We Went West

soft snow

2012-01-31T10:30:00.000-08:00

I felt like we were getting back into the groove on Sunday. No new snow overnight, but still up and at 'em and on to Alta. We even remembered to bring our lunch backpack this time! We hadn't counted on being stuck for an hour on the canyon road while the police and fire and rescue cleared an accident, so we got up there a little later than planned. But it wasn't crowded and although there were high, thin clouds that increased during the day, it was really warm (I overdressed).

Per usual we scooted back over to Supreme and I was pleased to discover that I felt better and was skiing better (not well, but better than the day before). We did Catherine's a couple of times, finding a newly opened gate and untracked snow in and around Sunset, So Long and the Back Forty. No. 9 Express was also holding up pretty well as was the White Squaw Area. We even had a brief encounter with Supreme's resident porcupine who was trundling unconcernedly up one of the groomed run-outs, completely ignoring the paparazzi skiers.

No swimming at Cecret Lake!

The best runs we had were once again off the Sugarloaf chair: down Razor Back to Cecret Lake, then down the switchbacks that you hike up to the lake in the summer, and then through the trees below Devil's Elbow. Super-soft snow and plenty of it. Not that we don't need more, of course. There's a little storm system moving in early this coming week that might bring a little bit, but what we really need are some big dumpers. This weekend was a pretty good one but there's a ton of terrain that's still closed because of all the rocks. Come on, Mother Nature, help us out!

back at alta

2012-01-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

We had another little storm later in the week that brought the resorts another eight or so inches. By Saturday it was clear and sunny, with dry roads and little chance of finding much untracked snow so I left my powder skis at home and strapped on my trusty and beloved Volkls. Straightaway we headed over to the Supreme chair and then, seeing that Catherine's Area was open, charged right in. Catherine's has been open occasionally this season (although the chutes of the Supreme Bowl have not) but never when I've been up there - I was looking forward to getting back in there.

In the trees by No. 9 Express

Of course since I've been basically skiing groomers all year and not hiking and traversing, I was ridiculously out of shape for the short boot pack up to the traverse into Catherine's, and then the uphill traverse way in. By the time H got us to where we were going, I was puffed and blowing and sweating and my poor legs were shaking. For the record, I'd also like to blame some of this on the head cold I've been battling, but in all honesty a lot is due to just not having done any hiking in my skis so far this year. Regardless, Catherine's was pretty darn good, soft snow, deep in spots, and not entirely tracked out. I skied it like a total spaz - floundering on my short skis and gasping for air all the way down. Needless to say, I only made one hike into Catherine's on Saturday.

In the sun in the Yellow Trail Area

The rest of the day was quite nice. They've opened the White Squaw Area off the Supreme chair and we found some deep stuff by the Elephant's Butt; No. 9 Express and the Erosion Gullies were pretty good too, although everything was getting bumped up big time. We ate a quickie lunch at Alf's - H had actually packed our lunches but then we forgot the backpack on the kitchen counter - so I had a mocha and a Snickers bar (best lunch ever!) and H had an Italian sausage and some fries. We also spent a fair amount of time on the Sugarloaf lift. I went around EBT and into the Backside to the Yellow Trail/East Greeley area with H once - really nice conditions - and then he did it several more times while I bumped along in the moguls on Extrovert.

By about 2:00 p.m. my legs were shot so we moved over to the front side. H did a couple of runs off the Wildcat chair (reporting good snow in the trees there) while I sat in the sun on the deck and watched all the people. H joined me there for a PBR (still $3 at Goldminer's Daughter) and then we went home and bottled his latest homebrew, a Sam Adams clone. A pretty darn good Saturday, all told.

a day for the powder skis

2012-01-25T09:30:00.000-08:00

As promised, it kept snowing up in the canyons overnight, dropping a storm total of 25" up at Alta. That much new snow on top of the nasty old snow brought some serious issues, however, like an avalanche slide right across Little Cottonwood Canyon Road. At about 7:30 a.m., H checked the canyon alerts and learned that the LCC road wasn't going to be open until 10:30 a.m. at the earliest and that cars were prohibited from attempting to stage on the road (we're guessing that "staging" means idling in the lane while waiting for the canyon to open). We weren't about to miss out on the new powder, however, so we quickly swapped out our Alta season passes for the Solitude $45/day 5-Paks we'd bought (at my genius suggestion, btw) this fall with the intention of using on days when LCC was closed. Today was the perfect day to break them in, seeing how Solitude was reporting 27" from the storm. Away we went, up Big Cottonwood Canyon!

Honeycomb Canyon (not open),

from the top of the Summit lift

We were not the only people with that idea: I have never, ever seen Solitude so crowded. At 9:20 a.m., when we got up there, there was a long line at the ticket window, which we noted as we smugly skied up to the lift with our passes; and there were huge lift lines at all the lifts nearly all day. Despite the lines - which were really only because the lifties didn't bother to set up any corrals so it was a free-for-all trying to get through the gates - we truly didn't stand in line for much more than five minutes ever. It's just such a change from Solitude's usual ... solitude.

At 1:00 p.m., H got another canyon alert email:

Big Cottonwood Status: Open
Little Cottonwood Status: Closed Jan22: Solitude and Brighton parking lots are full. Please use UTA. Est. open for Snowbird only is 11:30am. -CanyonAlerts.org

At 1:30 p.m., he got yet another one:

Big Cottonwood Status: Open
Little Cottonwood Status: Restricted Jan22: Little Cottonwood Canyon Rd. is now open to Snowbird only. Alta's Est. open time is 12:30 pm. -CanyonAlerts.org

Meanwhile, we were having an absolute blast skiing in deep powder for the first time all season. We skied all over the mountain, starting at the Eagle lift, moving to Sunrise, heading back to Powderhorn and then, finally, sprinting for the Summit lift when ski patrol finally opened it around 12:30 p.m. By then the rest of the resort was pretty bumped up and tracked out, but over off the little Summit double chair we found plenty of deep, untracked powder in the trees and chutes. It was most excellent, easily outdoing Saturday's ski-in-a-storm for best day of the year (so far).

conditions improving

2012-01-22T17:17:00.000-08:00

It snowed! It finally snowed! We're so happy ... and now, greedily, want more-more-more! But still, it snowed!

It was snowing on Saturday when H went up to Alta, unable to stand not skiing for a moment longer. (I did not go, feeling slightly under the weather; B and I ran some errands instead and then cuddled up on the couch watching season 5 of Dexter on DVD.) The drive up and down Little Cottonwood Canyon was - he reported - pretty sketchy. It was raining down in the valley and then abruptly turned to snow about a quarter of the way up. It took him about an hour to get up there, driving very carefully and noting the four down-canyon cars that had slid off the pavement. But once he got up there, where it was snowing like crazy, he had a great day. There weren't very many people up there to start, between the slow road and the whole people-don't-like-to-ski-in-snowstorms thing, but there was 9+ new inches of snow. Heavy and wet, but still snow and still coming down. It snowed all day and H was soaked when he got home - and very happy, proclaiming it the best ski day of the year. [Note: that superlative wouldn't last long.]

