Moab 2005

I biked Slickrock again this year. It was the typical experience -- not too many people, the perfect weather, and still a good challenge to get through. I tried some homemade energy goop this year, a bottle of honey with some strawberry flavoring mixed in to thin it out a little and to make it taste better. It worked out really well. I took my GPS along for the ride this year so I could find out just how much elevation gain & loss there is on this trail. In total, there is 1,950 feet in elevation gain & loss. The number could actually be much higher if the GPS didn't track precisely at the bottom and top of each hill, but it's a rough estimate & good enough for me.

The next day I explored the Onion Creek area. Although the road is marked 4WD I decided to take lil' red for a drive up it. The road is in awesome shape and would be a blast to ride on a mountain bike with all the stream crossings and the roller coaster like ascents & descents between the stream crossings. The geology in that canyon is incredible & will definitely be ridden later on this year when I go down again. If the stream was flowing at a much higher rate I could see some problems taking lil' red up it, but there weren't any problems that day.

The rest of the day was spent in Arches National Park in the Fiery Furnace. It's one of my favorite places ot hike in the area for a couple reasons. First is the fact that not too many people can go in due to permit restrictions, and the permit eliminates the majority of people from even being remotely interested in going in there, and then there's the need for a guide if someone in your group doesn't know the route through the furnace -- which is basically a labryinth. The temperature in the furnace is usually 10-20 degrees cooler (at least) than anywhere else in the park due to all the shade created by the tightly spaced fins. Some of the slot canyons created by the fins will have a cool downdraft much cooler than the rest of the furnace making it really nice to relax in one of those. That, plus all the cool formations, and the mild canyoneering experience you have and the ability to explore any number of areas within the furnace make this a really fun place to go.

My actual birthday was spent on a bike ride through Canyonlands National Park. Starting out on the Shafer road near the entrance to the Island in the Sky area of Canyonlands I descended the road and all it's switchbacks, stopping on occasion to take a look over the edge of the road to see where I was heading next & to give my body a rest from all the downhill. I soon hit the bottom & took a break in the shade. On this route, trees are scarce that I stopped under them whenever I had the chance. From here the route I was on follows the famous White Rim Trail. Following this trail exposed me to another side of Canyonlands NP that I'd never seen before. You're basically in the middle of all the layers that make up the area so you have good views of all the cliffs above you and you could also see beyond into the canyons below you and actually see the Colorado River on it's course through the area, whereas you only see a smidgeon of everything from the main roads in Island in the Sky. As you had South-East on this road (at least on this section) you're heading slightly uphill and when you go around a corner to go North-West you're going downhill. While the road isn't technical in this section requiring 4WD vehicles or anything, there's still enough obstacles on the road to make riding it fun. There are small ledges & other rocks to jump off of, sand to surf through and other fun things to do. You can overlook the Gooseneck bend in the Colorado & go up to Musselman Arch which is more of a natural bridge technically, and is quite impressive. After Musselman Arch the rest of the trail is fairly boring, taking you further away from the canyon rim. And then there was Lathrop Canyon. My shuttle service suggested walking the first sections of this canyon -- whatever. This canyon was a lot of fun. It was a long fast descent with lots of obstacles to have fun with, and was definitely the best part of the ride, much better than the descent down Shafer road. That is until you hit the last mile and a half of deep sand. It's totally unrideable unless of course you're a glutton for punishment, really, really bad punishment. The route ended on the Colorado River. The tamarisk like everywhere else on the major rivers out West has grown so thick that it totally blocks the view of the river except for the dirt boat ramp leading into the river. I was early for my boat pick up, by about 2 hours, so I had a while to nap & relax. There was a couple moving down to NM that had a full mattress set strapped to the top of their truck. I assumed at first that one of the two would only go on a trip like this if they had the comforts of home right there, but I found out they were moving later on. This 40 foot barge like boat pulled up with some canoeists returning from a 7 day trip down the Green River -- one of the ladies had broken her fibia on day 4 and managed to finish the trip and still be in good spirits by the time I met them. Fortunately they had duct tape to to bind the splint, and enough drift wood on the route for a fine selection of canes. The boat ride lasted for about an hour & then there was a slow drive back to town. All in all this was 1112 feet of climbing, and 3094 feet of descent, over 20.9 miles.

