Golden’s infamous Mt. 7 has played host to all kinds of amazing adventures. The lower mountain hosted, for years, the notorious Mt. 7 Psychosis downhill race. It’s also the site of a local rite of passage for backcountry skiers. For a brief period every spring, the snowpack melts to reveal the mountain’s namesake: a perfect “7” of snow that lingers before disappearing for the Summer.
That’s where Reg Mullett, a veteran freerider who also raced the Psychosis back when it was running, a friend and two snowboarders put together one of the most visually striking 30 seconds of footage we’ve seen in a long time. Just as the snowboards drop in on snow, Mullett comes flying down the ridge line, arcing down into a steep, fall-line scree descent parallel to the snow.
The right place at the right time
As amazing and perfect as it looks, Mullett says the moment was a lucky coincidence.
“We just got really lucky. I’d just done a warm-up riding the ridge. I was hiking back up and as I was getting close to the entrance to the Seven line and I noticed two snowboarders just popping out onto the ridge. Lo a behold, it was two buddies,” Mullett explains.
The boarders, Dougie Fleming and George Leonardo, are also mountain bikers and were into the idea, but had their own timeline to stick to. The timing was unintentionally precise, nailing a razor-thin window none of the four were expecting.
“They were on a bit of a time constraint, so they were keen to ride the Seven right away. I was basically ready to go. My buddy Hugh [Brown] already had the drone out and was ready to capture it. So the two snowboarders showed up and literally within five minutes we were making it happen. Just a random encounter that looked planned at the end but was nowhere near planned. But it’s really cool that we captured that.”
A moment decades in the making
While it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly this year, it’s a moment Mullett’s been chasing for nearly 18 years.
“It’s something I’ve been looking at and contemplating riding for a long time. I first hiked halfway down it and gave it a go in 2008,” Mullett explains. That time, a bit later in the summer, the conditions weren’t safe to ride it and he bailed out a third of the way down.
Mullett says his friend, Rich Marshall, successfully rode it around 2020, finding a better weather window early the spring.
“The scree up there needs a level of softness to make it rideable, and that day it was” the Clagarian explains. “Since then, there’s four or five of us that have been riding it pretty regularly every year. I first did it in maybe 2020. I’ve probably done it seven or eight times since.”
Riding it was just the first half of the story. It took another six years for Mullett to get the shot he’d envisioned all those Springs.
“My favourite memory? I’ve been trying other capture the full 8 and get the drone shot of that line for years. The last two years I’ve been close, but I’ve never got my dream drone shot. So I’m very thankful that my buddy Hugh, who’s been flying for a month, was able to capture that as he did. I’m stoked to have that memory in the bank for the future and hopefully it inspires other people to do things like that as well.”
“The other cool memory would be my first taking a new downhill bike, the new Specialized Demo 11, into big mountain terrain. It performed amazingly and provided a little extra grip than I was expecting in situations like that.”
Mullett adds that Brown wasn’t just there to fly the drone. He also ride the line after. As spectacular as the 7 ride was, it was just a warm up for a bigger trip the duo have planned.
“He and I and two other friends are planning a really cool trip into the Mackenzie Mountains in the Northwest Territories this summer. This was a bit of a training ride for us and an opportunity for us to have some really good discussions and planning for that big trip in August.”
Mullett sums up one of the most amazing scenes we’ve seen lately in the understated way of someone that has bigger plans in the books:
“It was all-in-all just a really great day out there.”
Close to town doesn’t mean easier
While the 7 is visible from downtown Golden, you can see it from some of the town’s better patios, Mullett is quick to caution that despite that proximity, it’s just as serious as any of the many remote lines he’s ridden.
“The big crux of this line is that it ends in a cliff and you need to be able to stop at the bottom. You also need to have an understanding that the conditions need to be appropriate to manage that safely. The other big concern is with rockfall. It’s hard to change fall lines so you’ve really gotta pay attention to any rocks that may be chasing you down or have a plan to avoid that. And certainly when you stop you’ve gotta get out of the way of any potential rocks.”
So, while you can see it from town, the dangers aren’t any less real.
“It’s definitely a very serious big mountain line. I really hope that anybody that would try it would have ample experience and be able to understand the dangers. I think that’s pretty obvious once you stand on top of this line that it’s not just a “send it” situation. You gotta have a plan and you gotta have some experience to understand how that’s going to play out. ”
That proximity to Golden did make access much simpler than a typical day out for the scree-riding pioneer.
“It’s actually not that bad of a hike up compared to what you typically have for these big mountain, backcountry. That Mount 7 FSR gets you 15km and 1000m up. So it’s just another 600m of hike-a-bike. Albiet it was pretty challenging to navigate with the bike around some of the corners. That was the crux of the hike up.”