Isaac Freeland on Pulling off 7 Salt Lake City classics in 18 hours:
The breeze brushed across our faces on a warm morning in early June. Sitting over breakfast, some friends and I chatted on what activity to do for the day; whether we should go skiing, biking, skating, hiking, climbing, slacklining, or just jump around on the trampoline. Spring is always the most activity confusing season because there are so many different sports to participate in that it’s nearly impossible for us to commit to only doing one! That day we decided to go skiing during the day and then climb during the afternoon, but an idea began to cultivate itself in my head. What if we didn’t have to choose? What if we could just do them all?
I wanted to do all of my favorite sports in one day, the ultimate multi-sport day. However, I didn’t want to just do it for the sake of doing it. I wanted to go on a mission for each one and knock off a classic. So, I thought to myself what the first line or route that came to mind was when I thought of each sport. In the spring, for skiing, it’s Main Chute. For biking, it’s Bobsled. For skating, it’s TRAX laps. For hiking, it’s the living room. And for climbing, well, that one wasn’t so clear. After discussing with friends, we settled on Outside Corner, a 3 pitch trad route close to the road. We knew, even though the days were at their longest, we’d be racing daylight. There are longer and arguably more classic lines for these sports but all of these lines seemed appropriate for completing in one, long, day.
The day began at 4am, the first activity: climbing. I picked up Micah, the videographer documenting the day, and we cruised to the base of the climb. 5:45am, it was still dark and we realized we’d gotten too early of a start, not realizing the sun didn’t hit the wall till over an hour and a half after sunrise. We started up it anyway. As the sun finally started to show itself we were at the top of the climb and we also happened to be ahead of schedule. Looking to get some video clips in the sun and from on the wall, we decided to use our extra time to re-climb the last pitch resulting in one of my favorite shots of the climbing section. Back at the car and already a little tired, we drove to Alta Ski Area to get ready for skiing Main Chute, it was 9:15am. Thankfully, things started to flow and before long we were back at the car excited for lunch! Continuing on the trend of classics, we stopped at a Mexican spot I frequent after big missions; although, this time, we were far from done!
The next couple sports flashed by in my mind, slack-line, skating, biking. However, we were slowly falling behind schedule. I was starting to get super tired and an old knee injury was reshowing itself. But there was no stoping now, we were too close to finishing! Plus, Micah was still going strong despite doing everything I was with the added weight of a camera and I couldn’t let myself be the weakest link. Unfortunately, by the time we finished biking, we knew we didn’t have time to run up to the Living Room before sunset. Instead, we made a quick plan change and ran up the foothills close to where we biked allowing us to witness a beautiful Salt Lake sunset. After returning to the car I was 100% worked and relived to finally be done with the day. It was dark out and even though we didn’t hit every objective it was definitely something I won’t ever forget. For the past six years Salt Lake City has been my playground, allowing friends and I to explore fun activities and opportunities. This day was more than just completing a personal goal, but to relay the vast variety of ways to get outdoors. Needless to say, after quite the mission I drove straight home and fell right asleep.…dreaming about the next days adventure.
This one is dedicated to all the friends that make Salt Lake such a rad spot to live and that keep me inspired to get outside day after day!
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