Lost in Lost Canyon

I just got home from an overnight backpacking trip in The Needles district of Canyonlands! Ivy got an internship for the SCA and is a park ranger there. River guide buddies Mike, Joe, Stephen and Amber joined Ivy and I hiking in Lost Canyon, Peekaboo, and Squaw Canyon. The trails were amazing! We hiked on solid slickrock for miles, where the trail is only discernible by numerous rock cairns until we descended through slots into canyons filled with meandering streams and newly-leaved Cottonwood trees. We explored several Indian archeological sites. I am always amazed at how well-preserved the wilderness is in the Needles. There are mountains of untouched cryptobiotic soil! The trails are followed and the campsites are well cared for. I love that place.

Camp broken and ready to go this morning at our campsite, LC3

Several animals visited us last night: hungry mice, Rodents of Unusual Size, and squawking birds at 4am. But after 10 miles, that pad has never been so comfortable!

We hiked to Peekaboo and found these incredible pictographs. I've never seen hand-prints like these.

Claret Cup Cactus

Ivy and I. She only has 5 more weeks here!

Happy Earth Day

Canyonlands, Needles District

Goblin Valley

Karen, Kerri, Lauren, Ivy and I took a road trip to Goblin Valley and the surrounding canyons. We drove out to Crack Canyon and had delicious tin-foil dinners and set up camp. In the morning we hiked Little Wildhorse Canyon and explored the hoodoos in the park. I really want to discover more in the San Rafael Swell. I love slot canyons!

 

Little Wildhorse Slot Canyon



Ivy, Lauren, Kerri, Karen.

Kings Peak

The second day of our backpacking trip, Joe and I decided to climb Kings Peak, the highest peak in Utah at 13,528 ft. From our camp it was 10.5 miles, so we started at 4:45 a.m. the next day. We sped up to Anderson Pass, the base of the mountain, in about 5 hours!



From there to the peak was another 6,348 ft, and the trail disappeared into huge boulders we had to scramble. At the top we rewarded ourselves with a freeze-dried ice cream bar and 2 chocolate Reisens.

On the way back, we were sore and exhausted. Joe's like, "I know how we hiked here so fast. It was the oatmeal we ate for breakfast. I had three packs of that stuff." I looked up and grinned. "I had five." Later we stopped to take a look at Joe's foot, it was killing him (he forgot the insoles to his hiking boots). As he peeled off his sock he yelled in pain. You can see why:

At the end of the video, it's shaking because I'm laughing so hard.

We rolled into camp at around 4:30 p.m. after hiking 21 miles, and I didn't even bother to take off my stinky sweaty clothes. I crashed until it started raining later that night. Despite being very strenuous, it was one of the funnest hikes I've been on.

Backpacking

The first week of August our priest group went backpacking in the High Uintahs. We hiked about 7 miles to Bear Lake, where we camped.

Logan, me, Toby, Greg, and Joe.

Moon-set and sunrise over Bear Lake.

The fishing was terrible, we only caught 2 "32 oz" trout in 4 days.

The second day Toby and I climbed this. Don't pay attention to the dates on the pictures. :P

I wanted to climb it mostly for the huge snowdrifts at the top.