pace yourself

The weather is beginning to change here in Utah - just in time for the big Thanksgiving travel days - so we thought we should go over to Park City one last time until spring (we do everything we can to avoid going to Park City during the winter since Parley's Canyon can be so treacherous).  Saturday was forecast to be the better of the two weekend days; we got our hiking stuff together, threw Milton in the car and were on the road by 9:30 a.m.

Momentary pause

We had initially planned to hike the Glenwild area but when we pulled in to the small parking lot, we saw a new [since we had been there last] sign saying that dogs had to be on leash.  We wanted Milt to be able to run, so we piled back into the car and drove to the North Valley Trailhead of the Round Valley trails instead.  At the trailhead there was a pack of five dogs heading out with their people, a pack of five dogs finishing up with their people and a lone fatbiker; other than a couple of trailrunners towards the end of our hike, we really didn't see any people out on the trails.  We didn't see any critters either but there were TONS of deer / rabbit / squirrel tracks.

That's a nice sky

The sun was out and melting the frozen dirt so the trail surface varied from packed snow to slick mud.  For the most part, we were able to stick to snow, rock and dry dirt although we did notice that a couple of trails had been closed to protect their surfaces.  We started out going up Happy Gilmor, then switched to follow some equestrian trails up to the ridge.  These equestrian trails differ from the MTB trails in that they pretty much go straight up, instead of working their way to the top via innumerable switchbacks.  When we reached Rademan Ridge, we went down Rambler, crossed Round Valley Express and Rambler, and started climbing again on the faint doubletrack where the buried pipeline goes.  Up and over the top, we jumped onto Rusty Shovel at the point, took it down to Ramble On and then turned left on Ramble On.  From here, we took the connector to Round Valley Express, crossed there and followed the unnamed trails back to the trailhead.

Beginning to look wintery

Milton looked like he was having so much fun.  He must have doubled the mileage we did (we did around 5.5 miles), ranging far afield and then sprinting back to us, pouncing on things both real and imaginary, and just running-running-running.  He did start to slow down a little towards the end, when we got on Ramble On, and when we got back to the car, he laid right down on the towel we put out for him.  Once home, he crashed - hard.  "Pace yourself" is not part of his vocabulary at this point.

Hike stats: 5:48 miles; moving 2:00 hours / 2.7 m.p.h.; overall 2:12 / 2.5; 700' elevation

sol-bright 2019

Shoulder season continues: wherein we have to do yardwork (there's only one tree in the front yard but SO many leaves) and errands (my MTB had a squeak) on Saturday but get out for a quick hike on Sunday.  With ski season purportedly just around the corner, it was time for our traditional Sol-Bright hike.

 Tradition

It was mid- to late-morning by the time we pulled in to the parking lot at Silver Lake (closed for the season, with the nordic center not yet open).  There were plenty of parking places still, although there were people milling about; by the time we finished up, it would be pretty busy with people strolling the boardwalk in their city shoes, slipping on the ice.  We could see a few people out on the lake playing pond hockey - no moose sightings, however.

 Wolverine Cirque looking a little thin, snow-wise

We started out going counter-clockwise on the boardwalk, then turned right towards Lake Solitude, then took the left fork so that we would be going up through Brighton and returning down through Solitude.  It was cool to start, especially in the shade, but we were already peeling off layers as we started the climb above the lake.  The sun was bright and it felt good.

 A rare hatless H photo

We passed a couple of groups of people but once we were above the frozen reservoir, we didn't see anyone else - until we got to the top of the Summit chair (RIP the wonderful old double chair that used to be there), where there were a couple of guys working.  I always forget how steep it is hiking up Liberty/Dynamite/etc.  It is STEEP.  But there had been several snowmobiles up and down before us so the footing was good: not slippery and no post-holing.

 Not much snow yet in the hills behind me 

We lingered up at the top for a few minutes, making our way around the corner to take a look at Wolverine Cirque.  You could see ski/board tracks all around but nothing recent; there had been rather more snow earlier in the week before the sun came back out.