The most awesome part? The ice beard that attached itself to H's face. People in the lift-lines were very impressed and one guy even asked if he could take a picture. Apparently some little kids stared at him in the lodge when he chipped it off at lunchtime:

Self-portrait on the lift

It was supposed to keep snowing all night up there - and did down in the valley too, off and on - so after H's snow report I decided that I was skiing on Sunday. After 2.5 weekends of not skiing, I'm overdue!

around the state

2012-01-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

What's going on in Utah these days? (Yes, this is a filler post since we haven't gone skiing nor done much interesting lately.)

The Sundance Film Festival started today, in Park City and its surrounds. H and I didn't bother trying to get any tickets to anything because we don't like crowds and H can't generally stay awake in movie theaters anyway. I do keep an eye on the Trib's Sundance blog, however, and make lists of films that I want to see if/when they get released wider.

Miss Utah may not have won the Miss America title, but there's a Utahn on the latest season of Survivor: One World, if anyone cares.

And yes, we finally got some snow: Alta is reporting 15" in the last twenty-four hours, and there are supposed to be several more storms hitting the mountains over the next several days. It's not enough, but it's a start. Maybe we'll ski this weekend!

no skiing today

2012-01-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

After last winter, we're really not used to having to come up with things to do on the weekends. This year, with the dearth of snow (thus far), we've had to be more creative than "get up, eat breakfast, ski at Alta in crazy-deep snow 'til your legs fall off, come home, eat something and fall asleep on the couch by 9 p.m." Saturday was one of those need-to-be-creative days since we were not going skiing: there hasn't been any new snow since a week ago, and the skiing wasn't that good then anyway.

On the plus side, it was a spectacular day - unseasonably warm (low to mid 40s), not a cloud in the sky and little to no wind. B and I took a late-morning, hour-long walk while H bundled up and did a 13-mile road ride; we saw lots and lots of walkers, cyclists and runners, all taking advantage of the sunshine and pleasant temperatures.

After lunch, H and I drove up to downtown SLC and walked up to the Living Room (trailhead on Colorow Drive in the University's Research Park, just down the hill from Red Butte Garden and the new Natural History Museum). There were tons of people and their dogs - Weimaraners, border collies, dachshunds, beagles, setters, mutts and labs galore - out and about on the trails in the foothills. It took us 35 minutes to hike up on the well-worn and mostly dry trail; after about a half an hour sitting on the stone couches and admiring the view (and throwing sticks for a very persistent border collie named Boomer), it took us 20 minutes to descend. We've clearly fallen out of our summer hiking conditioning too: even though this hike is not at all difficult, we were out of breath in the few steep bits.

And what do you suppose we did after our little hike? We went to Squatters, of course. Because it is apparently impossible for us to go to downtown SLC without stopping in there. The beers were excellent, as always: I had a Full Suspension and H had one of the seasonal beers, a lovely Extra Special Bitter (on nitro).

Ain't that a pretty sight?

snow dance

2012-01-13T11:30:00.000-08:00

We're all trying everything we possibly can to encourage the snow gods to let 'er rip. Check this out: starring local Wasatch Front residents shredding in the Wasatch and Pioneer Mountains (click here if the video won't embed below):

I work with one of the guys in this video. Damn, I wish I could ski like the guys in this video.

aristo's

2012-01-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

My birthday fell on a Sunday this year, but since we like to hunker down and be homebodies on Sunday nights, I wanted to go out for birthday dinner Saturday instead. I had been in the mood for Greek food for some reason and asked around at work as to what the best Greek restaurant in town was. Salt Lake City has a pretty big Greek population - folks who came to work in the mines - and there are a bunch of fast-food, souvlaki-type joints, but I wanted something a little nicer. The consensus was Aristo's Restaurant, located up by the U at 224 South 1300 East, Salt Lake City, in a little neighborhood that had a Brookline, Massachusetts, sort of feel to it.

The restaurant wasn't packed but there were a good number of full tables. A cute little hostess seated us at our reserved table and the attentive but not intrusive waiter came by at once. Aristo's isn't huge and the cheerful 6-top next to us made things a little loud, but not so loud that we couldn't talk to each other and also hear the faint Greek pop music playing over the sound system. (Apparently they have live Greek music Thursday nights.)

The menu has something for everyone (except maybe vegans). We shared a saganaki appetizer, fried Kefalograviera cheese, flambeed with Metaxa (a Greek liqueur) and fresh lemon juice, and the roka salad (a big bowl of arugula dressed with lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil. For entrees, H had angel hair pasta with burned butter, roasted tomatoes and myzithra cheese, while I ordered my favorite Greek dish, pastitisio. The rich pastitisio - tubular pasta with ground lamb and beef, topped with bechamel - came in its own ceramic dish and was a huge serving, allowing me to take half of it home for breakfast the next day. Aristo's serves wine (all bottles $28; glasses of white $6.50 and glasses of red $7.50) and we got a 4 Bears cabernet sauvignon, the empty bottle of which we took home with us for re-purposing when we do another batch of homemade.

It was a good meal, tasty and filling, and we'd gladly go back to Aristo's again. The restaurant does have some outside seating which would be pleasant in the non-winter seasons. The very best part, however, was breaking the chain of mediocre birthday meals - yahoo!

drop in the bucket

2012-01-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

A little storm moved through the Wasatch Front Friday night and most of the day Saturday, clearing out the slight inversion and dropping a bit of snow in the mountains: Alta claimed nine new inches. H skied in the storm on Saturday and reported back that those nine inches didn't really amount to much. It wasn't enough to open up much new terrain, everything was all tracked out after two hours and it was all skied off back down to the rock-solid ice after three hours. He told me that I didn't miss much.

Why did I miss the skiing? Only for the most pathetic reason ever. On Friday night, I stopped by the grocery store on my way home from work. As I left the store, pushing my grocery cart, the cart's front wheels got stuck in a divot in the asphalt. The cart stopped short, almost tipping over; I did not stop short and walked right into it, shins first. By the time I got back to the house five minutes later, bruises had bloomed on both shins, you could see the bumps and I actually had gashed my right shin through my jeans, to the point of drawing blood, right where my ski boot buckles. Pa. Thetic. But also pretty sore, which is why I didn't ski on Saturday.

there was more snow in july

2012-01-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

No snow on the south-facing slopes

We just couldn't face "skiing" on the "greatest snow on Earth"* on Monday's holiday and went hiking instead. We went back to Big Cottonwood Canyon and the short Dog Lake hike (see 12/27/09 post). The first bit of the trail was an absolute mess - sodden with thick, sticky mud - but once we got in a ways we were able to walk on well-packed snow.

