OMG! Something non-gaming related? Blasphemy! Heresy! Burn the heretic.

In all serious, I am going to cover something non-gaming related, and I’m going to enjoy it. This week while everyone else headed up for some epic wakeboarding, I took off with Blondie and Ribby (Not exactly their real names) to climb the Pfeifferhorn. It was a difficult decision, but the climb was set in stone before wakeboarding, so I had to go. Apologies to the wakeboarding crowd.

We hit the trailhead rather early, knowing that two things would happen later in the day: 1. It would get hot; 2. it would get crowded. Fortunately we managed to avoid the heat and the crowds. Huzzah!

From the trailhead to Lower Red pine Lake, things were amazingly smooth. The trail was moderately steep, but we kept with the shade the whole way. No surprises and nothing out of the ordinary. Just a moderately steep trail all the way to the beautiful alpine lake.

Leaving Lower Red Pine behind, we made our way to Upper Red Pine and the ridge above it. The trail becomes fairly faint through here, so we ended up blazing our own way to the ridge. It wasn’t that bad, though. Rock was stable and the handholds were plenty. Besides, the views from the ridge were to die for.

Once on the ridge, we stopped for the breathtaking views of Happy Valley and the basin we had just climbed. Off in the distance, the Pfeifferhorn was only a mile away.

The final mile was nothing too serious. We avoided a boulder hop, which we would later hit on the way back down. Other than that, it was a steep .5mi/500ft climb to the small summit. A .5mi well worth it.

After summitting (11,326ft), we stopped for lunch and enjoyed the breathtaking views to everywhere. We could see all sorts of inviting peaks and canyons, not to mention the valley floors of Provo and SLC. The ascent took us a little under 4 hours.

Returning was much easier than going up, surprisingly. The trail was so gentle, that you could practically bound back down it. A refreshing change in comparison to the god awful rocky, steep, technical descents that leave your knees writhing in agony.

In total, the event took us a little under 7 hours, not bad for a laxidasical daytrip of 10 miles roundtrip and 3700ft elevation one way. A day later, I’m about 100% recovered, so I’m definitely throwing this into the “Enjoyable, moderately challenging” adventure category.

Highly recommended. If you have a free day, you may want to check it out.

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