Teenage hiker reaches new heights on what might be Utah’s toughest route

Last year, 15-year-old Jesse Zurinskas and his dad, Chad, started what’s commonly known in the hiking and mountaineering communities as “bagging” peaks.

Mount Olympus, a quad-wrenching climb that gains 4,800 feet in elevation over 3.3 miles on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley, came first. A number of other hikes followed, including Mount Timpanogos, Mount Nebo, Lone Peak and King’s Peak, Utah’s highest at 13,527 feet.

They also tackled some more technical hikes like Geurt’s Ridge and Mount Superior that required scrambling over craggy rocks and knife edges. Scrambling is a technique using both hands and feet to scale steep, rocky terrain.

“He seemed to gravitate towards that,” Chad Zurinskas said of his son.

It was a sign of bigger things to come.

“Once you get that first peak, you start to get that itch for more,” Jesse said.

What is the WURL?

Father and son also bagged sections of what’s called the Wasatch Ultimate Ridge Linkup or WURL, a 36-mile route encircling Little Cottonwood Canyon covering 21 named peaks with an elevation gain of about 18,000 feet in the Wasatch Mountains. It includes Mount Superior, Lone Peak, Devil’s Castle, the American Fork Twin Peaks above Snowbird and the Pfeifferhorn.

By the end of the fall, Jesse knew it pretty well. And it gave him an idea: He decided to give the WURL a whirl. It would require every bit of knowledge and strength — physical and mental — he possesses to pull off the feat over two days earlier this month. No one younger than him on record had done it.

“It was mostly mental,” Jesse said. “I knew my body could do it but my mind had to allow my body to push itself.”

Utahn Jared Campbell, who has finished the mysterious Barkley Marathons three times among other grueling outdoor adventure achievements, dreamed up the route and was the first to complete it in 2004.

It’s not a hike. It’s not a climb. It’s something in between. It entails scrambling, boulder hopping and traversing a few rugged trails. And it’s death-defying.

Campbell’s blog has these ominous words prominently displayed:

WARNING: The WURL is NOT a trail. Rather, it should be thought of as an endurance scrambling route that happens to have trails in brief sections. To safely tackle the route you should have a solid background in rock climbing and extensive experience traveling over very loose and rocky terrain. There have been serious accidents and deaths on the peaks and ridges included in the WURL. Educate yourself on the risks, take the time to build your competency, and ensure that you are prepared before attempting.

Are you serious?

Chad Zurinskas, an experienced rock climber, hiker and skier, didn’t know how serious Jesse was and wondered, since his son is a teenager, whether he’d be into something else the following year.

“Next year came upon us and we did another link and I kind of said to myself, ‘I don’t know if I can do this’ because I thought I was going to be his hiking partner ... so I felt at a point where I might hold him back if he were to make a solid attempt on it, I might not be able to do it. I’d hate to have him quit because I couldn’t do it,” he said.

Wendy Zurinskas wasn’t hip to the idea of her teenage son being out there alone.

“I at first didn’t want him to do it at all. I thought he was going to be by himself and overnight. I’m worried about him,” she said. “The mom always thinks the worst, right? Then everything started coming together and I put a lot more faith in him.”

At the beginning of the summer, Jesse began hiking with a group of friends who were into the WURL and talked about being the youngest person to do it. They hiked ridges and scrambled rocky terrain. He started following others on social media who had trained for and completed the route, including a 17-year-old.

In July, while riding in the car with his dad, Jesse received texts from his friends that a 16-year-old had just become the youngest to finish the WURL. They rallied around Jesse, who turned 15 in June and was the youngest in the group. In a true sign of friendship they wanted him to do it and were willing to help.

Wearing trail shoes, a running vest with water flasks but no hat to cover his mop of strawberry blond hair, Jesse and a friend set out at the Ferguson Canyon Trailhead east of Salt Lake City at 5 a.m. on Aug. 9. Before he left, he stashed protein bars, energy gels, beef jerky, bananas and water in three locations along the route in plastic boxes wrapped in tape to keep critters out and with words, “For the WURL. Do not take,” to keep people out.

Midnight cowboys

Chad Zurinskas met them about 17 hours in as darkness fell. Even with headlamps and a full moon, taking on those spicy scrambles in the dark was daunting and disorienting. He didn’t want to get “cliffed out,” finding himself at the edge of a sheer drop. He knew he was heading in the right direction but his mind played tricks on him.

“I felt kind of out of my body during that night section,” Jesse said. “After already about 17 miles in, you have to hike the whole night. It’s just really slow-moving. Everything felt slow motion. That’s when I first started hallucinating a little bit. I started seeing cowboys and stuff.”

Cowboys?

They peeked out from behind the rocks. They taunted him. Sometimes he only saw a cowboy hat. They didn’t go away all night. At least they didn’t shoot at him. And then there were the changing clown and skeleton faces on a rock wall. He didn’t tell anyone about his nighttime visitors until later.

“It was so weird,” he said.

But he pressed on. The phantom cowboys aside, he was never alone. A couple of friends, his dad and his older brother joined him at various points on the route. After 24 hours of hiking, Jesse finally took a nap at the third food stash. He slept for 10 minutes. He would have stayed there forever had his dad not gotten him going again.

Youngest on record

Wendy Zurinskas didn’t sleep, either. She tracked their location and communicated via text, though there were times when there was no service. She wondered where they were when they didn’t respond.

Jesse conquered the remaining peaks after his nap, ending with The Notch, a final test of hammered legs and mental exhaustion over a dangerous section of loose rock before dropping into much tamer Bell’s Canyon. He ran down the canyon to the trailhead where the route ends, just to make up time. His mother showed up a few minutes later with tears in her eyes.

Did he look any worse for wear after that? “Oh, yeah,” she said, describing his red and glassy eyes. He slept for 17 hours after he got home and had a big breakfast the next morning.

Jesse finished the WURL in 35 hours, 32 minutes, according to Strava, a fitness app that helps verify the feat. He also has photos and video. Among the 173 people listed on Campbell’s website to have completed the route, Jesse Zurinskas is the youngest.

Climb every mountain

Even though he’s only 15, he discovered things about himself. Recognizing it’s a cliche, he said he learned that with enough effort, you can achieve a goal. He’d always heard that but never experienced it.

“But this goal I set just a year ago. After lots of training and hard work and sweat and tears and stuff, I actually completed this goal,” he said, noting the challenge was more mental than physical.

“I definitely learned my mental strength was way better than I thought. This is probably the activity that I’ve done that I’ve had the most drive for.”

So what’s next for the Brighton High School sophomore who skis and plays on the hockey team when he’s not hiking or bouldering? For one thing, he’s found his way into indoor and outdoor climbing gyms. He’s thinking he should bag bigger peaks, maybe some 14ers in Colorado.

And then there’s the WURL.

“I’m already thinking about next year trying to get sub 30 (hours) or maybe 24. Twenty-four is out of the reach but definitely sub 30 hours,” Jesse said. “When I finished it hadn’t really hit me. It still hasn’t really hit me that I felt like I’ve done anything super big. I’m honestly already ready for something more again.”