All in all this was yet another awesome trip to Moab. It might be my last annual trip down there for my birthday, but certainly not the last one.

View photos from this trip

The Spiral Jetty/Great Salt Lake/Promontory Point

It got up into the 50's today so I wanted to get out and explore my new area a bit. I've been wanting to go and check out Promontory Point for a long time, and just can't seem to get out there. There's basically no easy way. There is a rail line that goes over the Great Salt Lake from 12th Street straight to the tip of Promontory Point, and then continues over the Great Salt Lake and on into the West Desert, but the furthest access point is full of private property threats, so I decided to go the long way to see if I could get out there. This entails driving 20 miles North, then 20 Miles West, and then South 20 miles to get to the point, basically driving around all the wetlands & lake. I got off the wrong exit, and wound up in the middle of the Bear River Wildlife Refuge, which was an interesting drive, but not where I wanted to go. Eventually I was out there, driving down the peninsula, and I could see the lake about 1/4 mile away from the road, however all the land was private and behind barbed wires. Halfway down the peninsula that is Promontory Point you hit a point in the road where you're greeted with that private property stuff all over again -- at least this one has a sign w/ a number to call & get a permit to go down there for recreational purposes. So I was at a loss for what to do. I wanted to get to see the lake. I've tried many times, but it's surrounded by mile after mile of private property, and lack of roads to access it. The only place I did know of was Antelope Island, but you have to pay to drive out there.

I decided to head out towards the Golden Spike National Historic whatever and see if I could get to the lake from the other side of the peninsula. On the way there I saw someone w/ a loaded backpack hiking down the only dirt road that wasn't gated so I decided to see if she could give me some ideas of what I should expect where I was headed. She said I could get to the Spiral Jetty which was in the lake if I went to Golden Spike and followed the signs. While turning around my truck's back end slipped into a ditch, the roads being muddy from the snowmelt. After a couple minutes of trying to get out I had to start thinking of something to do to get out of the ditch when this white SUV comes up the road loaded w/ an entire family. Thanks to this Mike, and his 4 sons I got out in no time -- thanks Mike!

The Spiral Jetty is about 15 miles away from the visitor center down dirt roads, for the most part, they're good dirt roads. They get worse as you go along, and when you're really close to the jetty, they're barely wider than my truck, and full of huge rocks, with boulders lining the sides of the road, not a big deal, it's just really slow going. The jetty is really cool. The lake is low enough the lake starts about 1000 feet away from the jetty, and there's nothing inbetween except a lot of salt flats. So you hike down to the old lake edge where the salt flats start, and the salt flat is just solid, and dry for the most part. There are some puddles of water here and there, but they're just shallow, like less than a 0.5 centimeter deep, the cool thing is that they're just reflecting everything like a mirror. It's like a huge optical illusion when you're trying to find the lake's edge because the salt flat just bleeds into lake's edge. It was seriously cool to be there. To make it even more memorable there was a guy ∓ a girl there that looked kind of hippie'ish, and seemed kind of stoned, or drunk, doesn't matter, they were just fun to watch. They had walked out 20 feet into the lake and were playing in the water, it was so shallow it looked like they were walking on it. They were shouting stuff that sounded like it came right out of the X-Files -- conspiracies, seeking the truth, bizarre manifestations....I was half expecting to find some people like that out there. All in all, it was freakin' sweet to go there.

View photos from this trip

Devil's Playground

I heard about this place called the Devil's Playground in the west desert of Utah, just off the huge expanse of insanely flat desert terrain that separates highway 30 from the Great Salt Lake 60 miles away. It took a lot of searching on the web to only come up with a couple references to the Playground. They were on geocaching sites, and didn't have any pics or references, but all I needed were coordinates to get down there and check it out. I took the dirt road to the west of highway 30 just after mile marker 24 and started exploring. It's a relatively undiscovered area that rivals the City of Rocks which is located just 50 miles to the North. From the highway this area looks very unassuming. All you can see from the highway are the same hills and sagebrush you would drive past the entire trip there. Once you get off the road and start coming up the dirt road you get a little preview as you start climbing the hill of what lies ahead. The roads are pretty decent for the most part. They're not suitable for cars, and in my 2WD Toyota Pickup I was able to get through all but one section on the roads I explored, and a couple of times I was only on 2 wheels as I was getting over some obstacles. It looked like they were working on the fence where I got off on highway 30, and if they do close that up and don't put a gate there you can still access the area from the Immigrant Trail Rd., it's just an 10 mile trip on a dirt road instead of 1 mile. 

