Last Campout before back to school - Cedar Mountain

 We love our little trailer more all the time!  We decided to do one more campout before I go back to school on Monday.  Cedar Mountain was our destination and we had a wonderful campout.  We left Thursday after getting work done in the morning and getting ready.  We found a great campsite just as it was about to start an afternoon mountain rainstorm.  We were snug and dry in our little trailer!  It was so nice to enjoy the storm without being in a tent in the mud.  We took a nap, played games and cooked a great dinner all inside.  We had pork chops, gravy and potatoes and some salad.  Later we had hot chocolate and donut/cinnamon roll to dunk in it.  It had stopped raining.  I had sort of a hard night with some leftover colposcopy issues to deal with, but thankfully it wasn't raining.

Friday morning we got up to a beautiful morning crisp and cool and the air so clean from the rain. We decided to hike down to Stud Flat along the trail to Ashdown Gorge.  It was so beautiful...and steep.  But we made it the 3.5 miles down and then back up!  We only saw one guy running down on our way back out.  Then we looked at the new Cedar Breaks Visitor's Center that's almost ready to open and visited the temporary one. After that we went over and hiked the short Bristle Cone Pine trail and then drove to the Navajo Lake overlook.  On our way back to our trailer it started to rain.  Another one of those afternoon mountain storms that happen this time of year.  And we were again, snug and dry in our trailer for another nap, games, listening to a book and making another great dinner.  We had clam chowder, grilled cheese sandwiches, cantaloupe and some not good lemon pie.  We didn't eat much of that, so we had toast and hot chocolate later.  We took a drive after dinner and explored some new roads that we could use to get to this spot in a better way.  

Saturday morning we got up and drove over to hike the Twisted Forest Trail.  It is very steep, but so amazing.  We got to the top and enjoyed the beautiful views and then hiked a different way down that wasn't so steep.  We also hiked through a forest of bristlecone pines and then to down a wash to see the end where the water came over the edge from the top.  It was a very beautiful and interesting side hike.  Then it was time to pack up and head out.  We got everything stowed and went down to Cedar City and had a nice lunch with Bean at the Pizza Factory and ran some errands with him.  Then it was time to head home.  Such a great campout and such a great way to camp in the rain and still enjoy you time! 

 

Camping fun in Boulder and the Kaibab!

 What a great camping trip we had...very spur of the moment.  Paul finished a job on Tuesday morning and came home and said we could go camping for a few days if I wanted to.  So, we put it together and went.  We started out over by Boulder Utah.  I had been wanting to check out some campgrounds over that way for a possible Family Camp site and thought we might camp at one, but we got there pretty late and after eating Subway in Escalante we decided to just look for a good camp spot along the way.  We found a dirt road turn off across from the Chriss Lake hike trailhead and found a great spot down that way.  It was among the aspens and you can't beat that.  We took an evening walk further down that road and found a beautiful stream, played some banana grams and then it was time to call it a day.

The next morning we decided to hike to Chriss Lake.  It was a great, pretty uppity hike and rangers had just cleared it of lots of brush, so that made it even better.  It was a very beautiful hike and the lake had funny ducks on it.  It was about 4 miles.  On our way down we saw 2 groups of forest rangers going up to do more work on the trail.  I was crossing a stream that came out of it on the way out and fell off a log that moved, but thankfully I just got bruised a bit, but nothing more.  

After that, we decided to go and check out those campgrounds.  They were nice, but not what we need for Family Camp.  Good to know.  Along the way we stopped in at the Wildcat Visitor's Center.  We talked to the host and he said we were lucky because the "humming bird people were there."  They were a group of college students (I think) that were there studying humming birds.  They had set up feeders with nets over them around the little picnic area.  The birds would go in there to eat and then they would catch them in little net bags.  They would take them out and do all kinds of measurements on the them.  They were banding some and some that they caught that day had been banded as much at 14 years ago!  The bands were so tiny that to see the numbers on them you had to use a jeweler's glass.  They would measure them some and then stick the birds little beaks into a feeder on the table so they could drink and help relieve some of their stress.  When they had finished all their measurement recording, they asked if we wanted to release them.  Paul and I both got to hold one in our hand and then they flew away.  It was so cool and amazing!

