Blueberry Mountain

Last week we started to hear stories of large amounts of snow up in the Adirondack High Peaks. I had planed to go hiking but upon hearing the rumors of fresh powder to be slain.... things took a different course. Scott D. agreed to some sort of doomed backcountry adventure.

The plan was... look at a bunch of hiking pictures online, identify some loosely forested area (looks ski-able), and go for it. None of this sanity, follow a guidebook shenanigans. It was adventure time.

Scott and I identified Blueberry Mountain as a pretty decent suspect. It's a short (2 miles and change) to the summit and appeared to have some decent space in between trees to make turns.

Saturday morning we headed up and made the slog uphill. About a mile in the trail turned from nicely packed snowy trail to a foot or more of deep, untracked powder. Eventually we reached the top celebrated briefly and put on the downhill gear.



This little segment was the best turns we had. Probably three or four nice turns right off the top. Then we skied a whole lot of this:



Rocky, loggy, and tight. It's a good thing I was on ghetto skis because the scratches were pretty numerous. The turns weren't pretty and we were scraping off rocks galore. We only skied about a mile back down before getting stopped by trees that were just too tight. The hike back was pretty chill and we agreed that for the general idiocy of the plan, the day had gone well.

On the way back, we stopped at The Mountaineer (an outfitter up in Keene) and asked about some recommend spots to hit in the future. They asked where we went today and we explained our adventure. I mentioned that we probably should have stopped in the shop BEFORE we just gunned it to the woods. They said, "nah, you guys had fun and probably skied somewhere nobodies done it before."

So that's the spin we're going with. First Ski and Snowboard Descent. Blueberry Mountain. Ker-booyah.

Going to Classes - Completed

The greatest part about this part of the semester is being done with stuff. Today I am done with classes. While I may have a whole bunch of exams and projects due next week, I will not be returning to a lecture hall or lab to endure the pains of class until after Christmas and all sorts of other good things.

We're finally starting to get some winter weather here in Troy. It's snowing! It's cold! It's delicious.

Last week Troy got a pretty interesting storm of wintery mix rain/sleet/snow stuff. I have enjoyed walking on the ice sheets to class all week. It adds excitement and adventure to normally boring walk. If only people didn't look at me funny when they see I'm intentionally walking on the ice....

I believe the storm was all snow up in the mountains. Tomorrow shall be a day of investigation.... yesssss...

Disgruntled

I wish there was more light. Days should start getting longer stat.

After Daylights Saving time and the onset of Winter, it really started getting dark earlier and earlier around here (like every year). Now it's getting dark around 3:30 and is genuinely dark by 5. I start class at noon or ten. So on any given day I'm only seeing 5 or 7 hours of daylight. Grumble. Yeah, yeah get up earlier Scott.

Should be, get up later sun. Everybodies gotta hit the snooze button sometime.

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

My family and I cruised up to Vermont for Thanksgiving at this placed called the Hawk Resort. It was kind of strange not being home in Cincinnati and seeing people and doing the whole traditional thing... but still good.

The place we stayed had some wicked good meals and Thursday I nabbed the classic Thanksgiving dinner (although I had to avoid the temptation of Beef Wellington). We went skiing on Black Friday after sleeping through all the shopping insanity. Killington was looking pretty good with a variety of trails open including a quality bumped out run.

After a half-day of skiing, we went "crafting" in some random teeny towns in Vermont. Let me tell you, I'm a crafting champion. Painted gourd santa ornaments? Yeah, we picked up some of those. Looking at fancy hand-crafted wood furniture? I'm all over that. Sampling home-made jellies? I'm your man.

I hope everybody is getting ready for Christmas and neglecting everything that comes in between (finals, projects, bah!).

Fred Beckey

Last Thursday,Fred Beckey came to speak at a special Outing Club presentation. This guy is a climbing legend! He was born in 1923.... so he's.... 84. And he's still climbing on stuff harder than I can (like 5.8).

His slideshow had more insane pictures of amazing rock and mountain climbs (Denali, Waddington, Rainier, Hood, etc.) than I could previously imagine. For many pictures, Fred would say something like "this was about ten years ago." And you're thinking.... so that means you were 74?!?! You were navigating a glacier as a 74 year old?

