We sometimes jokingly say that a particular activity is more fun if there is greater "risk of death". And while it sounds like something kind of stupid to say, there actually IS an element of truth to it. The difference is that "greater risk of death" is a relative term. Activity A may have a greater risk of death than activity B, but that does not necessarily mean that activity A's actual risk of death is all that great. For example, it may be riskier to hike a trail with sheer drop offs that are 1000's of feet high than to, say, walk down the sidewalk with a sheer drop off of 4 inches to the gutter. But that doesn't necessarily make the trail very dangerous in an absolute sense.

So why am I rambling on about risk of death? Yesterday we tried to get to the top of both Dromedary Peak and Sunrise Peak, high and rugged peaks along the Cottonwood Ridge, and numbers 15 and 16 in my goal to bag all the 11,000+ foot peaks in the Wasatch Range. Once again, to make a long blog entry short, I will just say that I flirted with an unacceptable risk of death far too much and for far too long yesterday. Between the most rotten, crumbly, sharp and unstable rock known to man, sheer cliffs and exposure around every turn, tiring and frustrating route finding, I found myself as sketched out as I believe I've ever been...for probably a solid 2 hours. We actually did make it to the top of Dromedary by way of some probably questionable decisions and sheer will. I really wanted to get to the top of Sunrise as well...at first. But by the time we'd gotten to what would be the final ascent of Sunrise, I'd had enough. We instead made a premature bail off the main ridge down another scary-as-hell chute and decided to just get the $#@! out of dodge.

And to add insult to injury, on the way down a nasty thunderstorm formed overhead which I swear covered exactly the boundary of the Twin Peaks Wilderness because there was blue sky all around the horizon. We saw several bolts of lightning frighteningly close and heard a few of those ultra-loud cracks of thunder - the kind you can feel in your gut and make you want to drop to the ground in the fetal position. :) We found some overhanging rock and decided to wait it out there. Once the storm had passed we made quick work of the trail back to the car.

In hindsight I am kind of bummed that I was not able to close out my goal (esp. since this means I have to climb Broads Fork AGAIN sometime in the future), but I guess in the end I'm happy just to be able to be writing this entry.

Damn you Sunrise you WILL go down! :)

Brent and I at the top of Dromedary: