Crossroads of the West

So way back like a month ago we went to Zions National Park and some other places with my family. I know I said I was working on these posts a few weeks ago, but that was pretty much a lie. Unless you count vaguely thinking about the fact that I needed to post about it. But, I figure you don't really want a whole lot of blah blah blah about all my summer vacations, so just look at these pictures. They're more interesting anyway. If I waited until I was inspired in the literary realm, this story would never see the light of day.

BEHOLD... the first day...

So as we were driving down to Zions we saw this motorcycle towing a Barbie houseboat trailer. WTF?! Was it a trailer disguised as a Barbie houseboat or just a Barbie houseboat? Why, for the love of all that is good and holy would you possess such a thing?! People are INSANE.

After seeing the Barbie houseboat we got pulled over by a couple cops so a giant dump truck bed could pass us. It was HUGE.

Thus ended the first day. And it was good.

BEHOLD... the second day...

Waiting for the shuttle bus.

These kids. Sheesh.

The squirrels on the Narrows trail had no fear of humans. Seth actually nudged one with his foot and it just sat there. A few of these guys just about got stepped on!

Seth likes to pretend to hike while he's hiking.

Hiking the Narrows.

Lily and her dad. They made a pretty cute team.

I love this picture of Seth. *swoon*

Annie looks like she's crossing the river to kick my ass.

Such a cute little family. Gotta love these guys and don't even get me started with that kid.

J.R. started carrying Lily through the deeper water. She was good at playing "damsel in distress."

Group shot... minus Annie and Eric who turned back a little earlier.

Later on that night we celebrated my 30th birthday. Meh, 30 is way easier to say than 29 anyway.

The festivities were moved inside due to windy conditions (hard to keep the candles lit in a breeze). Notice my monkey face. Now THAT'S hot. Thanks for the gifts everyone, and those cupcakes rocked, Mom! I'm pretty sure I ate like 5 of them.

Thus ended the second day. And it was was good.

Waterfall Canyon: Way Better Looking than Ogden.

Seth and I tackled another local hike this weekend called "Waterfall Canyon." It's pretty much just like it sounds... a hike up a canyon to a waterfall. It was very similar to the Adam's Canyon hike, though shorter and to be honest... at least this time of year, the waterfall wasn't quite as spectacular. The waterfall was probably at least twice the height of the one in Adam's Canyon and we were told the flow is much more significant in the spring. It was still fun though especially since it was my first hike up on the east side of Ogden. The view was great albeit a little weird with the Great Salt Lake so far in the distance.

Overlooking Ogden. It looks way better from up here... trust me.

The Inch-Worm Jungle of Death

As part of an exploration/deer survey of our local mountains, Seth and I went up Hobbs Canyon this weekend. There isn't really a trail that goes up there so we pretty much had to blaze our way up through the oak brush along the ridge. Not exactly the most fun or effective way to hike, but it was definitely adventurous.

Overlooking Layton area (that's Antelope Island in the background)

While fighting our way through the oak brush, we saw what must be the largest colony of inch worms in the world. All the oak brush leaves were hashed to bits and the little inch worms were hanging by their silk threads off of all the trees. We must have picked off about a hundred of them throughout the day. We kept finding them on our hats, crawling up the backs of our necks, and making their way up our backpacks and pants. I've never seen anything like it.

I did take a picture of the millions of worms, but it didn't turn out too well. So look at Seth in this beautiful meadow instead.

 

This was my favorite conversation snippet of the day:

Seth: {pointing at the surrounding bushes} I'd say a hippo came through here about three hours ago.
Karen: Really?! I had no idea we had hippos here! We better get some hippo spray.

Probably the best part of the hike was seeing all the wildflowers in bloom. I couldn't believe how many different flowers there were.*

Seth doing his part to repopulate the endangered dandilionus giganticus

*Stay tuned for your infallible** guide to identifying Utah wildflowers!

** OK they're probably all going to be wrong, but at least there'll be pictures of flowers. Identifying stuff is hard.

Heinz 57

Last weekend Seth and I got to go fishing with some friends of ours. Ramona and her boyfriend, Gabe invited us to go with them up to Washington Lake in the Uintas. We were actually just in that area a couple weeks ago for our backpacking trip, so we were excited to get to go back so soon.

Our fishing route

I called this post Heinz 57 because that's what Seth and I have taken to calling lakes that have a lot of different kinds of fish. Washington Lake was definitely a Heinz 57. I ended up catching Rainbows, Brookies, Tiger trout, and Grayling and there were also some albino Rainbows in there as well. It was pretty cool.

Seth and I mainly used flies including: Royal Wulff, Madame X and beetles. The beetle was definitely the super fly of the day. It's what I hooked the Grayling on (my first Grayling ever!). Ramona and Gabe used what we call "the Bling," which is a gold or silver Jake's spin-a-lure with red dots.

We ended up hiking to a couple other lakes and catching a few more fish, but none of them were as good as Washington. Seth and I even hiked up to Rock Lake and Azure Lake hoping to find some bigger fish, but to no avail. All we found was a giant boulder field and mosquitoes. At least there weren't any salamanders.

My biggest fish of the day, a Tiger trout... who proceeded to break off the line with my last Madame X.



Seth showed me his amazing fly casting skills and caught this little guy at least 20 yards out.

Seth with an albino Rainbow at Washington Lake

We took a break and grilled up some hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch before heading back out. Ramona was the designated griller.



Ramona and Gabe

Gabe's brother, Darren with the spoils. I think this was Shadow Lake.

Boulder field around Rock Lake (aptly named)

Azure Lake... there were a few mosquitoes...

Backpacking Across Europe... or the Uintas

Last weekend Seth and I went on a three day backpacking trip with his sister, Collette and her husband Marty. It was Collette and Marty's first backpacking experience and the only one I'd been on for about 20 years. This naturally made Seth our guide. He'd been on several backpacking trips and is an avid map reader, so he picked out a good spot for us up in the Uintas.

So I made this fancy map of where we hiked, but apparently I drew it wrong. We actually started at Crystal Lake and went between Lily Lakes. I think I got the rest of it right though.

Marty and Collette

Anyway, the first day we ended up hiking about 3 miles to Twin Lakes where we set up camp. The trail still had patches of snow which made things a bit soggy, but we still able to hike pretty well. About a mile into the hike we came to Wall Lake. This is where most of the people we saw were staying. Since we weren't sure how far we'd be able to hike, this was the deciding point of whether we would camp or continue on to one of the upper lakes. We were all feeling good at this point so we kept going. The trail was a little steeper for the next two miles, but it was a nice challenge.

Wall Lake

About the time we got to Twin Lakes, the weather turned on us and we got a little rain and wind. We were all pretty tired so Seth went on ahead for a ways to see if he could find a good place to camp. He came back about a half hour later and said that the spot we were in was the best so we ended up just staying there! I put a little arrow on the map above of where we actually camped. It was really beautiful! We were camped right on the Twin Lakes and could see Wall Lake down below us. It was a wonderful spot.

Collette and Marty by our campsite at Twin Lakes

Luckily the weather calmed down that evening while we set up our tents and such. Seth and I even got in some fishing. I didn't catch anything, but Seth caught at least one Cutthroat.

Seth with his first catch of the trip... but definitely not the last!

That night the weather was kind of crazy so we went to bed early. Come to find out none of us slept a wink. The wind and rain beating against the tents combined with our thin foam pads and mummy bags made for a long terrible night.

When we got up in the morning I was informed by Seth that our tent was full of cold water. Apparently the rain had been running off the rain fly on the tent and falling onto the tarp beneath us. This probably wouldn't have been an issue normally, but there happened to be a small hole in the bottom of the tent floor. Plus water soaked through the walls of the tent too, so we were pretty much hosed. I hadn't noticed the water because I like to sleep by the tent door to protect Seth from bears, and ended up being on a slight incline to where he was. So all the water pooled onto Seth's side of the tent. I guess he found out about the water in the middle of the night when he got up to go "look for springs." As he climbed out of his sleeping bag, he put his hand down into a puddle of ice water. Sweet.

Lucky for us that was the last rain of the trip. It was all blue skies from there on out. We dried out all our stuff the next morning and relocated our tent to a more level, rain-resistant area.

Drying out the tent after a stormy night

On day two we left our camp and hiked a couple miles up past several lakes. First we came to Clyde Lake which was a huge lake teaming with fish. As we walked along the bank we could see tons of fish swimming around and we were really tempted to stop. But, at that point we had our hearts set on Hidden Lake. We'd heard it had a lot of bigger fish because it was further away and not many people went there. So we kept going... past Peter, James and John Lakes... past Three Divide Lakes. So many lakes... so many temptations. But we resisted them all and finally made it to Hidden Lake.

As I stood at the edge of the lake getting my fly rod all rigged up, I saw something swimming in the water. At first I thought it was a small fish, but something looked a little odd. I stared at it for a moment and realized this thing had legs... and a tail. It was a salamander!

After hiking all that way to Hidden Lake, all we saw were salamanders. Hoards of them. They sure were creepy little buggers. And some of them were huge! We never did see any fish. We stayed at Hidden Lake just long enough to have a snack and rename the place. We dubbed it Salamander Lake. Seth called it Mild Disappointment Lake. We cut our losses, slid down a snow bank and hiked about a mile or so back to Clyde Lake where we all managed to catch a few Brook trout. We took them back to camp, wrapped them in tin foil and cooked them on the coals. Delicious! (especially with freeze dried lasagna and chili mac).

Marty receiving messages (or just a nap) on what we dubbed as "Zen Point"

On the morning of day three we packed up our stuff, took some final pictures and headed back home. By the time we got back to the car we were all pretty tired and ready for a shower. Seth and I had a really great time and it was so fun to get to hang out with Collette and Marty. We hope we get to do it again soon!

Group shot overlooking Wall Lake

This One Isn't About Fish

I am five minutes into hiking up the side of a cedar tree and sage brush covered hill when I begin to wonder what the fuss is about. I'm already breathing hard as I slowly lift one giant mud covered boot in front of the next in my futile attempt to keep up with Seth who is several yards ahead of me already. "I really should be concentrating more on my cardio workouts," I think as I trudge up the embankment, trying hard not to slip and fall into the mushy snow saturated earth.

There's no way I'm ever going to be a hunter at this rate. I'm only carrying a small day pack filled with a couple liters of water, a wind breaker and basic survival supplies and I'm already getting winded. Would I even be able to move if I had to carry a rifle or bow and actual supplies like food? What if I actually shot something? I couldn't carry the meat down on my back, I can barely move these stubby legs!

The good news was that Seth and I weren't out on an actual hunt. Well, not the kind that requires a weapon anyway. We had talked about going out to hunt for shed antlers and this morning after eating our breakfast burritos, Seth got a crazy look in his eye. "Hey," he said with a mischievous grin on his face, "you want to go down to Huntington Canyon to look for antlers?"

Wow! We were actually going to do it! I skipped my daily shower and got ready as fast as I could. We packed up some drinks and stopped to get some sandwiches for the cooler on our way down. We drove past the giant windmills at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon, past the fishermen along Thistle Creek, past the wind sailors and sledders at the top of Skyline Drive and came down into Huntington Canyon by the power plant.

It was a beautiful day, around 50 degrees, so all we had on were our thermals, jeans and hoodies. After the first hundred yards or so I was beginning to sweat and thought about taking off my sweatshirt. My camouflage baseball hat was blocking my view and that combined with the heat, I was starting feel agitated. "Just relax and have fun," I thought, "you don't need to keep up with Seth, just enjoy the scenery. Go slow and keep your eyes open, who knows, maybe you'll actually find something."

We climbed to the top of the hill and followed a barbed wire fence for a few yards. The fence was down at the point where we needed to drop into the draw on the other side of the hill, so we effortlessly stepped over it and kept going. Now that we were going downhill in the shadows of the mountain, I began to cool off and really open my eyes. I was no longer walking directly behind Seth, following the footprints that he left. I was making my own trail in an effort to cover more area and get a new view of potential hiding places for sheds.

The ground was littered with cedar branches and twigs, all of them looking like antlers. I would take a couple steps, scan the area and repeat. I was falling farther and farther behind Seth who would periodically give a small bird-like whistle so I knew where he was. I'd catch up to him and the cycle would start over again.

Seth mentioned earlier when we stopped at this place that he'd been hiking around in the same area once before and had seen a herd of about 200 elk. Up to this point I had never really seen an elk in the wild. I've seen hundreds of deer, antelope, jack rabbits, and even a tarantula, but no elk.

About an hour or so into our hike, Seth gave a faint whistle and motioned to me to come quickly, but quietly over to where he was standing. I made my way over to him and he pointed towards the rolling hills in front of us. "You see that elk?" he whispered, "it's laying down right out there on that hill." I looked and couldn't see anything. He handed me his binoculars and I scanned the hillside. There straight across from us about 250 yards away, was a cow elk. Not just one, but a couple. We slowly inched our way over to a large boulder where we would be more hidden and have a better view. I scanned the hillside again and this time counted at least 10 elk. As we sat there and watched, more elk came into view. Most of them were grazing and making their way towards another draw that would lead down into a field full of grass. There were at least 40-50 elk in the herd, including two young bulls with small spikes. We were upwind from them and had several trees and boulders to hide in and just observe these beautiful animals. All those eyes and ears and not one of them knew we were there.

After a while we got curious as to how close we could get before they saw us. We started walking straight down the hill towards them, being as quiet as we could. When we were about 100 yards away, one of the little spike bulls saw us and let out a small warning cry. All the cows on the hill looked at us and just stood there. The whole herd just stood there and watched. We slowly came a bit closer and they decided they didn't want to stick around. The lead cow took off down the hill and the others followed behind her. It was an amazing thing to see.