After the presentation I asked Fred what allowed him to climb so long into his years. He kind of gave me a funny look that said "I'm old?" And then explained that once he got started he just never stopped.

Wow...

SKIING!

This needs some serious updating!

Two weekends ago we began to hear rumors of snowmaking at Killington. With a bit of internet browsing we determined that they had been making snow on a run on the upper mountain in anticipation of opening day a week from now-ish. No lifts spinning... no problem! Killington is on state land so the "officially" can't kick you out (unless you're being ridiculous).

The crew (Tim, Jeff, and myself) got organized and got after it. Incredible first turns of the year.

The target is in sight.



YES!

Happy Halloweeeeeeen

Happy Halloween!

We celebrated the holiday last Friday night; I was Flava Flav (read as FLAAAAAAAAVAAAAAA FLAAV)

Good times.

What are you for Halloween?

For the second year in a row, RPI men's hockey is ranked in the top 20 in the nation (17th). We're coming for you Miami (maybe, if we're feeling lucky). It's good to go and feel victorious vicariously through the team. My intramural team on the other hand....

We started out the season with a stellar 4-0 victory. Then it was all downhill. Picked up a 9-0 loss. Then a 8-0 loss and tonight was a 8-1 loss. There's a couple of ways to look at this. We are, in fact, steadily improving. At this rate we'll be kicking uber butt by 2012.* Anyway, it's fun to play, so no worries.

*I didn't actually do the math.

Vocabulary

"I think I used to use bigger words before"

-Jeff Cain

This needs no explanation. He has been playing jump rope with a power strip in my room for ten minutes now.

Ah Engineering!

Catskillzzzzz and road biking

Two weekends ago I went hiking in the Catskills on the Escarpment trail. The leaves and colors are changing around here so it's a pretty clutch time to be outside. Here's some pictures:

Views!




Leaves!



This weekend I borrowed my roommate John's road bike and went for a cruising ride in the farm-ish area around Troy. This was my first ride on a true road bike and that thing was pretty darn squirrelly. Going from having tires that are more than 2 inches wide to tires that are a 1/4" wide is humbling. Gravel, potholes, and curbs all seem like imminent death. But that thing flies. I think I hammered out 20 miles in about an hour and a half. Not fast fast, but by mountain biker standards definitely ludacris speed. I hope everyone else is enjoying Fall!

Canoeing!

This weekend some Outing Clubers grabbed some canoes and headed to the Connecticut River for two days of chillin on the water. We started out pretty late and by the time we got to the River it was practically lunch time. We paddled for about a mile before stopping at an island for lunch. We saw a bald eagle flying around which was pretty darn neat.



We ventured forth and quickly found ourselves in a headwind. Our plan for the day was to paddle about 11 miles; we ended up running into dark before finding camp. Officially, we got to camp three minutes before sunset; the sight of campfires from other people was very welcome.

A Mac'Cheese'n'Ham dinner lead to S'Mores and a quality campfire. This inevitably lead to playing with fire.




It was stormy the next morning and we were VERY thankful the wind was going downstream. We even formed a raft and attempted to act as a sail.



We stopped for lunch at a picnic area and had an apple sauce eating contest. I was sadly beaten by Nathan. He may be the quickest apple saucer this side of the Mississippi.

At some point, you gotta have a waterfight.



We moseyed into the take-out by mid-afternoon and headed back to Troy. A quality weekend trip!

HOCKEY HOCKEY HOCKEY

Canoeing trip this weekend was pretty stellar.... photos and details should occur in the next couple of days....

Today was RPI's first hockey game of the season against the mighty foe that is Bentley College. Ha! In the usual RPI tradition we played a pretty worthless team the first game and walked away with a 4-0 win. Good to be back being obnoxious and yelling stuff.

I also just got the schedule for intramural hockey this season. I'm on The Pirates team with a first game tomorrow night at midnight (nothing like a good late game). I missed intramurals last year and am pumped to play. I'm not sure if I've skated in over a year so it could be a little funky....

Little Falls!