There's about 1.5 feet of coverage in

here, along the creek

It was an absolutely stunning day, with bluebird skies and warm sunshine. We saw a fair number of other folks up there - hiking, snowshoeing, back-country skiing, traipsing along the ridge to Reynolds Peak - but largely seemed to have the place to ourselves. We would rather have been skiing in normal January conditions, of course, but it was still a gorgeous day and a nice walk and I do find it tough to complain about that.

Good place for a drink if you're a critter

* The first snowfall snowfall since 12/21/11 is expected tonight/tomorrow, possibly bringing a trace to 2". That's not going to do anything. It's dire. Seriously, there was more snow in these canyons back in July (granted, up at a higher elevation than this but still).

new year's day 2012

2012-01-03T15:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, y'all! Since the conditions weren't all that fabulous on NYE, and we didn't get any new snow overnight, we didn't find it necessary to get up at the crack of early and hit the slopes. Instead, H made us a tasty breakfast of (leftover) steak and scrambled eggs and we took our time getting up to Alta, arriving well before 10 a.m. but well after the 9:15 first chair. We were pleased that it was oodles warmer than the day before, with little to no wind, temperatures in the mid-20s and no clouds. No crowds either - there were lots fewer people out, whether due to church, too late partying the night before or the fact that the conditions were going from pretty bad to worse.

I sound like a broken record but Alta needs snow so badly. I may bust on the skiing back east but if there's one thing Maine resorts know how to do, it's to make poor conditions as good as possible. We used to ski at Sunday River in Bethel, Maine, and the snowmakers and the cat-drivers would work absolute magic on the trails, grooming deep and giving the skiers at least three hours of skiable trails before the snow would get scraped off. Not so much at Alta, probably because in normal winters, with hundreds of inches of snow by now, it isn't needed. But Alta is no longer making snow for some reason (possibly scarcity of water?) and they just don't groom very well. We did a couple of runs off the Supreme chair (which kept breaking down so that was annoying) and they had only bothered to regroom one of the two trails that they've been grooming up 'til now, leaving Rock-n-Roll a rutted mess. It's not like the snow-cats are busy grooming other trails - they should have gone over that one. The groomed trails under Sugarloaf were holding up better, except for Sugarbowl which everyone ~~skis~~ slides down once they get off the lift; Collins wasn't the nightmare that it had been on Saturday but it was still rock-hard and terrible. We called it quits before lunchtime: despite the nice temperatures it just wasn't that fun, plus we don't want to risk getting injured by out-of-control skiers who don't know how to ski on that stuff.

There's no snow in the days to come either: that dang bowl of high pressure is just stuck out there over the Pacific Ocean. I of course want to go skiing and I love Alta - I really, really do - but if we're not going to get any natural anytime soon, they are going to have to work the trails more to make what they've got skiable. I don't know, maybe I'll go for a hike on the Monday holiday instead: there's certainly no snow on the south-facing hillsides.

new year's eve 2011

2012-01-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

Well, the one thing New Year's Eve 2011 had in common with New Year's Eve 2010 is that it was the as-yet coldest day of the season - although not nearly so cold this year as last year. It was 4F at the top and about 14F at the base and rather windy, but it really didn't seem all that cold (i.e., we didn't have to wear our face masks). It was chilly enough to go in for an early lunch/warm-up and we definitely took advantage of the free hot beverage refills. After lunch the winds died and the clouds broke up, so that was good.

What else is there to say? We saw the Supreme chair's resident porcupine trundling along among the trees; those soft bumps on 3 Bears had hardened horribly; and several trails - including Sugarbowl and the whole top half under the Collins lift - were completely wind-scoured of all their snow, leaving rock-hard ice for people to try to ski down. Still, despite the cold and the wind and the icy patches, it still wouldn't be the worst day of the season. That would come on 1/1/2012.

PS - what did we do to ring in the new year? Steaks on the grill, pink "champagne" (Bouvet brut ros é sparkling wine, from the Loire Valley, Cabernet Franc grapes) and some episodes from SyFy's Twilight Zone marathon. And asleep well before midnight, once the neighbors stopped launching fireworks from out front of our house (B was not happy that Utah has now decided to let the hoi polloi shoot off fireworks on New Year's in addition to throughout most of the summer).

boxing day 2011

2011-12-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

It's funny to go back and read last year's posts: Boxing Day 2010 had flat light, skiing on groomers since there hadn't been much new snow, a good parking spot because there weren't that many people out. This year we had flat light, skiing on groomers because there hadn't been any new snow at all and a good parking spot ... and approximately 110 inches more snowfall.

The skiing is getting really bad. It's not even so much that it's eastern-style hard-pack, but that the base is so thin (33") that rocks are popping through everywhere. You can usually see the big ones in time but the teeny little ones that are easy to miss are just tearing the bejeezus out of the bottom of our skis. We did manage to find some semi-soft bumps on 3 Bears and skied that a bunch, although the trail is short and runs contrary to the fall-line so it's a bit annoying. Still, gotta get my bumps practice in so I'm ready when it finally snows.

I'm ready. Please SNOW!!!

christmas day 2011

2011-12-26T09:30:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning dawned like most of our winter weekend mornings: up; Henry's special fried potatoes with ham, egg and cheese; and out the door, headed to Alta. Once again, there are very few skiers on the slopes before noon and we enjoyed the bright sunshine, clear skies and uncrowded slopes. In fact, Christmas 2011 Ski Day was very similar to Christmas 2010 Ski Day: nice weather, no new snow, hardly any other folks around and skiing on groomers, although last year I did that because my back was still sore and this year we pretty much have to because of the lack of snow.

My eyes really were open - you

just can't tell from the power-squint

We still have to say, though, that although we still want snow - and lots of it - very badly, it is so dang wonderful to ski under bluebird skies. We noticed a few newbie skiers struggling with the non-powder conditions but generally everyone had smiles on their faces, wishing each other happy holidays.

A peek at Catherine's Area through the trees

We skied until about 2:00 p.m., tired by then of the increasingly skied-off conditions, and headed home to call our families, drink some beers and bake a ham (first time trying that - will have to let you know how it goes). We'll be back at it again tomorrow - when it will likely be quite a lot busier - but until then, Merry Christmas* to all and to all a good night.

