little arch

 H came up with Sunday's hike: up the Poison Spider Mesa and out to Little Arch, the not-so-small arch visible high on the cliff wall.  We had noticed people in that arch several months ago, when we were parked at the Moab Rim trailhead across the river; it would be a long-ish hike but there is access from atop the mesa.  When we got to the trailhead around 10 (once again), there were a couple of other cars there, dog walkers and a young family checking out the dinosaur tracks.  It was sunny and cool, just perfect for hiking on a trail with absolutely no shade.  

H looking towards the Moab Rim

We'd last been up there about a year ago, long enough that I'd forgotten what a grind it is to get from the river up to the mesa.  The 4x4 road is steep, loose and chunky - on the plus side, it doesn't take very long to get up.  Once you get up there, the sandy road is mostly easy walking; then you have to climb again over the off-road obstacles like the Waterfall and the Wedgie.  Once we got past the viewpoint where we'd turned around last time, we were on the section of trail known as "High Speed Mesa," some sandy corners and straightaways across the top of the mesa.  Again, easy walking and we covered ground quickly.  In that area we found a small memorial to Mary Jane Francis, a little girl who died there in 1896, apparently from a poisonous spider - which incident gave the mesa its name.  The site was covered in coins (riders leave them for luck) and also, for some reason, lots of rubber duckies.

Photo from: findagrave.com

PC: Lori Wilson

We went right at the intersection where the Golden Spike road/trail came in, staying on the Poison Spider road, and then kept right again when the road split for a loop.  From there, it was really just a short spur out across the sandstone domes to the cliff edge and Little Arch.  The views were most excellent: the Moab Rim trail and Stairmaster, the Rim trail heading out towards Hidden Valley, down river along Kane Creek Road, out towards Corona Arch and Jeep Arch (the arches weren't visible but we knew where they were, sort of) and the Gemini Bridges area.  

Down river along Kane Creek Road

Little Arch itself is not so small.  It's a good sized aperture in the cliff wall, with a tree-filled well behind it, catching all the rain run-off.  It didn't seem to us that you could climb down to the arch without ropes of some sort, so we contented ourselves with admiring the view from above.  Because of the cliff, Milton had to be on his leash and H kept well back from the edge as well.

Little Arch

We retraced our route to go out, until about the last half hour when we opted to descend via the Longbow Arch trail instead of the loose, chunky switchbacks of the road.  This hikers-only trail comes out amid the dinosaur tracksite and cut off about five minutes of time for us.  The parking lot was mostly full when we got back, with seemingly more trailers than we had seen off-road vehicles for: we'd seen five hikers/runners, three jeeps, four dirtbikes (three of them electric) and seven side-by-sides.  Milton, unfazed by his experience with Sally the day before, tried to make friends with a couple of other parking lot dogs.  He had better luck with some of the dirtbikers and hikers, who appreciated his charms better.

View of the Moab Rim parking lot across the river

Hike stats: 11.0 miles; 3:39 moving time / 3.0 m.p.h.; 3:54 overall time / 2.8 m.p.h.

sally needs her perimeter

 Saturday was another gorgeous bluebird day, warm into the low 40s again.  This is still too cold for me to MTB but H can tolerate it.  So off to the Moab Brand Trails we went, H's MTB in the back of the Crosstrek and Milton sitting on my lap in the shotgun seat.  (As an aside, we really need to get a hitch put on the car - it is neither comfortable nor safe for the dog to ride like that.)  We got to the parking lot around 10 a.m. - which really seems to be the winter launch time for us - and there were just a couple other vehicles there.

As H put his bike back together, Milton and I headed out for our usual loop: up and over the parking lot cutoff to Bar M, with a brief pause for M to say hello to the folks hanging out there, then south on Bar M to Circle O and out onto the rock.  Meanwhile, H did Lazy EZ - which was heavily populated by and trampled up by range cows in their winter pasture - to Rusty Spur to Bar M, out Bar B to the Arches border, back on Bar M to the northern terminus of Circle O and out onto the rock.  He met us there and then Milton decided he wanted to finish H's ride with him.  I traipsed back to the car solo and beat them by about five minutes: Milton wasn't breaking any speed records as his cumulative fatigue was kicking in.