The land is pretty remarkable in that it's composed of a very, very coarse sand, and not much can grow in it, so you're left with the trees, and sand paved pathways for the most part. There are some of those little pricky plants, but those are mainly in the more open areas, and the regular desert flora & fauna crops up here and there, but it's not abundant especially around the big rocks. The area is exposed in a birding field book as a place to see tons of birds, but I didn't think so, it's probably the wrong time of year. I saw the regular mix of ravens, predator birds, heard an owl, and saw maybe one bird that somebody would've had interest in. There were 2 rabbits, and some sort of rodents that were trying to get into my pickup bed for some dinner. Aside from that I didn't see any other life, not even another human, which was kind of disappointing. 

Without serious looking I found 4 routes that had been setup, and I'm sure there are more that I didn't see since I didn't explore most of the outcroppings, and there will definately be more to come. I haven't met them, but there's a small group working on building up the routes in that area. It definately has potential to become like City of Rocks, I'm torn between posting this and letting whoever stumbles on this page know about this place, what it looks like and how to get there, and keeping it to the few who know how incredible it is. 

While I was there it was dead silent. Occasionally you could hear a light hum from the highway a couple miles away from a semi, but for the most part it was dead silent. I camped in a little cove type area between the cliffs in one of the ridges surrounded with mature pines. Somebody had shoveled a couple terraces out of the slope for tents, and I have to admit it's one of the best places I've camped in. That sand substrate makes for great sleep even w/out a pad. That area is truly unique in the fact that it's one of the few remarkable places you can find absolute solace in the state, at least when I went, lol. Go now because it won't be like that in a decade. With proper management I'm confident that it will be a premier climbing destination one day. 

The Sun Tunnels are about 30 minutes away from the Playground, and are pretty interesting. They're oriented for viewing the sunrise/sunset during the solstice and equinox. 

View photos from this trip

Rafting the Snake

I took some vacation time up around Jackson Hole about a week ago with some friends. We did a couple runs on the Snake. There are class I-III rapids on it. The peculiar thing about this river is that there is a highway a couple hundred feet above the river for the entire run, compared to all the runs I've done on the Colorado where you're completely isolated from all mankind for the entire trip. I guess the river wasn't at it's peak the weekend we were there. The first run was quite boring. Our guide was snoozing half the time, and guided us onto rocks, and right past the rapids instead of through them. We missed the biggest rapid by enough that the photograph companies that survive on the tourist dollars didn't even bother taking pictures of us on that run. The 2nd run was a lot better. We hit most of the rapids, and I even got to "ride the bull" through the biggest rapid. This time around the photograph guys took some pictures (click here to see them). Riding the bull means that you sit on top of the raft with your legs dangling off the front, and one arm doing the lasso as you go through. Nobody else would do it, so I climbed on up. I've been through plenty of rapids, but never like this. I had my fingers wedged into the O-ring on the front of the raft so tight that there was no chance of being knocked backwards into everybody else on the raft, but I didn't think of being bounced off the front. We approached the rapid dead center, and slid down into the trough. The whitewater slammed into my chest and broke onto everybody behind me. The front of the raft soared into the air as the back pushed it up and over (note my dangling legs in the 2nd pic). When the front of the raft came down I was bounced forward, and my fingers were ripped free from the o-ring, and I was sent flying through the air (according to witnesses, I went down into the water, and I thought that I would be under the raft, but I swam to the surface anyway. Instead of being under the raft, I was WAY ahead of it. Maybe 100 feet. The raft and I barely met up and got back in before we hit the next set of rapids. It all happened so fast that I barely remember any details, but what I do remember made the trip worthwhile.

Thurston Peak

Thurston Peak has been on my list for a long, long time. Since it was only a ridge hike I thought it would be easy enough to get over, bag it, and come back. Not so. I keep thinking that the snow should be gone by now, it is July, and we had an incredibly warm spring, but somehow the snow is still sticking around, and covering the trails.

On the way up the canyon road to the area by the spherical radar towers I passed 4 bikers, they must've come all the way from the valley, and I later on passed them in the middle of my hike, which means they did make it to the top, and at that point had already scored more than 5000 ft elevation & 10+ miles. I don't know where they were headed, but they're pretty hardcore just to have made it that far. 