* And by "Merry Christmas" I of course mean whatever non-sectarian winter holiday greetings to which you may subscribe!

christmas eve 2011

2011-12-24T15:57:00.000-08:00

Not surprisingly, the dearth of snow didn't keep us from heading up to Alta on Christmas Eve. We didn't rush right up there - lingering a bit over our ham-and-egg-and-cheese sandwiches - but were still on the lift before 10:00 a.m. We headed for the Sugarloaf lift first, seeking out trails in the sunshine as it was another gorgeous, bluebird day up in the mountains (even as the inversion has begun to slowly creep back into the valley). But once there we glanced over at the Supreme lift and saw it turning - for the first time all season. We hightailed it over there and were among the first people to get on the lift.

The Alta Ski Patrol had put up lots of signs with lots of exclamation points, asking people to use extreme caution whilst skiing off Supreme: thin cover and lots and lots of rocks on all the ungroomed trails. Desperate to get off the groomers, we watched scores of people begin the hike into Catherine's Area before trying the ungroomed Upper Sleepy Hollow ourselves. It wasn't that good: about five inches of soft snow atop a hard crust studded with hidden rocks. Oh well. We stayed over at the Supreme lift for a while even so, realizing that even if we were skiing groomers (to keep the bottoms of our skis on one piece) they were at least different groomers than we've been skiing all season.

Bright sunshine on the top of Collins lift

(note my new Alta neck gaiter!)

Having the extra terrain open had the added benefit of spreading the people out a bit, so when we headed back to ski off Sugarloaf and Collins after lunch, the lift lines were negligible. We kept making turns until 2:00 p.m., then headed home, following the line of cars off to their next Christmas Eve engagements. For us, that means walking the dog, delivering cookies to the neighbors and supping on shepherd's pie and cheap champagne before falling asleep early while watching A Christmas Story. Hope Santa doesn't wake us up when he gets here - got to get up and go skiing early tomorrow!

sparse

2011-12-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

Even though we desperately need snow (have I mentioned that? how badly we need snow? Alta is planning to physically move snow over to the groomed trails off the Cecret and Supreme lifts so that those lifts can be opened in time for Christmas - that's how much we need snow), H and I have still been skiing. He's got ten days in and I've got six; some of those "days" are just a couple of hours but still, it counts.

Part of the reason we've been happy to go skiing despite the extreme lack of snow is that it gets us out of the inversion that has settled over the Salt Lake Valley. Down in the valley, it's grey and cold and all socked in so that you can't see the sky, while up in the mountains it's been clear blue skies, bright sunshine and easily 20 degrees warmer. It's been glorious up there and I'm totally conflicted because I so want it to snow, and yet I so enjoy skiing under bluebird skies.

It hasn't been very busy up at Alta either, although since everyone is skiing on the same few trails, it does seem a little crowded. Because everyone is trapped on the same trails, you're bound to come across some doofuses. On Saturday, a completely oblivious preteen kid skied into me, not hard enough to knock me over, but enough to knock into my skis and cause me to yell at him to watch where the hell he's going. On Sunday, H and I had the misfortune to ride the Sugarloaf lift with a couple of total Joeys who, despite the balmy 35 F temperatures and hot sunshine, were both wearing face masks. These grown men greeted us on the chair with "Bonjour!" (to which H muttered, "The next words out of their mouths better be in French") and then proceeded to talk in English very loudly (to compensate for the muffling of the face masks, I guess) about complete inanities all the way up. Then, when we got off the chair, we noticed that one of them didn't have poles and neither of them were very good skiers. Sigh. That's another reason to wish for a lot more snow and soon: so we can escape to the wilds off the Supreme chair where Joeys fear to tread.

'tis the season

2011-12-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

A couple of nights ago, after I'd gotten back from the gym, and taken out my contacts, and changed into my scruffy evening soft pants, and was finally getting around to scrounging something up for dinner, the doorbell rang. B went crazy as she always does (except for the first two weeks in this house when she didn't know that the bell meant there was someone at the front door, since we didn't have a doorbell at our Maine house). I turned on the porch lights, grabbed her collar and was just about to open the door when I heard the singing. I called to H: "Quick! We've got carolers!" and he ran for the camera. When I opened the door, there were our across-the-street neighbors with some of their extending family and friends, singing their hearts out. After their carol, one of the grandchildren handed me a couple of candy canes and then all they wished us a Merry Christmas and wandered off down the street to their next performance.

It came upon a 7:45 p.m. clear ...

Sometimes I get a little antsy, being in a neighborhood with people always around. But then there are moments like this that are so sweet and warm, and I'm grateful that we have such nice neighbors. And we've never had carolers at our house - any house - before. If it had only been snowing, it would have been perfect.

family ties

2011-12-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

There's still hardly any snow (we're at a historical low for the date, as H keeps reminding me) but that didn't stop my cousin E and 849 of her closest Northwestern University friends (and another 200+ from some Ohio school) from descending upon Park City Mountain Resort for the week. Since skier traffic is always sparse before Christmas - even in good snow years - the students got a crazy-good deal for a 6-night stay/4-day lift ticket package. They were housed in condos right up at the resort, which was ideal since they could go grocery shopping for breakfasts and lunches, making it an even better deal. E reported that PCMR had about 17 trails open and the skiing was pretty good, if entirely Eastern (i.e., no powder).

We drove out to Park City Wednesday night to see E, picking her up at the condo and then heading into the Old Town for dinner at the Blue Iguana (not the Red Iguana: more Tex-Mex and less mole). Old Town was packed and we had to park several streets over and walk back in 17 F temperatures, but the restaurant itself was pretty quiet so we were able to get caught up over dinner. For the record: I had pork tamales with mole verde and enchilada sauce; E had chicken fajitas; and H had a chile verde burrito. I decided against the $14 margarita - crazy Park City prices!

We only kept E out for a couple of hours before delivering her back to her friends (I'm 20+ years older than she is and didn't want to test her patience ... plus we old folks had to drive all the way back home). It was really nice to see her and hear all about school; I didn't really like the first half of my freshman year but clearly she is not having that problem. Hopefully next time she comes out this way we'll have better snow for her.

artsy

2011-12-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

Not only do we go to the Porcupine for libations and conversation, we also go for cultural type stuff. Case in point, we were there last Friday night, sitting at the bar for beers and dinner (chicken noodle soup for me; Szechuan veggie stir fry on noodles for H) and chatting with Edd and Josh, the on-duty bartenders. Josh also works for Ski Utah and had been over at Deer Valley earlier that day. When we asked him where he was going Saturday, he said he wasn't skiing because he had to set up for an art show. He gave us a card for the Art Adoption Christmas Art Show and all of a sudden, we had something to do Saturday night.