After that we drove back over the mountain to the Hole In the Rock road and drove out to see the Devil's Garden rock formations.  We had seen them years ago and I have been wanting to revisit it.  It was really hot this time of year, but we got to see all all of them.  Really outstanding!

Next we made what was probably a bad choice for how late and how hot it was.  We decided to go further down the road to the trailhead for Dry Fork Narrows and Peek-a-boo and Spooky Gulch.  We took the gradual decent into Dry Fork Narrows and hiked through that for about 1.5 miles.  Then we came out into a wash and went over to see if we wanted to go into the loop trail for the other two.  The entrance to Peek-a-boo was more of a climb/scramble than we wanted to do, so we walked down to see if we could go in the other end at Spooky.  It was SO hot and further and we wanted to go, so we headed back to the Dry Fork Narrows to get back to the truck and go.  I probably would have been ok without the part where we walked over to find Spooky Gulch.  I just got so hot and pretty soon I started feeling sick to my stomach.  I was pretty good in the shade, but needed to stop and rest in some shade here and there.  Then we got out of the narrows and into the full sun and my legs just couldn't go.  I rested and finally after a hill we got to where we could see the truck, but I just had to sit down under a tree in the shade after puking up all the water I had been drinking.  Paul went on to the truck and to get cold water and Triscuits for me. I got cooled down in the shade of a tree and then met him halfway back.  I just kind of hit a wall I guess.  Too much sun and not enough food.  We hadn't eaten that day, but had plenty of water.  I started feeling better as soon as I got cooler and had some salty crackers and cold water in me.  We drove back to Escalante and got some cold pop to go with our crackers and then I really felt much better.  I felt dumb being such a wimp, but I really just was out of gas.  After that we drove home via a favorite campsite, Blue Spruce, and over Hell's Backbone.  We made a great dinner of Super Nachos at our little camp.  We both tried the outdoor shower on our little trailer and it felt pretty good after our hot day out.  Then we played some games and hit the sack.  

The next morning we packed up and drove back down to Escalante and went through the visitor's center for the Grand Escalante National Monument.  We watched the movie and saw the displays.  It's a good place.  Then we were going to drive home, but decided that we would camp another night over at the Kaibab Forest near Jacob Lake.  We just enjoyed the drive and when we got to Jacob Lake we got cookies to have for desert that night and drove out into the dirt roads to find a camp spot.  We finally found a great site and got everything set up.  It was beautiful in a different way here, still high, but not so high as by Boulder and lots more Ponderosa than Aspen trees.  We took a walk for 3 miles up the road to see what was past the log that had fallen across it.  It was so nice. We found some really cool rocks with fossils in them along the way. Then we got back to camp and made another dinner of Super Nachos. (That's what we had since we hadn't planned on staying out that long.)  We were hungry, and it tasted great, and we had the cookies too!  Then we went for a drive down the road.  We had found a way around the log on our walk.  When we got back we played games for a while and then went to bed. 

In the morning we decided to drive over to Lee's Ferry to see if there were any peaches ready to pick in the orchard before we headed home.  There weren't any, but we did get to talk to some guys doing restoration stonework on the old house at Lonely Dell Ranch there.  Then we went down to see the Colorado River and then it was time to get back on the road with one more stop for cookies as we went back by Jacob Lake.  We saw some amazing and varied scenery all along the way on our trip and had such a good time getting to know our little camp trailer better and liking it even more.  We had great, out by ourselves, camp spots both times.  It was a wonderful end of school break camping trip!  

 We also saw this interesting place along the way over by Cannonville.  A very expensive way to camp.