The boys riding away

There were a few more vehicles in the lot as we changed into dry clothes, fed Milton the breakfast he hadn't eaten and noshed on our own sandwiches and beers.  One guy, parked a little further down in a small camper, had both a MTB and a dog about Milt's size.  As he rode in circles, warming up, she trailed along behind him and Milton thought he might go say hi.  He trotted up (the guy saw him coming and spoke to his dog but didn't wave us off) and got in line behind the other dog.  All went well for about ten feet, then the other dog told Milt on no uncertain terms that she did not appreciate his nose on her tail.  Milt skedaddled back to us and the guy called out with a shrug, "Sally needs her perimeter!"  We chuckled, because she had set her boundaries clearly, and Milt did not try approaching again, perfectly content to curl up on his towel and snooze in the winter sun.

determination

The last time we were in the Mill Canyon area, we noticed that there were tons of multi-use trails out there - equestrian, hiking, MTBing, 4x4 - and I've wanted to get out there ever since.  On the recent long holiday weekend, we took an extra day and got out there around 10 a.m. on Friday.  There was one van parked over by the dinosaur tracksite, which we suspect belonged to the bike-jorers we met out on the trail, and one bikebacker just stirring in a tent.  It was a cool but beautiful morning: mostly clear skies and the sun would bring temperatures into the low 40s, with just a light, occasional breeze.  Cold in the shade, it was great hiking conditions.

Petrified wood mold - big stump

We had intended to do the 6.8 mil Tusher Tunnel loop, an equestrian trail clearly mapped at the campground kiosk.  We had difficulty finding the trail, however, and ended up walking down the dirt Mill Canyon road (passing the 3D 4x4 trail), which brought us to a small dinosaur bone/petrified wood intrepretive trail.  When the trail crossed the creek, we looked upstream and saw these magnificent red towers in the distance.  There was a trail leading through the wash and we didn't have any particular plan for the day, so we headed for those towers.

A Determination Tower

We walked out through the wash, the creek both frozen (in the shade) and free-flowing (in the sun) and the trail connected with the Monitor & Merrimac and Bartlett & Tusher trails.  To our left was the butte we MTBed around almost ten years ago; if we kept going straight, we'd arrive at Wipe-Out Hill.  Everything is connected, which was only confirmed when we started finding helpful maps of the area trails.  We'd just been winging it but now we could see what we were doing.

That sky tho' ...

Those red towers are called Determination Towers and as we walked around them, we could see a few pieces of climbing protection left behind.  There were no rock climbers that day, however, and we had them all to ourselves.  From there, the helpful map told us that we could make a loop out of it by continuing past the towers to Tusher Wash, then reconnecting with the Mill Canyon road.  This is all easy hiking this time of year, with the sand largely frozen.

Another tower view

After coming through Tusher Wash (where we found a sign for a dead-end box canyon that we bookmarked for a later trip), we veered off onto the 3D 4x4 road to avoid some range cattle that Milton was far too interested in.  It didn't seem to be going where we wanted it to (in hindsight, after studying the maps, it probably would have), so we ended up following some old roads across a ridge and down through a wash, which brought us to a social trail ... which brought us right back to the dinosaur bone interpretive trail.  So it all worked out in the end.

We saw five other vehicles on our walk back to the car but the bikepacker had moved on.  Milton was very tired and we all soaked in the extremely pleasant sunshine during post-hike snacks and beers.  We also came up with a route for next time, plus I want to find that Tusher Tunnel and also check out the Bartlett and Tusher slickrock areas, so I have a feeling we'll be revisiting Mill Canyon again soon.

Hike stats:  9.5 miles; 3:17 moving time / 2.9 m.p.h.; 3:40 overall time / 2.6 m.p.h.

january bluebird

 Sunday was a bluebird day with temperatures ranging from low 20s to low 30s - usually my favorite temperature range for skiing, although for some reason I got pretty cold, especially my feet (I blame my boots: they're light and soft and I think they're particularly cold).  At 8:30 p.m. that night, my toes were still tingling and throbbing ... but the skiing was pretty darn good!  

Catherine's Area 

We got on the 7:25 a.m. bus - much less crowded than the 7:40 - which got us to the Albion base lodge an hour before lifts opened.  (We deployed our books, which do get a little beaten up from banging around our boot bags during the course of a ski season.)  The day would be busier than the last Sunday, but not busy.  We went straight to Supreme, after riding out of the base area on Sunnyside, and did four runs there, including a hike halfway into Catherine's Area.  I skied it terribly but the snow was quite soft.