The show was held at Signed & Numbered, a custom frame shop and art gallery located at 2320 So. West Temple. The shop is owned by Leia Bell, an artist, and Phil Sherburne, a cabinetmaker. The show had art in various media from twenty-two different artists - paintings, sculpture, photographs, prints, jewelry, pottery - and all of it was for sale, much of it at very reasonable prices. They were accepting clothing donations for the Homeless Youth Resource Center and non-perishable food for the Utah Food Bank; there were snacks and free beer (Full Suspension!) and wine, and all bartending tips were going to be donated to the Christmas Box House.

We got there a little before 7:30 p.m. and there were already a bunch of young, hip people there. We talked with Josh for a bit, drank a couple of beers and wandered the shop, looking at all the funky art. There was one painting I really liked, a big abstract Southwestern landscape, but it was $300 so I bought some turquoise earrings instead (made by Jill Watanabe/earthworm). By the time we left, the place was getting crowded and lots of people were buying things. I hope they did really well, both for the artists and for the charities, and I'm super-glad that Josh let us know about the show.

we need snow

2011-12-10T14:38:00.001-08:00

It hasn't snowed for a week and what we got a week ago only added up to about an inch. Alta has a 27" base, Park City has 18", and everyone else (who is open) is somewhere in between. If we don't get a foot tomorrow - which we won't, because there's not even a chance of snow until Tuesday - we will have hit a new low: historically, the least amount of snowfall at this date has been 90 inches. We've had 79 inches.

Still, we went up to Alta and took some runs this morning, skiing for 2.5 hours. It was busier than it's been so far this season, with lots of ski lessons and actual lift lines. Well, not really lift lines but we weren't able to ski right onto the lifts like we've been doing. The groomers were in pretty good condition at first but were starting to get scraped off in spots around noon; the off-piste stuff is completely tracked out, plus sparse - we weren't interested in risking the bottoms of our skis to try much of it. It was very much like eastern conditions, except for the huge mountains all around us and the gorgeous bright blue western sky. Almost any day on skis is a good one. We just really need some snow to get us back to those great days.

2011 vintages

2011-12-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

As 2011 draws to a close, so too does the inaugural year of the WeWentWest Winery*, with two wines now resting in the cellar: the so-called Luna Bianca, renamed Cecret Chardonnay, a "rich, buttery bouquet with flavors of tropical fruit, vanilla and oak with a smooth, round mouth-feel," and a Chilean Carmenere, "deep crimson, with dark cherry aroma, red fruits and berry notes running to a smoky, spicy finish with notes of dark chocolate and tobacco, with medium full body and moderate tannins." Cheers!

The labels are entirely H's design, production

and installation - nice work!

slow start

2011-12-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed here on the blog that there haven't been as many early season ski posts this year. That's because there hasn't been as much early season snow, and thus less early season skiing to blog about. We're just getting these puny little storms that drop a couple inches here and there (except that down at Brian Head they just got pummeled with 15+ inches) and Alta's base depth is hovering at the 26" mark.

I've only gone twice while H has gone six times, and the skiing is very good eastern-style conditions right now: soft groomers with no ice. He went this past Saturday (it was too cold for me, although if we'd gotten a big dump of snow I would have sucked it up) and had to wear his face mask to protect himself from the snow guns. Good grief - the snow guns are on at Alta instead of the avi-control guns. That's just not right. Please! Snow, please!

This is looking up a chute from the Ballroom -

it's actually very, very steep

'tis the season, i guess

2011-12-02T22:16:00.001-08:00

I prefer to get the Christmas decorations out and up just a couple weeks before Christmas and then leaving them up through New Year's. A lot of folks in our neighborhood are way gung-ho about the holiday, though, and had their trees and lights up by Thanksgiving. (A whole month of Christmas is just too much, in my opinion). There's one house down the street from us who is really making the power company happy right about now - H, B and I walked down to check it out tonight before dinner:

Where does one store it all in the off-season?

You can't tell from the photo, but there are a moving Ferris wheel, merry-go-round and teeter-totter in there too. It was actually kind of pretty, in an over-the-top, gaudy kind of way.

saturday explorations

2011-11-29T20:45:00.001-08:00

The weather was sort of hit-or-miss while H's folks were here: first mild and sunny, then cold and blustery, then spitting snow and rain, then mild again ... challenging for making plans for outside activities. On Saturday we were feeling a little cooped up after hanging out at home all day the day before (what with the rain and wind and spitting snow) and when it turned out to be a fairly nice day, we all jumped in the car to go places and do some stuff.

First we went up to Solitude so H and I could pick up our 5-pak ticket passes (good for five reduced rate tickets and reloadable at the same reduced price). There were a good number of cars there and it was great to see folks skiing, but I couldn't imagine paying for a day ticket with how little snow we've got. Then we stopped by REI so I could buy a new pair of boot covers, having shredded mine by the end of last ski season.

Hope that sucker's not loose

Our next stop was someplace new and a little bizarre: Gilgal Gardens, "an historic sculpture garden created by Thomas B. Child, Jr.," located at 749 East 500 South in SLC. Child created twelve original stone scuptural arrangements and over seventy stones engraved with Bible scripture, poems and inspirational text, beginning in 1957. After his death in 1963, the gardens got new private owners until 1997 when the Friends of Gilgal Gardens was founded to preserve and protect the site. The plantings in the gardens are cared for by volunteers from the Salt Lake Co. Master Gardener Association; things were obviously end-of-season when we stopped by, but I bet it's really pretty in the summer. "Gilgal" means "circle of sacred stones." The garden is a weird little place, a quiet oasis in the middle of the city. I found some of the sculptures a little unsettling (like the hands reaching out of the rock to the two sacred hearts) but I have admiration for people who are called to and able to make things with their hands. Some of the explanatory material said that Child didn't care if people thought his garden was weird - it was important to him that people thought about it at all.

Peekaboo

After all that art/religion it was time for a beer. To continue our trend of trying something new, we went to Red Rock Brewing Co. for a late lunch and some brews. I had the oatmeal stout (which was good once it warmed up a little) and the tasty soup of the day, green chile with shredded chicken. We swung by the Beer Nut on our way back home so H and I could purchase our very own wine bottle corker (now we're committed to making more wine at home). The evening was spent companionably, watching football, drinking homebrew and playing games - good, homey, Thanksgiving weekend stuff.

thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-25T15:40:00.001-08:00

Another Thanksgiving, another City Creek Cold Turkey 6K! This year it was quite warm - about 50 F - and no issues with ice on the road, so our start was at the capital and the finish was down in Memory Grove; I was able to wear shorts, cotton socks and didn't even need gloves. Another difference: personal spectators! H's folks came out for the holiday and so I had a full four person cheering section. The race went off right on time and the 650ish runners and walkers surged up the canyon. I felt pretty good for the duration of the race but I didn't feel as though I was as strong on the uphill as I've been - didn't pass as many folks. The downhill portion seemed to go fairly quickly and soon enough I was across the finish line. I ended up finishing with a time of 35:41.33, twelve seconds faster than the first time I did the race (and I'm not factoring in last year's time since the course was different), 11th out of 27 in my age group and 249th out of 656 overall.