24th of July hike!

 What a great hike we did for July 24th!  We went up the Mill Flat trail that rangers have been clearing!  They had it cleared to within a half mile of being done, but it is so crazy after that there will be a lot of things that have to be done in order for it to be remade.  We met a group of 3 girl rangers coming down from working on it.  They had their big saw and said they had cleared over 300 logs out of trails this summer.  After we got to the end point of that trail we started back down and decided to take the Cut Off Trail up the mountain to get to the Summit Trail.  Neither of us had ever done it before.  As we were going up we sort of lost it, but then we saw a group of guy rangers coming down it with a horse and a couple of mules.  The girls had told us they had taken that route.  The guys told us that in order the clear the rest of the Mill Flat Trail it will probably take "lots of ologists" meeting to work out the environmental and other impacts that will have to be taken into consideration.  It was interesting in to talk to them.  Since they had just come down the Cut Off Trail it was easy to find after they headed down.  I really enjoyed this quicker ascent route to the Summit Trail.  It was so much faster, lower and easier than when we did it via Forsyth Trail a few weeks ago.  It was all very beautiful and there was still quite a bit of water around.  We looked at the view and ate a snack at the top and then headed back down to go out the way we had come.  I wasn't looking forward to the afternoon sun shining on us, but clouds came in and even sprinkled on us a little bit, so it was actually very nice.  We did a total of 11.36 miles and were pretty tired by the end.  We started at 8:30 am and came out at 3:30 pm.  We did it pretty leisurely like and ate lots of red and purple raspberries along the way.  We saw a couple coming in on our way back and other than them and the rangers we saw no one else.  It was a beautiful, peaceful day of hiking.

Then we came home and cleaned up and cooked a wonderful steak, baked potato, salad, bread dinner and had RB floats for dessert and then watched Mr. Destiny.  It was a really relaxing day for us. Happy Pioneer Day.  We did hear a great pioneer story on the way up to go hiking too.  

 

July Birthdays

Beacher, Jem and Supe all have their birthdays in July!  These pics are from Jem's #4 birthday!  He got the presents...and Kai got the ribbons and box!  I think she was having as much fun with them as he will hopefully have with his presents!  Happy Birthday to almost the whole family!  Love you all!  

Kai had his #7 birthday this month.  He loves Hot Wheels and soccer.  Happy Birthday Kai!  We love you!  

Ellie Celebrated her birthday the Sunday after with her cute boyfriend in attendance.  (He's headed off on a mission to Brazil soon).  This was #18 for her.  This coming year is going to be a big one for her.  She will do one more year with her homeschool group so she can go on their Paris trip, but she will also be starting college classes via BYU Pathways.  She has a job at Costa Vida as well.  She's a sweet, hardworking girl and she's getting all grown up.  Happy Birthday Ellie!  We love you and we are proud of you too!  

Family Camp 2024 - Glamping at Brian Head #20

This picture shows most of the people that came for Family Camp.  We are missing Landon, Derek, Brynnli and Ryan, Kennis, Brady, Ellie and Bryan who came after this or did not go on the hike.  

L to R:  Beacher, Gem, Supe, Kaia, Kaebri, Brynn, Eden, Madi, Essie, Jared, Clara, Tahlia, Lou, Koen, Joel, Noah, Trigg, Zade, Tasia, Bonnie, Paul, Lorin, Eliza, Brenden, Kai, Lance, Julene, Zion, Sarai, Afton, Ferf, Torin.  A total of 41 people in all came at one time or another.  We missed Tavin and Gaige who could not come at all.

