Root Family

Root Family

Jun 28, 2007

Utah Lake Water Skiing June 2007

April and I got to test our waterskiing skills last night at Utah Lake. It'd been a couple years for me and a few more for her, but we're still the rockin' waterskiers we grew up as. (We started skiing doubles at 11 and slalom at 14?15?). After I got a couple of good runs in I gave the wakeboard a shot. I got up on my fourth try, but biffed it on my way out of the wake. I have no idea how people do flips on those. The HB did some skiing too, but most impressive was that his dad, who's in his 60's got up on skis too! I hope I can still waterski when I'm over 60!

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Jun 25, 2007

Upper Crawford Draw, Hidden Splendor Mine, Joes Valley, & Manti La Sal Natl. Forest

This past weekend we camped in the desert on one night, and at close to 10k feet the next. Only in Utah.

We followed Bill and April down Hwy 6 to the San Rafael Swell where our destination was up on the actual swell (not in front of the reef like we typically do). The first area we stopped at was upper Crawford Draw. Crawford draw is a drainage/slot canyon that is at the "headwaters" to the long and deep Straight wash/Eardley Canyon. It was amazing driving into the canyon Trailhead, crossing over the shallow wash which is crawford draw, only to see it faintly turn to a ditch, then abruptly come to a tall dry-fall and the slot begins from there.

We worked our way down into the slot and hiked as far as we could before we came to too many pools of water. We didn't really go very far, but for me it was neat to see the making of what becomes a very DEEP canyon.

Working our way down into the slot

Crawford Draw 06.22.07

On the rim

Crawford Draw 06.22.07

Inside Crawford draw

Crawford Draw 06.22.07

Getting close to water

Crawford Draw 06.22.07

Saw a nice size snake slithering around (bad pic)

Crawford Draw 06.22.07

Trying to avoid the muddy slot canyon water (even though I'm wearing keens)

Crawford Draw 06.22.07

Alene tossing up her peace signs

Crawford Draw 06.22.07


From Crawford draw we took a drive out to McKay flat and on over to the Hidden Splendor mine area. This was another area of the swell that Alene and I had never been to. I had read up about the old airstrip out here that is still used occasionally. We parked a little past the air strip and April and Bill hung out while Alene and I went down into the Muddy Creek area and hiked back to the Hidden Splendor mine area to check out the mines and the "motel 6".

Some wild horses on the way out to Hidden Splendor

San Rafael Swell 06.22.07

The airplane landing strip

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

Hiking down toward Hidden Splendor and Motel 6 along the Muddy Creek

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

Near the mine; an old service truck/jeep

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

Adding a little drama to the hike :-)

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

Self portraits at the mine

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

Visiting the Motel 6 - This is a row of old miners cabins (the swell is littered with them). Notice the mining claims nailed to the shack; someone is hanging onto hope that they can mine more uranium out here someday; I hope to hell it never happens.

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

It's a bit of a fixer-upper, but nothing a little plywood and nails can't fix (and maybe some duct tape)

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07

Hidden Splendor 06.22.07


When we got back from our little jaunt Bill and April were anxious to get out of there because the gnats (or mosquitos?) were attacking like crazy being so close to the river, and it was mid-June and getting quite hot so we high-tailed it out of there to find a camping spot.

We ended up over at the Head of Sinbad on the north side of I-70 tucked back in this awesome campsite at the end of a long sandy road. The site was tucked in between two large sandstone cliffs and the back of it opened up to another large cliff that over-looked the Cactus flats area on toward Sids Mountain.

The sun setting was really lighting up the sandstone in the area

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

Alene at the cliff edge behind our campsite. This area offered an awesome view of the northern area of the swell

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

Hiking up above the campsite

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

Can't have a camp without a picture of the fire (photo by Bill)

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

After a good nights sleep we got up and checked out the pictographs in the area, then ran over to see Dutchman Arch. While we were there we watched a cattle drive pass by.

