amasa back

A couple weekends ago I went down to Moab with a roommate who was running the Moab Red Hot trail run. It was awesome to spend time with family and friends and the outdoor temperatures couldn't have been better! The morning before I headed back north for Logan my brother Joseph and friend Kerri and I rode the Amasa Back trail. The last time I attempted that one was about four years ago when I got sick! I was ascending the long uphill at the beginning when I was coughing and spitting out bloody mucus, and then my derailleur broke. So.... I figured it was a good idea to turn around and coast back to the trailhead. Little did I know at the time that a broken bike part was the least of my worries, but alls well that ends well right?

I've been experimenting with different angles and techniques with this little camera. This is a fun two minute video that I put together from the ride, and ends with a wreck and a broken GoPro mount.

Up the canyon...

This place is simply amazing! I love Logan Canyon. And the best thing about it is it's about 4.28 minutes from where I live. I can see a tint of color in the leaves as the temperatures start to drop at night. I'm only just beginning to discover the beauty of these mountains. I'm looking forward to many more adventures here.

Martina on the Crimson Trail

Todd and me at the Hobbit Caves.

Trailhead shot at the Wind Caves
Wes, Maddie, Emily, me

On top of the Crimson Trail

I JUST LOVE LOGAN!!!

Take two

As a last romp in the desert, Kim, Ivy and I took a trip down to the San Rafael Swell. Neither of them had canyoneered in Blue John before, but really wanted to. I was familiar with the canyon already, and I love the long, narrow slots, so Blue John it was. The drive was interesting; we saw a herd of wild horses and got the car stuck in the sand. There must've been a strong storm or something, because the road was covered in deep sand--not like it had been last month. After we got the car stuck once, we found a great camp spot close to the trailhead and stayed the night.

At the trailhead in the morning. Here's to you, Aron Ralston! Cliché, I'm sure.

Over the last month this canyon had seen a lot of changes. There must've been a strong flash flood, because the slots were filled with standing water and slick mud. It made getting through the canyon a lot harder than before, and we hadn't counted for that difficulty. It took us almost twice the time to get through the canyon than it had taken Jef and I.

On our way back through the west canyon, there were several places in the canyon that it was apparent that there had been small rock slides. A little dust here, some rocks there... it was kinda cool. And then we came across this:

Gnarly. The trail used to be right under all that! There were gouge marks all the way down the canyon walls where the boulders had fallen. It probably happened within the last week or so, before it thunder-stormed and flash flooded. Kinda a big deal.

This is at the end of our hike, at 7:30pm. 10.5 hours of hiking, scrambling, canyoneering... SO exhausted. It was a great adventure.

6 HOURS

Yesterday my buddy Jef and I went to The Robber's Roost and descended into Blue John Canyon. The canyon was made famous by this guy:

There are a couple of forks that join together to form lower Blue John Canyon, where Aron got stuck. That canyon drops into Horseshoe Canyon, where my dad and I hiked a couple weeks ago. Jef and I did a loop through the slots above Lower Blue John, and it only took us 6 hours. This sign we found at the trailhead info kiosk.

Read the bottom paragraph: the blue pool is NOT in Blue John (like it shows in the preview and movie!).

At a wider section of the slot canyon. We caught the sun perfectly! Some deeper parts of the canyon never see the light of day.

Jef descending deeper into the slot. There were about four or five places that had webbing to rappel from, but it wasn't exposed or technical enough to need a rope. It's incredible to be inside such narrow slots without the heat from the summer sun!

Worst pet peeve

I really hate it when I find graffiti and vandalism in the wilderness. It's really narcissistic and shows disrespect when you scratch your name and date in a wall. What if every hiker pecked their name into the rock? Really, who will recognize your name and truly care if you were there? Take a picture of the rock for crying out loud. Markings like that take away from the natural beauty of the rocks and their features. The sad part is, most graffiti is labeled as a "historic resource" after about fifty years. The "50 year rule" generally applies to all graffiti, trash, and anything else that is not native to the land. Ridiculous.

In this picture, Clyde, Joe, and Albert scrawled their names right over the native american pictographs. Dumb.

The Needles, Canyonlands. Mountains of untouched crypto. You don't find too much of this in Arches.