It was a good hike, I had about 2500 ft elevation climbed by the time I was through. There were a couple of sections that lost/gained 3-400 ft along the way making the total elevation climbed pretty significant when you look at the starting elevation of about 9100 ft, and the summit elevation of 9700 ft.

The approach climbs about 650 ft from where you leave the Great Western Trail to the summit. There are plenty of game trails to follow up to the top, and by staying further east, rather than west I avoided the mounds of sagebrush that line the eastern side. The summit isn't really that spectacular, although there is a monument to the guy the peak is named after. Odd though is the fact that there is no actual trail to the top (at least that I was able to find). In fact on the way down I decided to try a different way down to see if it would've been a better route. It wasn't. When I finally hit the Great Western Trail again to get back to my truck it was pretty overgrown. If it doesn't get used more I wonder if a trail will even be distinguishable in a couple of years.

After 9 miles & 2500 ft elevation climbed I was more than ready to go home.

After I get Willard Peak I will have climbed all the county high points north of Salt Lake, and all of the county high points that surround the Great Salt Lake

Ben Lomond Peak

Saturday was my first peak of the season. Originally I set out for Willard Peak, it's Weber counties highest peak. The easiest way to get to the top is to go to the town of Mantua and climb a fairly decent, but bumpy road to the Willard Basin just below the peak. It took more than an hour to get up the dirt road. You can cruise up it on a 4-wheeler, but anything larger will be slower. I had to get by a couple Suburbans on the road, both times there was less than an inch of clearance, and both encounters were in wide sections of the road.

At the Willard Basin Trailhead there's a nice spring flowing out of a pipe onto the side of the road. Up the trail is a nice snow-fed lake, and above that is Willard Mountain to the West, and Willard Peak to the East. To get up there you can take two different trails (or continue on up the road to be dropped off nearly at the summit of Willard Mountain at a place called Inspiration Point). The trail I chose meant crossing a very long section of snow at a precipitous angle. It didn't look so bad from the lake. In retrospect, the other trail would've been much better, but crossing the snow made the trip a lot more interesting. Once on the ridge between the two peaks there's a nice trail that goes from that ridge, around Willard Peak, and down to Ben Lomond. Figuring that there would be a trail to the top of Willard I followed the trail towards Ben Lomond. After not seeing a clear trail I decided to just do Ben Lomond, and then Willard later on. There were a couple more patches of snow to cross on Ben Lomond, but the trail was nice for the most part. On the way over I spotted a very faint trail up Willard Peak from the southern end, but there wasn't enough time. All in all it was a nice, easy trek, 6 miles in all, w/ a little over 1000 ft in elevation gained. The GPS read 9726 ft on Ben Lomond.

On the way down to SLC a couple hours later for a reception it started pouring, and there was lightning all around. I'm glad there was great weather while I was up there. 

View photos from this trail

Bonneville Shoreline Trail

I've spent the past couple weeks biking the Utah County section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Over the past couple years I've biked sections of it, w/ moderate success of finding all the sections. The thing really isn't mapped that well, and their website hasn't had updated maps in a very long time -- not that those maps would do any good anyway. So armed w/ my GPS I set out to map most of it, and I had to find the connecting chunks that I have yet to ride. The trail has some really fun sections to ride, and there's a good mix of all types of trail riding throughout. There's some sweet downhill singletrack with tight turns, and trees/brush lining the sides, then there's roller coaster style trails in doubletrack, and plenty of uphill to make the legs burn. I managed to get about 25 miles of it mapped. There's probably another 5 miles down in Springville that I'd have to find. I was down there in unfamiliar territory biking last night when the trail did it's typical thing and went off at an intersection in an unpredictable route, and I was too tired to want to look for it. It had taken two weeks of biking and recovering to get that far, and though it was a good time, I just didn't want to go any further. Since I'm moving out of the area in a couple of days, I think I'll just leave the trail at that, and if anybody else wants to submit the rest of it later on they can.

I don't know who's to blame for the lack of trail markings, or directions. It could be the local cities, or the trail association itself. I find it humorous that where trail markings are essential, like at intersections, there's no signage to be found, but when the trail is obvious, and there's no chance of getting off course there are signs galore. Hopefully the maps, and info I've put together will be of help to others to know where the trail goes.