A couple of weekends ago, John (my hairy roommate) led a climbing trip to Little Falls. Little Falls is a sweet top-rope-able area about an hour and a half West of RPI. As I am essentially a rock climbing newb, this trip was a pretty good time. We set up five ropes and I climbed four of them probably up to a 5.6/7 ish range (with several easier). Here's some pictures:




That's Chris climbing and Dan belaying. Chris has officially acquired the I'm-going-to-beat-this-thing angry face. I'm becoming more convinced that success rock climbing is proportional to one's grunting and angry face factor.



Dan then went huge and climbed this route. Is that a cast on Dan's arm? Yes, he climbed the route one-handed (and with the other dangling like a club). There's nothing more humbling than watching a gimped person school you.

Going on an overnight canoe trip this weekend. I hope you enjoy the long weekend if you have one!

Mmmm Carrots

Carrots are strange. At first glance, I can't help but think they're going to be kinda nasty. I think some sort of conditioning has taught me that vegetables taste bad. No exceptions. And yet, whenever I start eating carrots, I can't stop until they're gone. The taste isn't really good. But it's not bad and I keep coming back. There's my deep thoughts on vegetables for the day.

I passed a nursing home positioned across the street from a graveyard while running a couple of days ago. I hope that if I'm ever stuck in a nursing home (please, no), I'm not right next to a graveyard. A room with a view just wouldn't be the same.

Funky Solutions

I was procrastinating and reading the September issue of Backpacker magazine (which is their "global warming" issue) when I stumbled across a part on poison ivy. Apparently, Ecologist Jacqueline Mohan "used a pipe system to boost CO2 levels in a North Carolina forest to the exact concentration expected by the year 2050" she then concludes that "the vines grew three times larger and produced a more potent form of [the stuff that makes you itchy]".

This report is terrifying. I'm mostly terrified to hike in North Carolina now. We've spawned a poison ivy MONSTER down there in the name of science. I bet it's breeding it's way north now to destroy us all.

An advertisement later in the magazine is for a gold pendant filled with snow from the summit of Kilimanjaro. The tag is "act now before the snows of Kilimanjaro are gone forever (Proceeds will help fight global warming)"

So, by melting the snow... from the summit... and sending it to people in little key chains... we'll help put more snow up there? That we already melted? Come again?

A Cookie Blackhole

My apartment has a cookie problem. We can't stop eating cookies. We've been trying to rotate who has to buy the apartment cookies but a box never lasts more than a night and then desperation strikes.

After Fall Lake George (a huge camping trip) we scored 12 boxes of cookies from the left-over food. They were gone in two days. That means we're eating at a rate more than 1 box per person per day.

We're hosting a BBQ today for people who helped with FLG and the organizer (who doesn't live at the house) included in his e-mail:

"WARNING: 2210 is a cookie black hole. If you bring cookies to 2210 they will most likely vanish within seconds. Bring cookies at your own risk."

So now the world (and internet knows). We are 2210 and we have a problem.

A list

So much to update... so little time.

QUICK! In no particular order....

-Cookies!
-Milk!
-Hiking!
-Rock Climbing!
-Classes (WHAT?!?!)!
-Burgers
-Ruck
-Toilet (again!?!?)
-Wall!
-TWUCK!

Tomorrow!

Flug a dug dug.

Elaboration next week.

An UPDATE of EPIC Proportions

Seriously... it's about freaking time.

School is school. There's homework and such things. The new apartment is pretty nice and it's good to have my own room off campus. Only clogged the toilet twice. Although the first may be aptly titled "Walking In Scott's Crap 2007." Ah, that was fun. Thanks Jeff, your crap cleaning skillz are quality.

Done a bit of hiking in the Adirondacks since I got back. Two weekends ago I climbed Black Mountain in the Lake George region and last weekend I climbed Mt. Hadley in the Sothern Daks. Both were repeat summits that were pretty chill and easy. Good to be outside and such.

Cooking in the apartment is sketchy schnazzy. I learned how to make lasagna the other night... never realized it was that freaking easy. We've also got some quality beer bread in here. After one trial run with NA beer and one with fully loaded beer the difference seems to be minimal (although results are inconclusive).

Yeah! Wicked!

Hello RPI..... One more...

Already a week into Senior year?

