We awoke amongst the Pinyon Pine to the barking of pups, ready for breakfast. Given that we were nearly outnumbered by the furry beasts, this wasn't surprising; in fact, they would be our alarm clock every day. Monte @Blackdawg quickly climbed down from his tent - letting them out for a bathroom break and a quick meal - before loading them back up and heading back to bed for another hour. Apparently this is their routine at home, as well! It was closer to 8:15am when the smell of coffee permeated camp, an indicator that Mike @Digiratus was up and…
1 CommentTag: Claret Cup Cactus
There are always places that get missed or left behind. Sometimes it's due to a lack of time; sometimes because of a lack of knowledge. Whatever the reason, and despite the fact that it's both normal and unavoidable, I almost always feel like I've failed in some way. Of course, it's not a failure at all; there is so much more than we can ever see. Sometimes - the best times - there's so much in a given area that it's easy to plan an entire trip. Other times, there's not quite enough. In those cases, it's always nice when…
15 Comments
With only 4 miles between us and a hot shower, we strolled right past the mouth of Kane Gulch on our way to check out Junction Ruin. Then, the plan was to tick off another mile - or so - of the trail out, in search of a nice slickrock camp site for the night. But oh, how plans change. High above the wash, there was no way we were going to get ourselves up to this gem of a ruin. As we approached the enormous alcove in which Junction Ruin sat, it began to rain. The storm we'd expected…
13 Comments
Even before we'd pulled our sleeping bags out of the tent, I was distracted. Just outside an alcove behind the grassy area we'd called home, I'd stumbled upon some colorful spring flowers that were also waking up to a new day. Indian Paintbrush. (left) | Evening Primrose (Oenothera). (center) | Utah Serviceberry (Amelanchier utahensis). (right) The difference between the three of us and the flowers was that the flowers hadn't been stuffed into an ultralight Marmot Superalloy 3P for the last 12 hours. Now, I shouldn't complain too much - the mosquito netting of the tent did its job fantastically…
14 Comments
I wasn't sure how comfortable @mini.turbodb would be under the stars and on slickrock, but with a few strategically placed rocks - which we all placed around our pads - to alert her to a getting-too-close-to-the-edge situation, she slept great. Better than either @mrs.turbodb or me, in fact! We'd set an alarm for two minutes before sunrise, which was technically about 30 minutes later than we should have gotten going. The cool morning temperatures are much nicer to hike in, and we weren't yet familiar with how long it would take to filter our water. Regardless, we had a relatively…
11 Comments
"I want to do something epic for @mini.turbodb's spring break," @mrs.turbodb mentioned to me a few weeks ago. At the time, I think we were on our way home from a day of skiing, and I jokingly suggested that we could take @mini.turbodb on her first ever backpacking trip, through the Grand Gulch. After all, I'd recently created a goal around hiking the length of this amazing gash on the Earth's surface. Anyone who has followed along for a while will likely recall that I don't like carrying weight on my shoulders. In fact, I have a collection of variously-sized…
15 Comments