Nice shot of the port-o-johns!

Here's another difference from the last couple of years: we couldn't find a dive bar open early enough to host our post-race beers. H expanded the to-call list to about thirty bars and found none of them open before noon this year. Maggie McGee's, which had been open at 10 a.m. for the last two years, wasn't even unlocking its doors until 3 p.m. - far too late for our purposes! So we shrugged off our disappointment and went straight home after the race, and popped open a bottle of cheap champagne the moment we set foot inside. That seemed to work just fine.

Clear shot to the finish

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching football, cooking (roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, salad, cranberry-orange relish and rolls), eating, drinking good Utah beers (Cutthroat (with their gorgeous new logo design), Full Suspension and the house-brewed Deep Pow Pale) and playing games (Quiddler and Rummikub). We were amazingly too full for pie (craziness - I am never too full for pie) and I had to go to bed well before 10 p.m., tired, full and very happy with the day. I hope all the rest of you enjoyed your Thanksgivings as much as we did ours!

impatient

2011-11-23T21:44:00.001-08:00

What with Thanksgiving looming and lots to get done, I did not go back up to ski on Sunday. But H did, and reported that it snowed (lightly) all day, there were about half the folks there that there were on Saturday, and that when he got bored with the groomers and went off piste, he did manage to gouge up his skis a little. We really need some snow. Last year at this time there was a lot of snow (117" cumulative) and frequent storms. This year ... Alta's had 75 inches which settled to 30 inches, and the next storm is Friday but it isn't supposed to amount to much. I know it's early yet but c'mon, let's do this! SNOW, please!!!

my opening day

2011-11-20T14:21:00.000-08:00

The storm we had Friday night didn't really amount to much - 9 inches up the canyon, a couple inches at our house - but it was enough to get me up and out and skiing on November 19th. I'd been hemming and hawing over whether to go the night before and so Saturday morning was scurrying all over the house, trying to find my helmet and mittens and base layers and socks and ski pants and ski pass and all of it. I didn't have any hand warmers (had to buy some up at Alta to the 300% inflated price tag) and I had thrown my boot covers away at the end of last season because they were pretty much shredded, so I knew my toes would be cold. But still, everything came together and we headed up the canyon by 8:30 a.m.

Bright enough to make me squint

There were more people waiting for the lifts to open than there were on the actual opening day, but once the initial crowd got up the mountain, it was clear there weren't many people there at all. Only three lifts were open (Collins, Wildcat and Sunnyside) but we never ended up waiting in line and we did ride more than one chair with the same people. The snow was much better than I expected it to be. I stayed on the groomers off Collins but plenty of other skiers were whooping it up in the meager powder, tramping out traverses and claiming first tracks. Of course, you could hear the rocks and stumps scraping across the bottom of their skis as they swooped down the hillsides - gotta bring your rock skis to early season skiing. We stayed out for about three hours, enough for everything to get tracked out. My legs are a little tired but I'm counting it as a good start to the 2011-2012 season.

opening day 2011

2011-11-18T20:37:00.001-08:00

Alta opened today as planned. H was up there by 8:30 a.m., first in the singles line, seventh chair overall. The folks who got the first chair had gotten up to the resort at 4:30 a.m. (crazy people). Everyone was stoked - "everyone" being retirees, 20-somethings and H - sharing beers on the lifts, frying up bacon and egg sandwiches on camp stoves in the lift line.

The view from the front of the singles line,

just before opening

We haven't had much snow (55 inches on the season; 21 inches settled snow depth - not enough to keep H from gouging his skis a bit) and the emails I got throughout the morning described the conditions as "dust on crust" and "good (by eastern standards)." It was pretty cold due to the wind and he had to stick to the groomed trails, with only the Collins, Wildcat and Sunnyside lifts being open. Still, he managed to put in three hours of non-stop runs, skiing right back onto the chair without standing in line.

Opening Day self-portrait

It's snowing now, with both Cottonwood Canyons and Parleys Canyon restricted to 4-wheel drive or chained tires. They've backed off on the possible accumulation, saying 9-15" instead of 24-34", but there'll still be some fresh snow for us tomorrow. Let the ski season begin!

utah 31, ucla 6

2011-11-16T13:07:00.000-08:00

As we were having a couple of beers at the Leprechaun Inn on Saturday, my phone rang: it was my work friend Jody. She had been given two VIP tickets to the football game up at the U that afternoon but since it was currently snowing, and she gets cold very quickly, she and her husband wanted to know if H and I would be interested in going, since we spend a lot of time outdoors in the cold. Of course we said yes! and since kick-off was going to happen in about two hours, we paid our tab, rushed over to Jody's house to pick up the tickets and then hurried home. We quickly donned long-johns, wool socks and various fleeces and then drove off again to the Trax station. Our timing was perfect and we jumped on a train without waiting for more than five minutes, changing to a different line a couple of stops up the track so we could go straight to the U.

Party in the Club room

It was snowing pretty steadily when we got to Rice-Eccles Stadium, about twenty minutes before kick-off. It took us a little while to figure out where our seats were but once we did, we were thrilled: in through the VIP gate, up the elevator two floors to the Club level and then out to our seats that were completely covered so that although it was cold (about 34 F) we were totally dry. Back inside, there was a huge room filled with tables and people eating a complementary turkey dinner, a hot dog station, platters of brownies and gallons of soda and hot chocolate - all for free. We missed out on the dinner since we didn't get there until right before the game started, but we absolutely availed ourselves of the hot dogs, hot chocolate and dessert. I don't know if we can ever go back to sitting in the bleachers!

Pretty happy with our tickets

The snow kept coming down until well into the second period and we felt sorry for the hoi polloi down there in the uncovered seats. In fact, we probably wouldn't have been dressed warmly enough if we'd been out there getting wet. The play was pretty sloppy for the first half, both teams struggling with the wet field and wet ball but once the clouds lifted, the Utes figured things out and kept giving the ball to John "The Wolfman" White, who rushed for 167 yards and scored three touchdowns.