When I had to scurry into Alf's to warm up my toes, H took several runs on Sugarloaf.  Then, we moved over to Collins for a trip through the Ballroom (softer than the previous weekend).  H explored Fred's Trees a bit and I stuck to the groomers and the edges of groomers, by afternoon finding the trails to be slightly more skied off than my lack of edges preferred.  Back on Sugarloaf, we did Razorback and a cabin run, pausing for some time to goggle at the massive amount of avalanche debris piled up on Cecret Lake.  We've never seen it like that - a huge slide must have come off Devil's Castle, launched itself off the cliffs over the lake and then scrunched up on the far shore.

Ski patrol got Baldy's Main Chute open around noon (H didn't ski it but did remark that he should probably give that a go again sometime) and we could see lots of people hiking up.  In the lodge, as we were changing out of our boots to catch the bus home, we overhead a couple of people talking about it, saying that it skied great.  All that December snow sure helped (although we do seem to be in a bit of a dry patch now).

birthday: elvis, david bowie and me

H went skiing on Saturday and, when he came back, declared that he'd had a great day - a direct quote and one that I hadn't heard for a while.  The last round of storms had moved out, leaving a nice 4+ inch refresh: the snow was light and very soft.  The day started out sunny but clouded up in the afternoon, the overcast skies serving to preserve the conditions for the next day. H skied all over: Catherine's Area, East Greeley, Gunsight, the High T to the general Stonecrusher area (it was so foggy at that point he wasn't sure where he was).  He skied hard and had a lot of fun, despite doing additional damage to his already beaten-up skis on the Gunsight run.

Backside

More Backside

Keep it classy, Alta skiers (on the High T)

Visibility? What visibility?

Danger, Will Robinson!

Meanwhile, down in the valley, Milton and I walked Dimple Dell, did laundry (and even put it away), baked chocolate chip cookies (very successful) and fougasse (much less successful) and tried a new recipe for dinner (lentil bolognese - also very successful).  We were supposed to meet some friends for beers for my birthday but when that got postponed, we just hunkered down and enjoyed a quiet evening at home.

Fougasse (it didn't really rise)

new year's weekend

As he usually does, H took off the week between Christmas and New Year; for once, however, he didn't get a whole lot of skiing in.  A multiday storm system moved in, bringing a lot of much needed snow but also snarling traffic in the canyons.  It also brought very cold temperatures: on New Year's Day, the high at Alta was 3 F.  I hadn't planned to ski until Sunday anyway, hoping for warmer weather and smaller crowds, and that actually worked out well.

On Friday, while H shoveled our driveway and sidewalks for hours, Milton and I took a snowy walk, and then I did a bunch of cooking.  On Saturday, when it barely got up to 20 F down in the Salt Lake Valley, Milton and I took a shorter walk (and I made him wear his booties, which he did not like), and then I did a bunch of cooking.  Cooking and baking is giving me a lot of satisfaction these pandemic-days, despite the fact that I'm not a good baker.  I'm decent at cookies and okay with cakes, but I'm really bad at yeasted bread.  That weekend I made a pan of scratch brownies, soda bread with raisins (that you could have used as a doorstop), pumpkin-cranberry-walnut muffis and ginger-tahini cookies.  I also made chickpea-miso stew for the freezer and a batch of vegan "parmesan" (walnuts, herbs and nutritional yeast), and dinners were rice/beans/tofu/greens, Korean yachaejeon (veggie pancakes), BBQ tofu with collard greens and rice pilaf, and homemade pizza.  Finally, I learned that you can make Manhattans with tequila - if tequila is the booze you have on hand.

[Mt.] Superior in every way

When Sunday rolled around, it was time to play in the mountains.  We got up at 6:30, out the door at 7:15 and, since the 7:25 bus was a no-show, were on the ski bus at 7:40.  It was sunny and clear, cold to start but warming to around 25 F by noon.  The fact that it had been so cold really worked in our favor because there was lots of deep, soft, untracked snow to be found - the temperatures had kept the people away.  It was also surprisingly uncrowded for the last day of vacation week.

We went straight to Supreme from the Sunnyside lift and did four runs there, including going all the way into Catherine's Area.  The snow was very nice and light enough that I could (awkwardly) ski the deep stuff on my non-powder skis.  At one point, while we were on the Supreme lift, we witnessed a massive patrol-triggered avalanche, where the whole Backside slid down into the creek.  Patrol had been shooting at it sporadically all morning and it took a barrage of about five explosions to knock it loose.  Afterwards, it left a nine foot crown and video showed that two patrollers got carried (but not buried) by the slide.