After the herd left, we decided we might as well go scan the area they were in for antlers. We never did find anything, but just being able to get that close to them in the wild made it all worth it. I've always heard hunters say that getting up close to wild animals is one of the best things about hunting and it doesn't matter so much if they actually get to make a kill. Up until today I thought that was something the bad hunters said to make themselves feel better. But now I see what they mean. It was such a rush and such a great moment to just be there and witness what we saw. Anything more than that would just be gravy. Gravy on top of gravy.

If being a hunter means I get to experience what I did today on a somewhat regular basis, I'm in. Nature like that won't just walk up and sit in your lap. You have to work for it. You have to plan for it. You have to want it.

Iron Bog Blog

Seth and I spent this past weekend with his family up at Iron Bog campground in Custer County, Idaho. We've had some pretty fun trips together so far, but I'm sure we'll remember this one for a long time.

On our way up to the Iron Bog campground, Seth and I stopped and fished Big Lost River coming out of Mackay Reservoir. It was a beautiful stream and was a really good place to practice our fly fishing skills. I got lucky and ended up hooking two small fish (not sure what they were as they jumped off my hook before I got a good look at them). Seth got skunked which made my already large head grow even bigger. Most days Seth can easily out-fish me, so when it's the other way around, I gotta make sure and rub it in!

Well we probably could have spent the whole day fishing there by Mackay but we knew the family was already up at the camp site, so we decided we better get up there before dinner time (plus we were really hungry). Everyone in the Hanson family was able to come except Scott and Amanda, who were both missed. It's quite the trip to Idaho from Houston, plus after making it through the aftermath of the hurricane a couple weeks before, we decided they were excused.

That evening Seth and I fished the little stream next to the campground and caught 14 small "Brookies." It was my first time catching them and it was a blast. I can see why the Hanson family loves them so much. When we got back from fishing, Tessa was very excited about the Brookies she'd caught with Grandpa and made sure to show them off to us. Marty and Arielle spent the evening hunting for elk, and checking out the deer for the October hunt. This was Arielle's first hunt and she was definitely ready. She was pretty tough and kept up with her dad the whole time. Marty Jr. was a big help keeping the fire going and I've never seen feet dirtier than Calysta's (although Abe was a close second). Rachel was the entertainment for the evening. We all enjoyed listening to her stories while admiring her impressive baby bump.

Mom and Dad Hanson were nice enough to bring the big white tent for Seth and I to sleep in. The wood burning stove was definitely a "warm" welcome at night and before getting out of bed in the morning. Seth was such a good husband and made sure the tent was warmed up before he'd let me get in bed, or out! I'm sure everyone would agree that nights up there got pretty chilly!

Grandma had so much fun!

On Saturday part of the family went on a hike up to Iron Bog lake. It was a steep 1.5 mile hike, but everyone made it... eventually. Just as we reached the lake we even saw a mountain goat way up on the side of the mountain. It was a beautiful lake and the weather was just great. We couldn't believe how big the fish were there.... a mix of cutthroats and cutthroat/rainbow hybrids. I caught the first fish of the day on a fly... the biggest fish I've caught yet. He was about a 2 lb. 18" cutthroat. Luckily Seth happened to be filming my sweet fly fishing skills at the time and caught it all on video. Needless to say I was pretty excited. Anyway, everyone ended up catching a lot of huge fish and we enjoyed eating them that night for dinner! As a bonus Grandpa, Seth and I all heard an elk bugle on the hike back down to the car. We sat and listened for at least a half hour to see if we could hear it again. Grandpa and Seth thought they heard it again about 15 minutes after the first one, but I was too distracted by a wasp flying around my head at the time to notice.

We finally made it back to camp, all worn out, and were greeted by Tessa who said, "Grandpa, can we go fishing?" Grandma, Calysta, and Soren were all pretty tired from their long day at camp and joined us in sitting around the campfire for the rest of the evening.



The next day Seth and I had to go home, so we didn't get to do much except pack up. We were definitely sad to leave so soon and wished we could have stayed a few more days. We really had a lot of fun. Oh and before I forget, the food was great too. The Hanson family has some mad cooking skills! In case any of you wanted that French Toast recipe, this is the link to it. http://www.recipezaar.com/90674. If you want access to all my secret recipes, this is my own page where I keep all the ones I like http://www.recipezaar.com/member/177753 (shameless plug, I know, I can't help it).

Isn't he beautiful? And the fish ain't bad either!

Arielle caught the biggest and last fish of the day!