After the game, we got back on Trax and cruised on home. We hadn't thought that we would get to a Ute game this year since tickets are all but impossible to come by now that Utah is in the PAC 12. But we got lucky - thanks to my very nice friend who thought of us - and had a great, if unexpected, evening cheering on the boys in crimson. Go Utes!

more city stuff

2011-11-13T12:32:00.001-08:00

H and I were just talking Friday night, at the Porcupine over a pitcher of Full Suspension and some dinner, that the frequency of posts has really died down here. When we first got out to SLC, everything was So New and Exciting and we were always out doing stuff, even on the grey and rainy weekends. Now, two years in, we've slowed down a bit, not frantic to go out and find something new to do. Part of it is because we've settled into a life routine, going places we know and enjoy, like the Porcupine, where the bartenders know us and save empty wine bottles for us to use to bottle our homemade wines; part because we like our house and don't mind hanging out there, working on hobbies and reading; partly because we've become such total Utah weather-snobs. There's still plenty unexplored stuff to go out and do and see - the brand new Natural History Museum building, the Salt Lake City roller derby, Aristo's Greek restaurant, winter elk herds up near Logan - we just don't feel compelled to be out doing it and seeing it every weekend now. (Of course, ski season starts soon and we'll be doing that every weekend.)

So this past Saturday, it was stormy again and we opted to not be adventurous again. (For the record, we would much rather it be storming during the week and sunny on the weekends so we can then tromp around in the week's storms' leavings.) We went up to Alta in the late morning to pick up our season ski passes: there wasn't a ton of snow up there but there were plenty of people, hiking up the ski trails and skiing down, building kickers and little jumps next to the Wildcat lift, hiking around on snowshoes among the trees. People are ready for winter sports to begin in earnest and now that we've got our passes, so are we.

Our next stop was the Beer Nut where we picked up the ingredients for another batch of IPA and some corks since we should be able to bottle the batch of red wine in a couple of weeks, provided it's clear enough. We then stopped by a couple of furniture stores (the loveseat in the t.v. room is starting to show its age). The first place we went to was Civilizzation (2900 South 300 West, SLC). We didn't like the furniture at all - it was all enormous and mostly ugly, looking made for McMansions, and even though they're claiming big sales because they're closing, nothing was marked down very much - but the old building the store is in was incredible. It's an old meat packing plant, "Joe Doctorman & Sons Meat Packing Company," built in the 1920s, and they've left most of the interiors intact, with huge wooden beams, metal tracks along the ceilings where the carcasses would hang, and thick freezer doors - very cool space.

Even tho' H was getting antsy, I made him go into another store (Eldredge Furniture, 4750 South 900 East, Holladay) where we liked the furniture much better: more classic and less overstuffed, with beautiful fabrics. I think the only reason H agreed to go in there was because it was just around the corner from a pub and grill we hadn't yet tried, the Leprechaun Inn, and after we cruised through the showrooms, we stopped in for a beer. The Leprechaun Inn is a rather local establishment, sports bar-ish with comfy new booths, at least twelve televisions (all showing various college football games) and reasonable prices. We got a pitcher of Full Suspension ($9.50) and a couple of grilled bratwursts (the Saturday special at $2.50 each, served with potato chips). We were just finishing the brats when my phone rang. But that's the next post.

citified

2011-11-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

On Sunday we tried to come up with a good way to say goodbye to daylight savings. The forecast looked to be mixed - sun early, then clouds, with possible snow in the mountains. We grabbed the dog and drove up to downtown SLC for breakfast at The Other Place (scrambled eggs with tomato, onion and feta for me; a Denver omelet for H). After that, we took B on a walk up City Creek Canyon, one of the few area canyons that is not a Salt Lake City watershed and thus one of the few that allows dogs.

About three miles up City Creek Canyon

City Creek Canyon is sneaky. At first it feels as though you're just walking in a gully back behind a swanky neighborhood. Then, once you get a couple of miles in, cliffs loom overhead and you realize that yes, this is an actual canyon. If we'd kept going, we would have connected with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and the multitude of hiking/MTBing trails that crisscross the foothills. We only went out about three miles though, at which point B started dragging her feet. She perked up on the downhill return, but we knew the six mile roundtrip would be enough to wear her out for the rest of the day.

We two-legged people weren't too tired after the walk, however, and stopped by Squatters for a couple of Full Suspensions. These were cask-conditioned and were much smoother than the regular brew - tasty! After that it was home for laundry, watching the New York Marathon on the DVR and racking the current batch of homemade red wine before the sun went down early.

winter's here

2011-11-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

It started snowing last night, the temperature falling swiftly from 60 on the commute home to cold enough that the snow was sticking on the lawn by the time we went to bed. And Saturday morning? Still snowing - not a ton here in the valley but socked in enough that you couldn't see the Wasatches at all. So we spent the morning cleaning the house, doing laundry, putting things away, until the sun came out right around noon. B and I went for a walk in Dimple Dell, where there were a few other folks out enjoying the new snow (cross-country skiers, dog-walkers, runners). I hadn't been anxiously awaiting the start of winter but it was really nice to be out there, tromping around in the snow, dressed in the right layers and the air cold on my face.

Snow over my boots - it's a start!

mormon pioneer trail

2011-11-02T18:47:00.000-07:00

H was a man with a plan last glorious Sunday morning: he found us a new point-to-point hike to do. We each drove a car to Ruth's Diner first - and since we got seated outside on the patio, we ate very quickly, not wanting to linger in the chill despite having a heater right next to our table (note: corned beef hash is not the best pre-hiking breakfast but it was certainly tasty) - and then kept going up Emigration Canyon to leave his truck at the Little Dell Reservoir parking area. As we continued to drive my car up to the Jeremy Ranch Road (outskirts of Park City), we noticed something that gave us pause: lots and lots of hunters garbed in blaze orange, parked and/or milling about on the sides of the road. Dang: we'd totally forgotten about deer season!

Lots of history right here

Unlike in Maine, where deer season lasts the entire month of November but there's no hunting on Sundays, in Utah deer season is only for one week/two weekends including Sundays ... in a state where hardly anything is open on Sundays. But we'd come too far to turn back now, so when we got to the trailhead at Mormon Flat (where there was a small, quickly-drying puddle of deer blood in the dirt), we tied our red and not-blaze orange fleeces to the outside of our packs and decided to talk for the duration of the hike. We saw some folks coming off the trail with their dogs who told us that while they'd seen a couple of hunters, everyone seemed to be coming out for the day, so that was reassuring.

Nice path for descending

This section of the Mormon Pioneer Trail from Mormon Flat to Little Dell Reservoir is 9.1 miles long, following the creek up Little Emigration Canyon to the pass at Big Mountain, then continuing down the other side into Mountain Dell Canyon (total trip elevation gain: 1,364 ft.). The trail is quite pleasant, hardly taxing in the bright sunshine. It's a pretty fateful stretch of trail, however as it was right here in 1846 where the Donner party took more than a week to get through what H and I did in about three hours. It was because it took them so long here that they were caught in that winter storm in the Sierra Nevada a couple months later - and that, of course, ended badly.

Free apples!