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

Dutchman Arch

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

The cattle drive

Head of Sinbad 06.22.07

After the cattle drive passed by, we proceeded down Buckhorn draw road to check out the San Rafael River campground area along with the old CCC bridge, then on up Buckhorn draw onto higher country

Hanging out in the San Rafael River bottom. Hard to believe this thing gets flowing big enough to run Kayaks through

Buckhorn Draw 06.22.07

I was ready to do a cannonball, but the water clearly wasn't deep enough

Buckhorn Draw 06.22.07

The old CCC bridge

Buckhorn Draw 06.22.07

Buckhorn draw panel - The rest of my photos were washed out by the sun

Buckhorn Draw 06.22.07

Since it was so hot we opted to drive on through Orangevale on up to our favorite swimming lake: Joes Valley Reservoir. We weren't quite sure where we were going to camp this night, but we knew we could always camp up above Joes if we needed to as there are plenty of places to camp

We cooled off in the lake for quite a while (no pictures on this part of the trip), then headed on Westward up above Joes Valley driving on the Orangevale Rd, destination still un-known. While on our way up we saw several signs about bear warnings, suggesting to us that bears had been seen in the area. Keep in mind this was a week or so after that 10 year old boy was pulled from his tent in AF Canyon and killed, so we were a little nervous. We ended up at the top of the mountain just off Skyline drive in this small grove of pine trees and set up camp there.

A little water fall on our way up the road

Skyline Drive 06.23.07

The view below our campsite, looking down on a rangers residence and to Joes Valley beyond

Skyline Drive 06.23.07

There was still a bit of snow in the area

Skyline Drive 06.23.07

The grove in which we set up camp

Skyline Drive 06.23.07

The area around us was beautiful, not to mention my wife making this picture even more beautiful

Skyline Drive 06.23.07

Sunset from our campsite grove

Skyline Drive 06.23.07

The next morning we got up early after a bad nights sleep (relating to bear paranoia) and headed on down Ephraim canyon, into Ephraim, and on home.

Looking down on the San Pete valley from skyline drive

IMG_1327

In some ways, to me, this trip was kind of epic in that we saw a vast amount of scenery in two days. I kept thinking to myself where else one could be desert camping one day, then high mountain camping the next and it made me so grateful to live in this great state and be able to do this.

Jun 11, 2007

Maple Canyon June 2007

Alene and I knew we needed to get away for at least two of the 5 weekends this month of June (5 weekends??), so we had our sights set on somewhere in the Uintas (Clyde Lake trail), but we got a ton of rain in the valley last week, which meant two things: We found a leak in our new roof, and Clyde Lake will likely have a lot of snow and be cold.

We opted for Maple Canyon. We brought my nephew Brady along who is always funny and fun to be with. When we first got there, we pulled off the side of the road at the first Box canyon. The hike to the back was much shorter than I remember when I first did it. In fact, it's funny how you do a hike the first time and it seems somewhat long, but the second time it seems much shorter. I think it's the same way with driving too.

All the campsites were full so we kept driving up the road until it turned into this really bumpy/rocky dirt road. The subaru did a great job driving up that thing. We went over the ridge to the back and then down into a beautiful, heavily forrested area. We found the perfect campsite (well, actually April and Bill found it a few weeks before us, but we didn't know we were camping in the same spot). We did some hiking around the area later that day (after getting set up).

The next day we drove to the top of Maple Canyon and hiked down to a large Cave that you have to climb up a rope to get into it. I was proud of Caiden because he was able to get up there, despite being really scared (it's about a 15' wall you have to climb up). We hiked back up to the top, stopping off to climb some other rocks to get a good view of the canyon as well as the rest of San Pete Valley. Alene hiked down the rest of the trail (backside) and we drove down to meet her. We ended up doing a bit of some exploring (well, I did at least; Caiden and Brady started a caterpillar collection and they just played with them while I drove). I found some cool trails and a few AWESOME campsites back there. One campsite had enough room for a LARGE group of people if you wanted, very flat, but up really high on the mountain.

We got back down the mountain in about 40 minutes and found Alene already back down and had started hiking up the dirt road to meet us. She was amazing. She must have flown down the backside.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

Scrambling up into a side cave in Box Canyon



We found this cool dude hanging out on the trail



Alene had to give him a little kiss



The boys pretending to climb up the waterfall at the end of the box canyon




Our campsite



View from the top of Maple Canyon



Up inside the cave along the loop trail





Getting ready to climb out



Hanging out with the boys



Me and Alene



We're going to be pretty busy for the next couple of months. We have plans to go somewhere in the Swell with Bill and April next week, the following week I'm playing some paintball, then we'll be leaving for WA to visit Alene's brother and his family. After that we have a family reunion at Joes Valley. Should be a lot of fun.