Week end full of good times

Wow, we had such a fun week end. Lou and Bryan invited us up for Ellie's #3 birthday on Saturday. We had been wanting to go on a real camping trip and decided to combine the two. Friday afternoon we headed up to the Tuschar mountains by Beaver. We stopped in and got curds and an ice cream cone in Beaver. We hoped to try out that new possible family camp spot we had located, but it was full of people and trailers. We went to a few other places over that way and found them full of people too. So we headed back over to our other family camp spot and it was empty and as beautiful as ever. We set up there. It was perfect overcast weather. We felt raindrops a few times, but nothing we had to jump in the tent to get away from. Paul cooked us up a delicious beef stew with garlic/cheese biscuits on top. After dinner we needed to take a walk down the road a piece the shake down some of that good food. We checked out lots of side roads as possible camp sites. As we got to one meadow we found it full of elk. Paul was able to sneak up and get a few pictures and then they got scared and one of them let out a loud bugle and they went crashing off through the woods. We decided we had better head back to camp since it was getting close to dark. Then we took a drive back down our walking route...driving is a lot faster! We saw the elk again and at another meadow we saw another herd too. We turned off the truck and listened to them crashing off through the woods and bugling to each other all the while. It was something I had never heard before and it was so cool. We saw lots of deer, some with small antlers and one with a really big rack. Then it was off to the tent for a great night's sleep. Next morning we had and easy breakfast so we could get on with the day. We decided we wanted to hike up on Mt. Delano. Delano Peak is the highest point in the Tushar Mountains of south-central Utah. The Tushars are the third-highest range in the state, after the Uinta Mountains and the La Sal Range, though Delano itself is surpassed in height by at least thirty-one other Utah peaks.

Located in the Fishlake National Forest, Delano Peak is the highest point of both Beaver and Piute counties. The mountain is named for Columbus Delano (1809–1896), Secretary of the Interior during the Grant administration. We had a map that supposedly showed a trail head location, but it wasn't to be found so we just headed up and found an old jeep trail that has been unmade by the forest service and used it as our trail up the mountain. It went about 3/4's of the way up and then we found goat trails or just headed up for the rest of the way. We were hoping we'd see some of the rocky mountain goats. About the time the jeep trail ran out we saw one lone goat. That was all we needed to spur us on to the top. When we got up to the peak we looked down the other side and there was a whole herd of goats. They are such powerful looking animals and so beautiful. At the top we also met a couple of guys from AZ. There was also a mailbox up there with a sign-in book to leave your name and comments in. We spent quite a while up there enjoying the views and then headed down. On the way we were able to see another small heard of goats and we also came upon our one lone goat that we had seen on the way up. We should have taken our telephoto lens and we could have gotten betters pics. Going down seemed harder than going up, but we made it with a lunch stop in route. Then we washed our feet in an ice cold stream, changed our clothes in a mountain outhouse and headed on to Fillmore and Ellie's b-day dinner and party. She's was so excited about her carousel cake. It was fun to see Bryan's folks and his grandma Burbank there for the party too. We had a yummy dinner of homemade chicken fingers/Alfredo noodles and salad - Ellie's choice - and then opened presents and had cake. Ellie had a good time with all her presents and dressed up in lots of her girlie presents right away. It was a fun full week end. We got home and unpacked our gear/hit the shower and headed off to bed tired, but with great memories.