Well, yeah. It's strange to be back at school. I miss Utah more than I imagined I would (and I was pretty darn sure I would). Alas, this whole graduation thing has to happen (well, not necessarily, but don't tempt me).

Apartment life is good. Only one flood so far. We don't have internet in the place yet because the cable company is a slow moving, money robbing giant (grumble...). This means I feel kind of out of touch with everything. Good and bad.

Went for a morning mountain biking ride this morning around Pittstown State Forest with Jim and some other Outing Clubbers. Good times!

Moab Day 2: Mmmm Heat

My second day in Moab consisted of more quality desert fun. I woke up early again and headed to the Sovereign Singletrack Trail. Moab has been getting pressure to build more trails and in particular singletrack for mountain bikers and this was the newest trail around. I had expected it to be more like the trails near Salt Lake but it was similarly covered in slickrock like the day before... Good stuff! I rode out and eventually got to this gigantic area of just plain old open rock. A pure mountain biking playground:



Eventually I would ride down into that and play around a whole bunch... mmmm....

I had started an hour later than the day before and was starting to feel the heat. I think the desert started to get to me as I swear this really looked like mint chocolate chip ice cream:



After the ride, I took a quick drive to Dead Horse Point before driving back to Salt Lake. The view point looks into Canyonlands and is pretty darn sweet.



I've made it to RPI and classes start tomorrow... Missing Utah, but it's good to be back.

Moab Day 1! and 80 on 80

I'm back in Ohio.... woot? After three days of humming along 80 generally at 80, I'm back in Cincinnati for a couple days before returning to school.

I'm about three weekends behind... well time to start catching up!

I didn't feel like I could leave Utah without mountain biking in Moab. Known as the practical Mecca of mountain biking, Moab has some of craziest, funnest, trails around. The town is situated in a Southern Utah canyon and is about four and a half hours away from Salt Lake. I raced down Friday after work to arrive just in time to snag a motel room. I know... I know... a motel room? Not camping? What's the deal? It's freaking hot in the desert and I went in August. After riding hard in the blazing desert sun, I decided a shower and air conditioning would be better than a tent.

My heat related suspicions were confirmed when I joked with the motel owner about the heat. He said I should be used to it coming from Salt Lake. I explained that I figured we probably had more shade. He looked at me quizzically, "What's shade?"

I was up at the crack of dawn the next morning to ride the Slickrock Trail. And I mean the crack of dawn. I was at the trailhead and riding by 6 AM to try and thwart the sun. The slickrock trail is probably the reason Moab is so popular. About 99% of the trail is hard, grippy rock. The traction on the rock let's you climb and descend on stuff steeper than you ever thought possible. It's mountain biking Utopia. Until you realize that falling has equally raised stakes...



You can see the trail here... it's marked on the rock by all the little white dashes; riding is kind of like playing connect the dots. I think your rode the above section in the downhill direction.

The trail winds around a plateau above Moab which you can see down into at a couple of overlooks.



After the ride, I ate a ridiculously good lunch at a little coffee shop in town before taking off to Arches National Park for some late afternoon hiking. I hiked about 7 miles and saw a bunch of natural stone arches including the famous Delicate Arch (Utah's unofficial symbol). Of course, my battery died early in the hike so all I have pictures of are the driving views and Balancing Rock:






That sucker could go at any moment.... Feeling lucky? I wonder why the Park Service doesn't charge people to hit the rock with a bat like a pinata... Probably a bad idea....

I pushed hard and really just caught Delicate Arch at sunset. It was wicked dark and late by the time I got back into town. Only a Wendy's Baconater would fufill my recovery needs... mmmmm....

Wind River Range Day 3: Coming Down....

Ok, ok, I've finally got a minute to write about my third day in the Wind Rivers.

I woke up earlier than the previous day; I've got ten miles to get to my car and I'd prefer not to have to drive home in the dark. I quickly pack up my bags and start to look for the trail. There's supposed to be a three-way trail junction at the lake... but I'm seeing nothing.... Eventually I work my way in the direction that should be my car and find the trail. The hiking has more rolling ups and downs but with less lakes and more big open meadows.