This year it was Supe and Beacher's turn to plan for Family Camp (with a lot of assistance from Mom and Dad).  Supe decided that we should go to the Sheffield's Cabin at Brian Head.  It was arranged that Paul would do some repairs on the artificial stonework that needed to be done in trade for the time at the cabin.  We have done that in the past.  The work got done in June and we went to the cabin on Wednesday - Saturday, July 17-20th.  We had a really good turn out only missing a few people.  Some could only come up for a day, or even just part of a day, but we only missed Tavin for the whole time.  Some came, but had to leave a little early for other family activities.  But actually, it was a better turn out than most years. There were only beds for 28 people at the cabin, so there had to be some bed additions like some girls sleeping in the sauna room and we brought out little camp trailer that Bean slept in.  There were some cots and airbeds used too.  But, since we were inside, I think everyone was pretty much more comfortable than when we camp outside in tents!

We had great meals as usual and for outside the cabin activities we did a beautiful and family friendly hike at Cedar Breaks and went to Yankee Meadow for a kayaking outing.  It was wonderful weather in the low 70's most of the time with afternoon rain showers. We did our outside activities in the mornings and then played games at the cabin the rest of the time.  Some took walks at different times of day.  We had a fun S'mores night on Thursday after dinner for dessert.  Saturday morning we had a big cabin clean up (part of our agreement for the trade) and it ended up spic 'n' span looking even better than when we arrived.  Everyone that was still there worked very hard on this.  

It ended up being a really great time and it was nice to be inside because these dates that everyone could be available for are right during Monsoon season and it was easier to be inside out of the rain for it.  It made cooking and many other things a lot easier.  Staying at the cabin may have been a big reason why we had such a good turnout.  It will probably be Lou and Bryan's turn for 2025.  (It would be Mom/Dad/Bean's turn next, but Mom and Dad pretty much did it this year since Supe was way too busy being up to his neck in a new job.)

 

I think it is pretty amazing that through thick and thin we have managed to keep doing Family Camp, one way or another, for 20 years now.  I didn't even realize it was the 20th year until I started writing this up.  Sometimes I want to quit when I get really tired of some people's being less than helpful or enthusiastic about doing it.  And sometimes when some people are crabbing at me about it I just want to bag it, but I hope we can keep doing something until Paul and I are not longer in the picture.  I doubt we'll be around for another 20 years.  

North Cascades, Stehekin, Yellowstone

 We had a grand vacation going to see North Cascades National Park and catching a little section of Yellowstone that we hadn't seen before because of roads closed for construction.  It was so wonderful!  We drove mostly backroads to see the scenery and lessen the traffic and that was great too!  We left on Monday, July 1st and drove via Ely, Elko and other small towns and made it to Boise, Idaho the first night.  We stayed at the Inn America motel there and it was pretty nice.  Along the way there we went through a small town area in Ruby Valley and there was a cattle drive going down the road.  The head cowboy took his horse ahead of us and opened up the herd so we could drive through instead of just following them slowly for a long ways.  It was fun.  In Boise we ate at a Burger King that took so long.  Then that evening we walked through a beautiful park with trails and a nature center along the Boise River.  It was a lovely evening.  

Tuesday, July 2nd, was another long driving day, but we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, stopping in at Leavenworth, Washington, driving through a beautiful canyon.  Our destination for that night was Chelan, Washington.  We had a dinner at a good Mexican restaurant and found another wonderful walk around Chelan Lake.  We stayed at the Apple Inn Motel, which was very nice, for the next two nights.  

Wednesday, July 3rd, we got up and boarded a ferry boat, the Lady Liberty, for a 50-mile boat ride up to Stehekin, a little town you can only reach via boat or hike, that borders North Cascades National Park.  When we arrived there we got on a bus with no top and took a great tour of the area.  We stopped at the best bakery along the way, twice.  The first time we had the most delicious pastries.  The next time we had lunch.  We went clear up to Highbridge, which boarders North Cascades and also got to set foot on the Pacific Crest Trail there.  Along the tour we also took a hike to Rainbow Falls and visited a historic one-room schoolhouse.  They still do a one-room school in Stehekin, but they have a new building.  We also stopped in at an historic apple orchard/ranch and an organic garden as well.   It was a great boat ride (I didn't get sick at all) and the tour was fantastic. We loved it all.  That night we just ate dinner out of our ice chest in our motel room.  It was a great meal!  