 Honeycomb Canyon

For now, however, we were enjoying the sun.  We made our way down through the Solitude side, making really good time until we got into the trees after Lake Solitude.  Then the trail got quite icy and we had to pick our way carefully to as not to take a digger.  Some microspikes or Yaktrax would have helped.

Cheers for post-hike beers

When we got back to Silver Lake, we continued around the boardwalk, just to finish up the loop.  As is tradition, it was time for parking lot beers - with a toast to the upcoming ski season.  All hail Ullr!

Hike stats: 5.05 miles; moving: 1:55 time / 2.6 m.p.h; overall: 2;32 time / 2.0 .m.ph.; 1,340' of elevation

middle earth

On Sunday, we got going a little earlier than we had on Saturday.  Since we were going to hike, we didn't need it to warm up so much; since we had to drive back to SLC, we did need to be timely about things.  To pick our hike, we got a little unconventional: we had a Google Earth image of the Colorado River as it left Moab and we studied the various canyons coming off the Potash Road until we found one that looked likely.  As we headed out, H remarked that since we knew nothing about where we were going, it could be a total bust.  Milton, proudly wearing his harness, looked like he wouldn't care if it was a bust or not - he was just glad to be going.

Milton in motion

We parked at the [much larger and improved since I first was there] Corona Arch trailhead, already busy with people and dogs.  Leaving all that behind, we walked back up Potash Road, intending to explore Bootlegger Canyon.  Although all that seems to be online about Bootlegger is that the Union Pacific railroad runs through it, below Corona Arch, from our photograph it looked likely enough, especially the right fork that the railroad tracks did not go through.  Unfortunately, the lower canyon was thickly choked with vegetation and after a fair amount of futile back-and-forth, we realized we weren't going to get far without a machete.  According to our photo, however, just a little way further up the road was another canyon that led to the Middle Earth waterfall*.  There had been a car parked there when we'd driven past but by the time we got there, that car was gone and we had the whole hike to ourselves.  Given how busy the Corona Arch trailhead was, this was great. 

Love the light in this photo

As soon as we'd gotten away from the road, we let Milton off his leash.  While he loves hiking in general, he really loves this kind: we were walking up the sandy wash in a narrow canyon, high cliff walls looming overhead, so he could run way ahead and then sprint back to us, knowing that we couldn't wander off.  It was cool in the shady depths of the canyon - we even found big icicles growing out of a slow-dripping spring in one rock wall - and the light was beautiful.

Really pretty place

When the canyon ended, it was in a huge, round, high-walled bowl with a deep sandy bottom.  There wasn't any water coming over the pour-off but we could see that it must be dramatic in a heavy rain.  At one side of the bowl, the slickrock ramp was gradual enough for us to climb out of the bowl.  As we gained the sandstone ridge (littered with curious, dark, rounded stones), we looked up and laughed.  There was Corona Arch straight ahead of us: we could see scores of people wandering around beneath it.  That meant that the canyon below us was Bootlegger; we looked down the canyon and thought we could pick out how far we'd gotten. 

Following the faint trail

We explored along the canyon rim for a while but couldn't find any way to get down into it, so instead of making a loop, we headed back the way we came.  Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Corona Arch

Hike stats: 4.88 miles; moving: 2:00 hours/2.4 m.p.h.; overall: 2:31/1.9 m.p.h.; 710' elevation

*  The Middle Earth waterfall post on gjhikes.com - where we get a lot of good hiking information - describes a completely different hike (starting by the Jeep Arch trailhead) that ends at a completely different waterfall.  But other online sources seem to indicate that where we were is what is commonly known as Middle Earth.  So now we're going to have to go back and check out gjhikes's trail.  Hooray for more hiking!

whoops!