There's a crucial intersection along the way and the first time I come to a sign it points out all the trails in question but has fallen over giving no good indication of direction (they go about the same way). I pick the one that feels right and chug along when about half an hour later I get to an intersection marked with the exact same trails..... Strange..... I fiddle around with my compass and conclude that I'm sane and not going in circles. I keep going the way I planed. Fortunately, this intersection didn't show up a third time.... It's strange how as I get closer to civilization the trail signs are getting more random... eh, no worries.

Eventually I got down into the trees which was still pretty nice:



Later in the morning I passed my first group of humans in more than 24 hours. There's 4 guys and six horses. I'm carrying all my stuff on my back. These guys have it spread over six horses. What did they BRING? There's not outlets for that big screen buddy.... My descent gets steeper and steeper and I eventually drop into the basin where I started. Another quick 2 miles along the lake brings me to my car.

This day was relatively uneventful but that's alright because my legs were tired and the easy hiking was an enjoyable break.... All in all, the Wind River Range was awesome. Big mountains, little crowds, quality trails. I dig it.

Wind River Range Day 2: Chutes and Ladders

I slept in relatively late on the second day of my backpacking trip in the Wind River Range and got on the trail around 10 AM. I continued to work my way out of the valley that I had hiked up the day before and eventually came to an amazing land of alpine meadows. The wildflowers in the morning were simply stunning:



As I continued, the scene became more and more open, rugged, and ridiculously beautiful. Ludacrisly beautiful. The high alpine practically nudges the peaks only a couple of hundred vertical above the basin. At some point I dropped my pack and bagged a random unknown peak. It was there.

I continued my merry way through the alpine in an incredibly cheery mood when my first tactical mistake was made. I'm relatively used to the trails in the NorthEast that romp their way over peaks, but most of the high points around this area are too cliffy for trails; I had managed to practically mentally flip the up/down hiking of the rest of the day in my mind. What I thought was going to be a steep valley became a mountain pass:



I would continue down to that little Lake (way the heck down there) where I would see another bull moose tromping away from me. It was 3:30 and I discovered that I had only gone 3.5 miles out of my projected 11 or 12 for the day. I had stopped so frequently to take pictures and bask in the views that I was going stupidly slow. Not only that, I had another flip where I expected to go DOWN a valley where my direction would actually go UP the valley. It was time to crank on the gas. But I want to take piiiiiicturess......

I hiked hard up the valley for about 3 miles before coming to a junction where I turned West into a region known as No Name Lakes (most of them actually have names). I was back above treeline (with a few pine tree exceptions) and climbed in and out of what felt like dozens of little basin with random lakes (probably more like five).



It felt like the lakes would never end when finally I came to Palmer Lake and decided to call it a day (ok, it was getting dark and I was exhausted).

I settled into my bivy only to watch lightning across the mountain ridge. I had to get my head around this.... If it rained, I would probably get soaked and the lightning made me think too hard about wildfires (a serious issue...) Finally I dozed off after another indescribable day.

Wind River Range

Last weekend was pretty uber. This Tuesday was Pioneer Day (in short, the day the Morman posse arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and decided to chill here) so I was off work and snagged a vacation day on Monday to procure a four day weekend.

I had wanted to check out the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area for a while and got some good information on a three-day backpacking loop hike in the Wind River Range. This range isn't actually in the National Parks, but it's on the same ridge (the Continental Divide) and meant I wouldn't have to deal with permits or hordes of people.

Day 1:

I set off for Pinedale, Wyoming and the trailhead; driving through Wyoming was interesting, it's really pretty flat and filled with small towns until you hit the mountains. And I mean REAL small towns. Most of these places had less than 500 people and I couldn't help but wonder what they do for a living (I hypothesize the answer may be cattle ranch stuff).

Somewhere along the drive I discovered I had no pot to boil water. This means my freeze dried dinners would be... freeze dried... and my oatmeal would be dry too. I stopped in Pinedale and picked up a pot. A random lucky close call.

I took off from the trailhead after registering and all that. There are grizzly and brown bears in the wilderness and signs declared this in a way that made me think I was guaranteed to get eaten. A couple miles later, I passed this on the trail:



Shnikeys... Hmmmmmmm.... Well...... Ok.