Thursday, July 4th, we left Lake Chelan and drove the North Cascades Park Road 20 coming in at the East entrance.  It was a beautiful day seeing Washington Pass, hiking Rainy Lake trail. We stopped in at Newhalem WA and while there hiked the Trail of Cedars which was great. We found thimble berries that we had learned about in Stehekin along the trail and ate them up!  We also ate a snack in the park there. We went to the Cascade NP Visitor's Center at the West side of the park and watched the movie and hiked the River Loop Trail, and enjoyed seeing amazing Cascade Mountains all around us and several lakes/dams.  We wished we had had more time to spend in the park, but the time we had was awesome!!!  We ate dinner that night at a park out of our ice chest.  We stopped in at Monroe, WA, and had Dairy Queen to celebrate the 4th.  That night we stayed in a little town called Sultan, WA at the Dutch Cup Motel.  It was old, but great and we even found the town's firework's show to watch that night to celebrate the 4th! It was one of the best firework shows we have ever enjoyed.  It was set up in the middle of a big pasture and we just parked on a dirt road front row seat!  

Friday, July 5th, we made the drive to Missoula, Montana, to stay at the Brooks Street Motor Inn.  Along the way we stopped to hike the Deception Waterfall Trail.  It was so beautiful!  We were so glad we stopped.  We also stopped at the Grand Coulee Dam and watched the movie about it being built.  It is huge and generates more electricity than any other dam in the US.  We needed more time, but didn't have it. We stopped in a little town, Waterton, and had lunch at a park.  We stopped for dinner along the way at a place we have eaten before - Wink's.  They have great huckleberry shakes and the hamburgers were good too.  It was a great day.  The motel in Missoula wasn't our favorite, mostly because it didn't have the advertised fridge that we needed to cool off our ice chest contents.  But we got by.  

Saturday, July 6th, we drove into Yellowstone NP via the north entrance at Gardiner.  We have been to Yellowstone a couple of other times, once during Covid.  But there was one road in the canyon section of the park that had been closed for work, so our goal was to see that section.  We did, and it was beautiful!  We did a hike on the north rim down to the Brink of the Lower Falls.  Then we hiked along the north rim trail to see the other viewpoints as well.  Driving the road in from Gardiner was so beautiful and we also stopped and hiked to see some waterfalls along that road.  It was a great day and we used it all up.  We left the park via the west entrance and stopped off to eat at a Subway along the way to our destination motel, Henry's Fork Inn at St. Anthony, Idaho.  It was a really nice little motel along the Henry's Fork of the Snake River.  

Sunday morning, July, 7th, we attended a ward that started at 9 am so that we could get back and load up to head for home.  It was a nice testimony meeting.  We talked to Tahlia along the way home to wish her a happy birthday #12!  We stopped in at Evanston, Wyoming, to eat a snack and then snacked more in the car along the scenic route for dinner.  Finally, at Orem, we left the scenic route (we went through Bear Lake, but got no pictures), and got onto I15 to make getting home a little faster.  We got home and found all well and found our own bed at last.  This was a wonderful trip!!!  One more national park to check off and lots of wonderful memories to enjoy!  

Forsyth Trail and beyond!

 I didn't think I was going to make it.  Paul and I decided we wanted to try backpacking quilts.  They save so much weight in a pack rather than carrying even a lightweight sleeping bag.  The kids put together and got us some for Father's Day/my birthday.  I thought it would be cool to go for just a short little hike/overnight campout and try them out.  Paul had a bigger hike in mind.  I went along with it, but then it ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be...and I sort of crashed along the way.  We ended up doing Forsyth Trail up to Burger Peak plus on to Further Water.  Forsyth to Burger Peak is 10.6 miles and is considered challenging with an elevation gain of 3487 feet.  This was a lot more than what I had in mind, but we had hiked the first 4 miles of it earlier in the year and it was so beautiful, I thought I wanted to see the rest of it.  We got there and hit the trail at 8:30 am on Friday morning.