Snowbunny

I had to step into Alf's for fifteen minutes or so to thaw my toes while H skied Sugarloaf.  When I came back out, we moved to Collins and did four or five runs there, then went back to Sugarloaf for a couple.  The snow was really holding up well - fewer skiers means it doesn't get skied off as quickly.  Coverage is decent too, thanks to the recent storm, and we got into Razorback and the Ballroom too ... where I learned that despite the squats I've been doing, my legs still aren't in shape.

We caught the 2 p.m. bus back down.  Milton was glad to see us, of course.  And after walking him, getting cleaned up and starting a load of laundry, it was time for another one of those tequila Manhattans.

red rocks recipe

Since everyone is (I'm sure) clamoring to know, here's the Bloody Mary recipe that H and I have painstakingly crafted.  We like 'em spicy.

                                                One serving                    Four servings

Tomato juice*                            6 oz.                                24 oz. (3 cups)

Ground black pepper                3/4 tsp.                            3 tsp.

Crushed red pepper                  1/4 tsp.                            1 tsp.

Celery salt                               1/4 tsp.                            1 tsp.

Louisiana Hot Sauce                  1 1/2 Tbsp.                      6 Tbsp.

Worcestershire sauce                1/2 Tbsp.                        2 Tbsp.

Lemon juice                              1/2 tsp.                           2 tsp.

Vodka                                        1 1/2 oz.                         6 oz.

Garnishes: olives and pepperoncinis

*  Not V8 (too strongly flavored already and too much sodium)

winter weather (part two)

 The best day of the long holiday weekend was Christmas: clear blue skies, sunny and in the high 40s.  H wanted to do the river walk - along the Colorado River on the Rte. 128 bike path - which we've done before on Christmases.  Since the weather was so incredibly nice, I suggested that we commence our walk from the house instead to driving to Lions Park.  H rolled his eyes, asked if I knew how long that was going to be, and then that's what we did.  We walked and walked and walked and walked, on the bike path whenever we could, but also right up Main Street, glorying in the fact that we didn't have to dodge the crowds.  The only things open were Denny's, the quickie-marts and a coffee cart.  There was hardly anyone around and once we got to the 2.5 mile out-and-back bike path, we only saw one other couple although there were at least five vehicles (camper trailers, vans and even a tent!) camping at one of the riverside campgrounds.

Blurry picture #2: Milton hopped

up after he saw H walking there

Hike stats:  11.61 miles; 3 hours 15 mins./3.6 m.p.h. moving average (that's fast!); 3:18/3.5 overall (so we didn't stop much); 530 feet elevation gain.

When we got home and cleaned up, it was time for bloody marys!  We feel like we've gotten a pretty good recipe put together now.  And it was time to hunker down with a new book (me), that insane jigsaw puzzle (H) and naps (M).  

Another storm system began to move in on Sunday and it was very windy as the front came through.  Milton and I went to Hidden Valley around 11:00 a.m., just in time for it to start spitting snow and graupel.  I was better prepared this time, having found my poncho in the back of a closet, so we set off for our hike anyway.  There were only two other cars in the parking lot when we started; there were only a different two when we finished.  The snow tapered off by the time we finished the initial climb but the wind persisted.  In a couple of spots I had to stop and clear tumbleweeds from where they were choking the trail; unfortunately, people had walked around the chokepoints and new social trails were getting imbedded.  I did my best to put those tumbleweeds on the social trails to dissuade people from going there but with that wind, I doubted they'd stay put.

We made up to the saddle which was actually in the sunshine, encouraging me to take that foolish poncho off.  Milton, clearly suffering no ill effects from his almost twelve mile town walk the day before, ran and ran and ran - but was stymied by the drifted tumbleweeds.  On the way down, we met three dogs: chunky labs Jake and Elwood; and heeler/mix Fritz, and Fritz's person even gave Milt a gratutious biscuit.

The snow picked up again by the time we got back to the car, so we headed straight home instead of pausing for parking lot beers.  Fear not, however, because Woody's had reopened and after we got Milton tucked into bed, we headed over for a pitcher.  The bar was very sparsely populated that afternoon, allowing Mo the bartender to play a game of backgammon with a local.  Gotta love the off-season.