My first day was spent mostly working my way up a creek drainage that was absolutely beautiful. You forget how much mileage you can cover in one day and I was surprised at how far back in the canyon I was getting.



I saw not one, but three moose along that river. One of which was a bull (male), these dudes are big and scary. We had a classic moment of "Looking-At-Me-Looking-At-You" before deciding that we were friends and not food (phew).



I started the climb out of the valley that night and found a campsite along a stream on a little bluff overlooking the valley. In an effort to cut some weight, I hadn't brought a tent and was instead using a bivy sack (sort of like a waterproof cocoon for your sleeping bag) and a tarp. Sleeping with the sunset and under the stars was magnificent.



I'll post day two and three in the next couple days...

Pfeifferhorn

Aye! I'm sort of frustrated with not updating this... but I've been one busy dude!

Two weekends ago I went on a hiking trip up a peak in the Wasatch range called the Pfeifferhorn. I explained my plans to some of my co-workers at the bar on Friday and Greg agreed to join me. He'd been thinking about the peak for a while and it was a good way to group up. The Pfeif doesn't have a trail to the top so it requires a bit of navigation and a lot of boulder scrambling so two is probably better for safety.

We met up at 7 AM and begin the ascent. The first three or four miles were straightforward on a trail to Red Pine Lake. After Red Pine we began the scramble up to a ridge. The views down into the lake were pretty awesome:




Eventually we found the ridge and a quick jaunt got us to the summit cone proper:



Our ascent route was that sort of left gully almost dead center in this picture. The climbing was pretty good and the views would clearly be rewarding.



The way down was tough on the feet as the boulders were not forgiving... The lake and real trail were quite a welcome sign...

Greg is training for the Wasatch 100 which is a run covering 100 miles (naturally) of rugged mountain trails in one body killing day. So he decided to run the rest of the way down to train and was considering doing another run back up another trail... schnikeys...

I went the chill route and opted to hang out by the lake and relax and enjoy the mountains. The wildflowers are out and are pretty awesome; I enjoyed them on the way down:



Rock steady!

Ah, the 4th of July.... was days ago....

I visited New York and the family for the weekend and half of the week until the 4th of July. It was good to see family including Aunts/Uncles/Grandparents I only get to see a couple of times a year.

We did the usual, a lot of relaxing, beaching, boating etc. I waterskied a couple times and wish I could have more. Waterskiing is a great outdoor sport for it's utter pointlessness. Hikers, bikers, canoers, etc. all use their sports to travel and have historic adventurous roots. Organized sports develop teamwork and strategy. Waterskiing is just the sheer glory of racing around getting dragged behind a boat. Bliss.

We also checked out the Sandy Creek County Fair. An event for the highly cultured, the demolition derby was awesome as always:




Carnage! I think this was following the firefighters righting a flipped car. The flipped car continued in the demolition heat like a champ.

Timpanogos!

Geez! Another weekend gone by....

This weekend I felt like staying close and opted for a day hike of Mt. Timpanogos which is about a 45 minute drive away from my apartment. Timpanogos is pretty cool because it's one of the lower 48's Ultra Prominence peaks. What's this mean? In general, it's a big honking mountain. If you're really interested check this out.

It's hot in SLC valley and was supposed to get to 106 on Saturday so the alarm went off at 4.30 AM for me to get moving up the trail pre-heat wave. I hit the trail at six and started the 7ish mile tromp to the summit. Part way along the trail I stumbled across two moose. I love moose. They're so funky.



I continued along the trail and enjoyed watching the sun rise over the valley behind me. Pretty soon I found myself in the Timpanogos Basin and basked in the glory of the peak:



By around 10 I was on top and enjoying the views.



I had heard word of a "glacier" on the peak and had scouted it out on the way up. You can see it in the picture of the peak off to the left. It looked like a sweet fast sled down but I was concerned about making the 1000+ vertical foot high speed descent alone. I met two guys on the peak who were talking about going that way and joined them for a bit of safety. Somehow we picked up some more people and ended up with a crew of eight. A quick hike over to the snowfield presented a beautiful fast butt sled with a little bit of ice axe speed/rudder control.... quality:



We descended another snowfield in high fashion and returned to the basin. I sort of slipped out of the group somewhere in here. Eight is a bit of a big group and I was up for a slow descent to enjoy the views. The trip down was uneventful besides more beautiful views....