Well, that week just totally got away from me!  I'll have a real post up tomorrow about the pretty little hike we did last Sunday.  Until then, here's a rock bowl and blue sky:

what a nice day out there

After the frigid week we had, Utah has been in a high pressure situation for a while.  We thought we'd take advantage of the lack of precipitation and head to Moab for a quick weekend away.  Technically it's a long drive (around four hours) but mentally we have it broken down into four chunks - SLC to Spanish Fork; the twisty bits through Spanish Fork Canyon, over Soldier Summit and down through Price Canyon; Helper to Green River; and Green River to Moab - and for some reason that makes the trip go by fairly quickly.  Luckily, we were able to go down Friday late afternoon, so that gave us all of Saturday and part of Sunday to play.

H on Rusty Spur

Even with the sun and clear skies, it does take a little while for temperatures to warm up this time of year.  Both weekend days were in the low 60s with barely any wind - simply glorious.  We did wait until about 10:30 a.m. to go MTBing on Saturday, however, and when we got to the Moab Brand Trails parking lot, we were completely surprised to see so many vehicles there: at least thirty, as many as we've seen probably since May.  It seems we weren't the only people wanting to enjoy the nice weather.

Psyched to explore this

Somehow, despite the number of vehicles (either pick-up trucks, Sprinter vans or Subarus) we saw very few people out on the trails.  We did Rusty Spur to the climb up to the Bar M loop, then did an out and back on the jeep road portion of Bar B to check out the back entrance to Arches National Park (which we will be exploring on foot later this winter).  Back at the Bar M, we detoured on the Circle O trail, which is fast becoming one of my favorites.  It's all slickrock and I can ride much of it.  It's really fun (despite the serious look on my face in the photo below).

SO focused (trying not to fall over)

After the Circle O, we continued on the Bar M loop, then took a short connector road to the Pipeline road back to the parking lot.  From there, we went around again, this time on Lazy EZ ("neither all that lazy nor all that easy," per the sign - slightly technical one-way single track) across the front of the facing ridge, then around on Bar M to the parking lot cutoff.  It ended up being about eighteen miles; I hadn't been on my MTB for weeks and my legs were tired.

Firepit

It was so pleasant that we stayed in the parking lot for a while with our beers, watching the riders and hikers and dogs and kids all around us, until we needed to head back to let a patient Milton out.  That evening, as you can see below, he wasn't too sure about the firepit.  We liked it though.

Milton is unconvinced

Ride stats: 18/53 miles; 2:26 hours; 7.8 avg. m.p.h.

one more time

Saturday morning there was some debate about what to do.  It was still pretty cold, although the polar vortex that had crashed into Utah earlier in the week had moved on.  There was still a fair amount of snow in the hillsides and mountains of the Wasatch Front and the trail conditions in Park City were a mixture of snow/ice/mud.

M on the loose

H suggested that the rail trail (that goes from Park City to Echo Reservoir) was reporting rideable conditions and perhaps we could do a bit of an out and back there.  That left Milton without something to do, however, and temperatures were still chilly for me to ride.  So we amended our plan to go over to Park City and do the rail trail, H on his bike and Milton and me on foot.

Traffic jam

We planned to go out for forty minutes and then back for forty.  H took off as Milton and I ambled along.  The dog and I had only been walking for twenty minutes when I realized that we would have to cross a busy road twice; we turned around there and did the rest of our time on the jeep roads of Round Valley instead.  We met a few dogs and managed to keep out of the mud, although Milton did get very wet and dirty from all the pouncing.

Are those snow tires?

H, on the other hand, encountered a wide range of conditions on the rail trail, ranging from mostly dry to wet sand to completely snow-covered to cows.  And because he was going downhill first, it took him closer to fifty minutes on the return.

Milton and I got back to the trailhead about ten minutes before H did.  We all basked in the early winter sun (because it really does feel like winter) before heading home.  If this was the last Park City trip until springtime, it was a pretty day with which to wrap things up.

Boys and trucks

Ride stats: 16.2 miles.  Hike stats: probably more than three but less than four (?)

winter is (maybe) coming

Last week's cold and stormy weather got some stoke going for Utah skiers and riders.  (This week has been warmer and drier, however, and not adding to the starter snowpack.)  Some of Utah's resorts have bravely announced their "anticipated" opening dates - subject to change, obviously.

 

Via Ski Utah