Sawtooths for Pioneer Day

Mike and I took a little road trip to my home state for our next outdoor adventure. It felt so good to come home to my mountains and forests. When I was growing up, I didn't spend any time in the Sawtooths but they remind me of the forests that I did grow up in - where the forest floors are covered in huckleberry bushes and there are trees on all sides of the mountains (as opposed to just the north-facing slopes like it is in Utah).

We drove up Wednesday afternoon and secured a "base" car-camping site for the whole weekend. And then we started our backpacking trip into Baron Lakes Thursday morning. We took the shuttle boat from Redfish Lodge across Redfish Lake to the trailhead. Then we hiked the 9 miles in to Baron Likes passing huckleberry bushes, water falls, brooks, and wildflowers all along the way. We stopped to eat lunch at Alpine Lake and then made the push into Baron Lakes after that. We were hiking in to Baron Lakes with four other parties, so Mike and I discussed it and decided to send Mike sprinting ahead to get the campsite in the meadow that my boss told me about. He got to the meadow first, dropped his pack, and then came back looking for me to take my pack, but we missed each other because I was on a high trail headed to the meadow while he was down closer to the lake. But we met up again later at the meadow. We set up our tent and went exploring around the area and to this overlook rock. After that we started cooking our dinner of massaman curry, but while we did that we noticed the temperature drop drastically. Since I was worried I might be cold in my 25-degree bag that night, we went up to the top of this knoll where there was another campsite and we discovered that it seriously felt 10 degrees warmer up there! So we moved our camp up there. ha ha!

Lunch at Alpine Lake

Campsite #1

Campsite #2

The next morning we ate breakfast and then headed up this other area to explore it and came across this way cool frozen lake in a cirque, and we played with the ice for far too long! Then we returned to camp, packed up, and headed up and out of the basin to head back to our base camp. All told we probably hiked about 20 or 22 miles in those two days.

Looking back down on Baron Lakes

That night we made tin foil dinners while we waited for Mike's friend, Lane, to join us for the rest of the weekend. He showed up late and we made some s'mores on our camp fire. The next day we did a 3.5-mile hike into the spectacular Goat Lake. For some extra fun, Lane packed in his pack-raft and we took turns paddling around the lake and checking out the snowfields that were sloping down into the lake. Sadly, it was on this hike that I either got too much sun, drank too little water, ate too little food, or all the above because I started feeling like I wanted to throw up as we hiked out. Mike was awesome and stayed with me the whole time - making me drink water and eat some food. I made it back to the campsite and took a nap!

The steep hike up to Goat Lake

Goat Falls

Goat Lake

Lane, me, and Mike

On our last day there, Mike and I went mountain biking on the Fisher Creek Loop trail. We showed up at the trailhead at the same time as another lone mountain biker and lucky for all three of us, we decided to ride together and shuttle the ride! Otherwise we would have had to bike down the highway for 2.5 miles and then up a dirt road for 6.5 miles. Yuck! So instead we took my car up to the top of the dirt road and started from there. It still ended up being a 10-mile ride. The ride was pretty cool - the first part was really sad since it was through a burned area, but then the downhill was awesome and through a nice green section. After that, our new friend took me up to get my car while Mike waited at the trailhead.

After that Mike and I headed home to Utah.

Rides to Document

Mike and I took a mountain bike ride up the upper Fifth Water trail and it took us to an amazing view over Strawberry Reservoir and a field of pretty yellow flowers. And it was the perfect time of night for lighting too. So we just had to take a picture of it.

And then my dear friend, Kendra, came to town so we had many rides and took some fun pics.

left to right: Katie, me, Janie, and Kendra

One Mad Momma Cow

On the fourth of July, Mike and I went for an early morning mountain bike ride up the Cottonwood trail in Diamond Fork Canyon. While up there we came across two adult female cows and their two calves. I mentioned to Mike just as we passed them how docile cows are - cuz they just sit there and stare at you while they chew their cud and we can ride on by with no problems with them. Little did I know how that statement would turn on me! Shortly after seeing those cows, we turned around and came back down the way we had and we came across those "docile" cows again. This time they were a bit down the trail and we were moving a little bit faster since we were going downhill. The adults got off the trail pretty quick, but the two calves just ran down the trail in front of us for a while. Eventually they got off the trail too so we really picked up speed at that point and headed down the trail at our normal speed. But a minute or two later, I heard a bunch of crazy mooing behind me so I looked back and . . . saw one of the two adult cows CHASING after us mooing wildly all the while!!! It was crazy. I freaked out. So I started pedaling to go even faster, which is scary when you're on a twisty, turny, rocky trail! I yelled at Mike to pick his speed up because a cow was chasing us and all he did was start laughing!! But he didn't have the cow right behind him, nor was he having the visions of the two ton cow ramming him and then trampling him! I was thinking of all my contingency plans.... could I jump off my bike and get a tree between us? Would she trample my bike? Would she give up when she couldn't get to me because of the tree? Or would I have to climb a tree?! Thankfully, I didn't have to resort to my backup plans because we maintained our distance and that fat momma cow tired out after a minute or two of chasing us, but she kept mooing wildly for a while after she quit chasing us! All we could think was she was either mad at us for chasing and scaring her calves and wanted to teach us a lesson, or else she thought we were still chasing her calves down the trail. Ha! We've biked past a bunch of cows, but we've never had one chase us before!

