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....  

It's been a while.... and I still don't have Facebook.

It's been a while hasn't it? With the slow, but seemingly inevitable, downfall of Xanga, I've found it challenging to keep in touch with many of you. Since I've decided to avoid Facebook, I figured a new blog may be a better way to connect. Of course e-mail and phone works, but now we're talking mass media baby.

I recently copied all of my old Xanga entries into a Word document so that the memories could be remembered. Some of that stuff is QUALITY:

August 10, 2001: "Hi yas!!! Today is da very first web log... an't that just spiffy.... nothing is going on today... i think i'm just gonna end up staying home all day and getting yelled at... "

September 6, 2001: "llama llama llama"

Seriously? Wow... and it goes on, but I'll spare you that.

So after my third year of Mechanical Engineering edumacation, I'm living and working in Salt Lake City. It's GOOD to be out West. I live practically in the foothills of the Wasatch mountains and have been locally mountain biking and hiking most days. Last weekend I was out on a backpacking trip in the High Uintas and I spend Friday and Saturday of this weekend in the Zion National Park, the next couple posts will probably be trip reports from those trips...