This is what I love: beautifully pristine wilderness with no sign that any other human being was there before you. I took this picture while backpacking with Ivy. Only a narrow trail led our way through the desert.

Horseshoe Canyon

Last weekend my dad and I took off to the San Rafael Swell. We started in Horseshoe Canyon, a deep canyon filled with incredible pictographs, known as the Great Gallery. The trail meandered through a sandy and rocky wash in the shadows of the towering walls and the cottonwood trees. There were small pools in the wash where thousands of little tadpoles and water skippers swam. The red pictographs rose high on the cliffs, obviously painted in a time when the canyon floor was higher. Some figures were close together with triangular bodies, and some had limbs wielding weapons.

Part of the Great Gallery panel

Little friend on the trail

On the way back we stopped at Chaffin Ranch Geyser. Who knew there was a geyser in the middle of the desert?! It was an old drill hole that spouts carbon dioxide and water filled with minerals twenty feet in the air. We were there when it blew, and it went on for about fifteen minutes. The ground all around the cold-water geyser is covered with hardened layers of minerals that turn everything a brownish-orange color. An old wagon wheel and wood beams laid close by, slowly petrifying. It was incredible.

Thanks, dad!

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

Gemini to Baby Lion's

Here's a few pictures from the weekend. We rode Gemini Bridges in the morning with snow at the trailhead, and rappelled in the afternoon with bitter winds. Never a bad day for adventure!

The crew at the bridges - Mick, Tyler, Arlee, Sterling, Jed, Mike, Chris, Chris.

Where are we? 

Jed was our shuttle driver, and at the trailhead he just decided to follow us. We had truck support on Gemini Bridges! At the end I suggested we ride with Jed through the flat and uphill. He dropped us off at the top and we bombed down to the parking. Sweet!

Chris just got a new static rope so we can go canyoneering. So Mick took us to the top of Baby Lion's Back in his Jeep to test out the new rope on the rappel up there.

Crotch shot

That night we were too tired to do anything, so we let Dumb and Dumber play while we napped on the couches.

Snowshoeing Oowah

Chillin' in sunny LaSal

Last weekend Ivy and I borrowed snowshoes from our friends Brian and Angela and headed to the mountains! We parked on the LaSal loop road and hiked in to Oowah Lake. Three miles uphill in 2-3 ft of snow is grueling, with or without snowshoes. As our first time snowshoeing, it was hard to get used to (never try to walk backwards with those on!), but it was fun. There had only been two other people up there since it had snowed. It was cool to see how the mountains had changed from the last time I had been up there to the deep snow and green pines. Recharged with energy bars and fruit leather at the frozen-over lake, we breezed back down the trail just as the sun was disappearing. So excited for our snowshoe trip in February!

Klondike Bluffs

Sterling and I wanted an afternoon ride the other day, so we threw on the bikes and sped off to Klondike Bluffs. After saying goodbye to the trailhead, we began the 4.5 mile ascent to the lookout on the top, which views Arches Nat'l Park. Uphill wasn't too bad; just pop your bike into granny gear and cruise up. We stopped to check out the dinosaur tracks on the left of the trail and then helped out a couple who had bent a derailleur (helping others = good trail karma). After a nice hike at the overlook, we jumped back on and just bombed downhill. It made all that up really worth it! Klondike Bluffs is an awesome trail, and I'll definitely ride it again.

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.

Mary Jane Canyon

A while ago Clinton, Ivy, and I all had a day off of riverguiding, so we went hiking. We decided on Mary Jane Canyon, and after we stopped by the store for a snack lunch, we hit the trail. There were a lot of distractions along the way, so the hike took us 4+ hours.

 

Beautiful waterfall in the slot canyon. Here you can climb up under the boulders and come out behind the waterfall in a small opening that can fit two people.

 There was a lot of small critters like this one. We caught a couple of other snakes, and they were pretty large.

Found a few of these cool lizards.

  Clint thought he'd try his luck with a toad. She didn't turn into a princess.

There were tons of these new baby toads. We had to be careful to avoid stepping on them as we hiked.

Trails in Moab

Here's a google map I made of all the trails I have hiked around Moab. Rate and comment!