All the way to New Mexico for a Concert

Collective Soul is one of Mike's all time favorite bands. And they came to Salt Lake City.... on a night that he already committed to go mountain biking with me and some other friends. If we weren't going with the other friends then he would have changed our plans on the fly and bought tickets for the two of us to see them in concert even though he didn't find out about the concert until the day of. So he was a good little loyal friend and we went mountain biking. That's when I suggested we see where they were playing next and maybe we could make a road trip of it. So the next place they were performing was Albuquerque, New Mexico. We stewed over whether we wanted to drive all that way for a concert and finally decided to do it three days before we left. We made a trip of it, so it wasn't just for the the concert. And Mike's friend Lane joined us for the fun and it was nice to have the extra help with the gas bill.

So we stopped at Mesa Verde National Park for a quick tour. Then we went on to Durango, Colorado where Mike and Lane floated the Animas River in their pack rafts while I shuttled them. Then we stopped over in Santa Fe for some yummy Mexican food and a pretty awesome downhill mountain bike ride. Lane shuttled us to the top of their local ski resort where we started at an elevation of 10,500 feet above sea level and then we descended 3,000 feet over 10 miles to where we met up with Lane again. We had seventeen (17!) stream crossings on the trail - and I loved every one of them.

Then we wandered through downtown Santa Fe where we bought some yummy fajitas from a food cart in the middle of their town square where a big gay/lesbian/transvestite festival was in full swing. We got a good chuckle from the sight of the 15-minute HIV testing truck - something you would never see on the streets of where we are from. I loved the architecture! It was so fun and quaint.

Then we drove on to Albuquerque where we took the tram up to Sandia Peak, and went to the concert that night. The concert was pretty good! Kind of a bummer venue (it was in a smokey casino's bingo room), but fun nevertheless. From now on, I'll be much better at guessing Collective Soul's songs from among Mike's collection of music when we play guess the artist! :)

Then Sunday we headed home with a few stops: one to Chaco Culture National Historic Park (it's like Mesa Verde on steroids) and another to Shiprock. Beware the "quick" stop at Chaco... it's like 25 miles down a very wash-boardy dirt road, and it's very hot out there. In fact, New Mexico is very hot in general. But I'm glad I can now say I've been to New Mexico! :)

Backpacking Great Basin National Park

Mike and I joined some new friends he met through backcountrypost.com (Steve, Tessa, Yvonne, and Chet) for a one-nighter backpacking trip. We originally wanted to do the Under-the-Rim trail in Bryce Canyon National Park, but they had some bear attacks and closed the trail. :( So we looked for a plan B and scored pretty well! We drove out to Great Basin National Park in Nevada. I was impressed with the park: it was not busy at all, and it wasn't all sagebrush I thought it was going to be - it was actually quite beautiful back in the canyons! Our backpacking trip was a loop up to Baker Lake, over a pass into Johnson Lake, and then back to our cars. Baker Lake was at some elevation like 10,500 feet above sea level! The hike wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be either, but then again I was on some serious steroids for my poison ivy rash - that, yes, I dealt with while doing this backpacking trip! One night the itching was so bad, I hopped out of the tent and yanked my pants down right out in the open and smothered my rashes (on the back of my thighs) with anti-itch cream! But I survived.

Sterilizing some water with his steri-pen.

As we hiked over the pass to Johnson Lake, we also peaked Pyramid Peak (11,926 feet above sea level). Johnson Lake had some pretty cool run down cabins and mining structures and equipment. It was fun to explore those old places and to think people lived up there in the early 1900s!

Then we stayed at the Wheeler Peak campground that was absolutely beautiful, especially when we got to see some alpenglow on Wheeler Peak. The next day my steroids were really kicking in, so I rocked the day hike we did up to the Bristlecone pine grove (those trees are thousands of years old!) - I even kicked Mike's trash! And then Mike and I tried some random mountain biking trail along the highway and it was a total bust. It was a six-mile trail that should have only taken us about an hour to complete, but because the trail was almost returned to natural landscape it was hard to follow and quite sandy, and even technical at times, it took us over two hours to ride it. Boo.

I Did Not Escape the Ivy

This pretty little plant, poison ivy, is currently the bane of my existence. Yep. I got a pretty good rash on the back of my left thigh and I suspect I'm getting another one on the back of my right thigh. Lovely. No matter how careful I was! There was one point where we had to ugly choices: 1) swim in the river with our packs because it was so deep, or 2) wade through the poison ivy. We opted for the latter. I was wearing long pants and sleeves, but I must have gotten some on my hands and then transferred it to my legs. I was so careful too! I decontaminated everything in the washer with hot water and lots of detergent. And even rubbed all my non-washables and my very own body with rubbing alcohol. All to no avail. So the blistery rash will be my companion for the next 3 weeks. Ugh.