Zion! Slotastic!

Last weekend, I joined the University of Utah Outdoors group in a trip down to Zion National Park. A few went down good and early on Friday to get us passes to hike the entirety of The Narrows on Saturday. I rolled down to the area around 10.30 PM Friday (5 hour drive... ish). Hung out meeting people and playing corporate ladder (remember that!?) until the last car finally pulled in at like midnight or something.

After getting organized, we realized there was some tricky logistics involved in the hike. It's a sixteen mile one-way hike through a narrow slot canyon and we needed to shuttle cars to the top and start up there in the morning. We started driving along dirt roads to get to the trailhead around 1.30 AM and finally gave up and deceided to sleep inbetween the cars at a random road at 2.30 AM. Our "campsite" the following morning.



As a result of our precarious camping spot and the long hike, we got up early and took off down the canyon quickly. At first, it was just an open river rolling through farm land:



The canyon eventually shrunk down smaller and smaller... Finally, it was about 20 feet wide. If it flashed floods in here you're pretty much Done (capital D).



Since the hike follows a river through the canyon, getting wet is inevitable. At some point it's really best to embrace this and we hiked a lot (most) of the trip in the water. As we got farther in the Canyon, the water got deeper and deeper. This water is pretty much at head level.



Ideal hiking conditions:



I discovered that my backpack for some reason floats and acts like a lifevest. How cool is that?! I floated along whenever I could and this part was uber cool.

As we hiked along, more and more touristy looking people started showing up that were presumably from the other end of the canyon where you can do out-and-back hikes of however long you want. Some were pretty funny, hopefully they didn't hurt themselves.

Finally, we rolled out of the Narrows feeling a cool sense of accomplishment having taken the canyon from flatness through tight walls and back out into mountains.


The photos don't really do it justice, but panoramics kind of look better:



Have a good weekend!

High Uintazzzzzz

Two weekends ago, I decided it was time to get going on some of my overnight plans for the summer. The most logical choice for proximity was the High Uintas, a mountain range to the East of Salt Lake City.

It snowed in the mountains Wednesday and Thursday before my trip and the conditions were rather unknown. Regardless, I wanted to hit the mountains so I got my stuff ready Friday night for a Saturday/Sunday trip.

I took off Saturday morning and picked up a recreation pass. At the booth, I had a quality chat with the ranger lady:

Scott: "Do you know anything about snow up there... are snowshoes necessary?"
Wrinkly Lady: "I haven't been up there... wait... you're sleeping up there ... Oh god you're going to freeze."
Scott: "K, Thanks"

I headed up the Highline trail and worked my way to Rocky Sea Pass. The trail itself was a mix between pine forest and open alpine meadow... (click pictures for big versions)...

Six and a half miles in, I got to Carolyn Lake my planed camping
spot for the night. I wanted to press on to Rocky Sea Pass but
needed to refill water and check out the area.  I was shocked to
see fish visible in the lake!  Then I wandered over to a stream
with good water for pumping and discovered TONS of fish
fighting upstream.  I counted more than a dozen visible in any
given pool, catching these suckers would have been a joke (insert
net, retrieve fish).  All the long rock looking things are
actually fish....



I proceeded to Rocky Sea and eventually got out of the trees and
high into the pass.  The views from the top were pretty epic.



The windcurls and cliffs demonstrated why this area has very few
trails to mountain peaks.



After getting back to Carolyn Lake I was very pleased to see
that no one else had planned to camp nearby.  I had the entire
Lake to myself, noice!



I saw several shooting stars when gazing by the lake. The night
wasn't actually that cold. I think it froze outside (snow drifts
were icey in the morning), but I was cozy in my mummy bag.
Take that recreation pass lady.

The next morning, I got everything together to go back.
The hike back was fairly uneventful but pretty none the less.



It was definitely a good trip, I would certainly go back to the Uintas.
And am thinking about doing some day hikes in the area as it's
pretty close to SLC....