I had about a 21 lb. pack.  I really had nothing but some phone charging blocks that wasn't essential.  But it wasn't too far into the very uphill hike that I really started feeling it.  We saw a guy a couple of miles up the trail that told us water was going to disappear not very long after this unless we wanted to go to Further Water.  We needed to be able to have water to cook our dinner and stay the night, so that concerned me.  The full bladder of water I had in my pack was 6 lbs. of the load.  We didn't have anything else to put more water in.  But I think I must have of slowed down my water usage then and that may have been part of why I was having a hard time and was getting concerned about whether I would be able to make it all the way. About 5.5 miles up, right by a direction sign we found a really beautiful campsite.  I asked to stop and rest there. I think it was about 11:00.  (We also hadn't eaten anything, but that's usual for the intermittent fasting lifestyle we are living right now and we had backpacked like that before.)  I was having such a hard time that I wanted to just stop there, but we finally decided the thing to do was to drop my pack there and also drop most of Paul's pack into mine and then hike up to the top and then on to Further Water to get more water and then come back there to camp.  

That's what we did.  I was still struggling.  It got so very straight up and rocky after that.  It was pretty hard for both of us.  We had to stop and just breathe very often - like every 100 steps for most of the way to Burger Peak.  It was supposed to be 3 miles more to get to Further Water from that campsite, but it sure seemed like more than that because the going was so slow.  We peaked out and saw amazing views.  Then we kept going to get to Further Water.  It was quite a bit down and very hard to find the trail.  And then it started up again.  Paul had found a helpful map on Google, but it wasn't too functional because he didn't have a signal.  When it seemed like there was just one more big climb and then a down hill to where it was supposed to be we just decided that I would stay put and Paul would do the last little ways and come back if he didn't find it in an hour.  I was so tired and felt so unable to do that last uphill that even though I didn't like being separated, I just felt like I was slowing Paul down and it would be better to do it that way.  I drank some water and then he took off.  I laid down on a ground cloth he left and waited.  I took a nap and just rested and ate some trail mix .  We had eaten some after the peak too.  

Thank goodness he found it and was back in less than an hour and we just took a rest and then ate our apple and orange and more trail mix and headed back up and then down to the campsite.  We had hiked about 10.6 miles by then (Paul had that other mile or so on his own).  We were so glad to get there.  It was about 5:30 and we were tired and hungry and glad to just lay down for a while and rest our tired feet.  We made our dehydrated dinners and they were very good along with dehydrated cheesecake bites and later some hot chocolate.  We rested and played cards and cleaned up the campsite until bedtime. 

I can't say I had a great night's sleep.  My backpacking quilt was great, but the pad I had was pretty miserable.  (We  had ordered a new one, but it hadn't come in yet.)  I did lots of noisy tossing and turning, but I saw the stars and moon come up and then finally the sun.  I slept somewhere in there I'm sure.  

We got up with the sun and left camp at 7:30 and got down by 9:30.  It was, all in all, such a beautiful hike.  Near the summit the flowers were beautiful and at the lower elevations they were still beautiful near the water.  It was all beautiful because of the magnificent trees!  At the top we saw some Bristlecone Pines that I never knew we had in the Pine Valley Mountains.  We also saw some of the most giant Limber Pines all along the upper areas of the trail.  Of course the Aspens, Furs, and Ponderosa are all wonderful too.  

So, with some adjustments, that ended up being wise and good, I made it!  Dropping the packs and camping down low where it was not windy and so we didn't have to carry heavy packs up that very steep section, was the best thing to do after all.  I'm not sure, without doing something to get into better shape, that I am going to be doing anything that challenging again soon, or maybe never.  I'm not sure right now.