavior.
Pokin and I got a proper summit shot together, which was only fair since I made the entire expedition possible by being there.
Then there was a full group summit photo with Nicholas, Pokin, Po On, Eric, and me, all bundled up like a gang of fashionable desert bandits.
By the end of it they’d done seven miles, about 1,200 feet of climbing, and a full summit in the sun and snow.
I reached 11,307 feet without taking a single step.
That’s what I call peak performance.