Trip Report: Joes Valley

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Had a wonderful over-night trip to Joes Valley area. We (Alene, Caiden, April, Bill and their children) left Saturday morning and arrive down there around 1 or 2pm?? Anyway, our plan was meet up with Clint and Annie and just hang out at the lake all day (no hiking). Alene is due to have the baby in a couple of weeks and she wanted a chance to just relax and soak in this beautiful reservoir.

Our campsite was located West and up above the reservoir off the Orangevale road. When we arrived to the area, we found what we thought were Clint and Annie's tent, but to be sure we checked the garbage bag to find out what kind of Beer they were drinking (it was Clint and Annie's). We set up our tents, then headed down to the lake and found them very quickly.

It was a great time, just relaxing in the water. We brought the raft my grandpa gave us and floated around in that for a while. Later in the day Bill, Clint, Caiden and I drove down to the rock cliffs which were fun to jump off of. I wanted to challenge Caiden a bit and see how high up he was willing to go to jump. He did an awesome job. However, I wasn't the only one doing the challenging. Clint and Bill decided to climb up behind the jumping rock and test out the bigger cliff that wasn't jumped off of often. After Bill and Clint had done it a few times, they finally coaxed me up there. The whole way I kept telling them I wasn't going to do it. I totally didn't want to. But, by the time I got up there, I had no choice. It really didn't look as bad. I went ahead and gave it a go and had fun with it. I was pissed though that I didn't have Caiden film it, so I went back the next day and had Alene film it. So, the challenge went through and lived up to it. I'm pretty sure I've never jumped from that high.

Anyway, toward the end of the day rain clouds began to form and so we packed up quickly and booked it back to our campsite just as the rain started coming down (our rain fly wasn't on yet). The rain went away later on and it made for a nice and cool evening.

The next day we went back and did a bit more swimming and jumping of course. Of course, the day got worse as we came home to a flooded basement, but that's life I guess. Here are some pictures and video clips of the trip:

Our blurry campsite



Other campsite pics





View looking away from our campsite





Clint gathering firewood for us



Rafting it up



Caiden is very tan this summer



Bowen spent most of the day throwing rocks into the water and clapping for himself





Ash (Clint and Annie's dog) assumed we brought this blanket down for him to rest on (he was right). Both of their dogs were so good.



Bill's big cliff jump



He gives it 2 thumbs up



Clints big cliff jump



Another one of Clint jumping above me




Caiden's biggest jump on Saturday (I get him to jump even higher on Sunday)




Campfire



Joes Valley reservoir on Sunday morning (not a single boat out there)







I've still got hands (even though I'm phat)




Alene and her beautiful big belly



Caiden mid-air



Caiden's biggest jump yet. He was seriously brave to try this



April's jump




I finally did it



Caiden jumping above me



Me and Caiden tandem jumping



THE SHARK IS ALIVE!!!

Progression of the fat man jump

This was roughly a 25' cliff, which is the biggest I've ever jumped off of. For those of you familiar with Joes Valley, it's the cliff behind the standard jumping rock that everyone jumps off of. It looks impossible and like you have to jump out far, but it's actually just a step off the cliff and you're home free. Of course, this all depends on the water level.

Awesome trip cut short

Our friend James invited us up to this camping area he knew of at the end of Murdock Basin road in the Uintas. We planned on going up there just for one night and come back on Sunday morning due to some family obligations.


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At first we tried one particular site that was beautiful, but it was taken. The people there offered to let us stay there too (there was PLENTY of space), but we liked our privacy, so we set out for site #2

The site was AWESOME. Right on a beautiful lake (like the first one) named Hoover lake. We got our tent and things set up and blew up our rafts to go out on the lake. My grandpa sent us a new fishing raft that he had used once, but found it was too much for him to handle. It was much nicer than we expected.

Here are some pictures of us out on the lake.

Alene hates this one because she thinks she looks fat. I told her if she covered her belly in the picture, she looks perfectly normal, so everyone be sure to comment and tell her she looks cute and not fat



Me trying to pretend I know how to fish


James and Jonathan



Here is a video of the lake





So, my explanation for it being cut short. Not to give out too much personal information and embarrass myself more than I already did, let's just say I had some serious pain in the family jewel region that I thought at first was a bug bite of some sort. My pain was worse than anything I've experienced in a LONG time. So serious in fact that we left all our stuff and booked it out of there immediately. I felt so bad that James and Jonathan were going to have to pack up all our stuff, but I was seriously fearing for my life, it was that bad. It took us 1.5 hrs to get to the hospital in Heber and by that time most of the pain had gone away, but I was exhausted. The Dr. basically said that I must have "sat akwardly" while I was in the raft, causing my circulation to be cut off.

Anyway, that's about all I'm going to say. Needless to say, IT HURT!!

So, I hope to go back there again and actually spend some quality time up there. It was really beautiful.