It went much better for us. H kept up a running commentary for the duration (I'm not sure he's ever talked so much in his life); the trail was mostly hardpacked dirt and easy footing; and just before we reached the terminus, we spotted a beautiful feral apple tree. Deer had gotten all the fruit on the lower branches (and the drops) but there were plenty up higher so I gave the tree a shake and then snacked on a tart, blemish-free apple as we strolled into the Little Dell recreation area.

This is a great hike, pretty, not too challenging aside from the length. You do need two cars since it's a point-to-point, and it'll be easier on the nerves if you go when it is not deer season, but it was cool to walk right where all those pioneers walked 150+ years ago.

domesticity

2011-10-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to have some downtime. Saturday was mostly cloudy in the morning, so our get-up-and-go got up and went, and we just did some home stuff: laundry, cleaning, etc. B and I headed out to run some errands midday (one of the reasons B likes late fall and winter so much more than summer is because it's cool enough that she can go along in the car - never knew a dog who liked to just sit in the car as much as this one) and by the time we got back, the skies had cleared. H went out for a road ride and I put on my running shoes and did my 3.5 mile loop from the house, the one that is all up for the first half and all down for the return half. It was a lovely fall afternoon (high 50s and sunny) and the run actually ended up being fun. After that, our evening consisted of me trying out a new chicken pot pie recipe: it turned out pretty well but (1) adding some parboiled cubed potatoes will give it some additional heft, (2) need to thicken the tasty sauce somewhat so it sticks to the filling better and (3) need to keep an eye on the puff pastry crust so as not to burn it. No, seriously, it did taste good.

Anyway, that was it for our Saturday. Sunday we did go on a hike, but that's a post of a different color.

bike with mike

2011-10-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we loaded our MTBs into the truck and drove out to Captain Mike's house in Park City. He lives in a great spot, in the foothills on the far side of the valley, so he's got a great view of the three (Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley and Canyons) ski resorts. He's also got access right out his front door to Park City's fantastic network of trails, accessible to MTBers, runners, hikers, snowshoers, nordic skiers and horseback riders.

Mike and me - action shot!

We took some nice singletrack through the fields and around the foothills, gently climbing up until we connected with the Glenwild Loop above Kimball Junction. At this point, I recognized the trail that H and I had ridden earlier this summer - correction: the trail that H had ridden and I had walked my bike up and up and up. For some reason, I did much better this time, especially when Mike was riding in front of me so I could pace myself off him. He and I were about the same speed, but he is much stronger on the bike than I am, and looked like he could calmly pedal uphill forever.

Another nice day in greater Park City

Instead of going to the top of the hill and picking our way down the difficult switchbacks (as H and I had done), Mike led us up a jeep road and then down a less technical route. At the intersection at the bottom of the hill, we continued on the Flying Dog trail, following a creek bed a little ways and then climbing up and over another ridge. I really like those trails out there. There are hills, sure, but they're not so discouragingly steep and long, and this time I actually pedaled my way up most of them.

We looped back around, ending up back at the house after about twelve miles, and then enjoyed a beer on the porch. You always should end a MTB ride with a beer. Captain Mike thinks so too and that's yet another reason why we like Mike.

faint trails

2011-10-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we joined a group from the Wasatch Mountain Club for a "Faint Trails" hike, led by club historian, Charles Keller. Captain Mike had told us about the hike, which was going up Grizzly Gulch at Alta, and would talk about some of the extensive mining history in the area. When we met the group - which ended up being nearly twenty people - at the Little Cottonwood Canyon park-n-ride lot, we were pleased to recognize a bunch of folks: my friend Susan from work and her husband, Bob, Captain Mike and three of Captain Mike's friends whom we had met last weekend on the Park City hike, Skip, Sandy and Hope.

The group, heading down an old mining road

The Faint Trails hikes are just what their name implies, covering old and little used trails. Charles took us along the Alta-Brighton horse path, the Prince of Wales pipeline trail, mining roads that were laid out in the late 1870s, and several other of the myriad trails crisscrossing the upper Little Cottonwood Canyon. Charles is a historian, author (The Lady in the Ore Bucket, a history of the Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood and Millcreek Canyons) and avid hiker. His knowledge of the area is seemingly limitless and he showed us old stone walls, foundations, tunnel entrances, ruins of trestles, a suspension bridge, pump houses and water towers. Charles is also 82 and is a prime example of how good an active outdoor life can be for a person.

Our guide, Charles Keller

The day was gorgeous - bright blue sky and sunshine over the golden aspens - the company convivial and the scenery spectacular. We were out tramping around for about four hours (which was plenty, given the size of the group), covering 3.9 miles and doing about 1,400 feet of climbing. It wasn't our most ambitious day of hiking but it was very interesting to learn so much about the miners who populated our beloved canyon from the 1860s until about the 1960s. And it was just so nice to be out hiking around - the snow is coming soon and we won't get too many more days like that this fall.

Blue and gold - can't get enough of it

fall colors

2011-10-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Although we don't get the brilliant reds and oranges that New England gets with autumn foliage, northern Utah does still get some nice color: the golden aspen, obviously, but also soft reds, pinks and pale oranges. People are saying that this year is one of the best foliage-wise in recent years.

We didn't do much the Sunday after our Park City hike with Captain Mike and friends - out for breakfast, a road ride for H, pulling up most of the back garden, mowing and edging the front yard. But after our chores were done we drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon and took a bunch of pictures of the leaves. I wish it hadn't been so overcast as I think the hues would have popped more, but it was still wicked pretty.

park city hike with mike

2011-10-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

After far, far too long, we finally synced up with Captain Mike again for a Park City hike. We met up with him and five of his friends in the Old Town part of Park City, ascending the stairs on Woodside Avenue to some of the myriad hiking/MTB trails that crisscross the area. Those Park City trails are so amazing: well-marked and in great shape. We went up Sweeney's Switchbacks for a while, crossing the Flat Cable trail and then meandering back and forth under the Town Lift (Park City Mountain Resort's chairlift that takes folks from downtown PC up to the mountain).

The gang, heading up the trail

The trail we followed went in and out of the woods and crossed several ski trails, following the old tram line, the rusted metal towers straining to be seen amongst the aspens. We followed some sunny, south-slope facing switchbacks above the old Silver Queen mine, ending up at the yurt above PCMR's Bonanza Lift for lunch, looking out over the trails and glades of the adjacent Deer Valley Resort.

Park City Mountain Resort, shining in the autumn sun

We backtracked a little on our return, but the prettiest part was a new bit of trail, following the serpentine John's Trail through a gorgeous grove of aspens. The descent was gentle, the packed dirt path cushioned with fallen leaves, and the afternoon light filtering through the gold of the aspens - just beautiful.

Everything's golden

After the hike (9.3 miles RT, 1700 ft. elevation gain), we stopped in at Hope and Sandy's Old Town home (lot originally sold in 1887 for $150; worth considerably more now) for a beer on the deck. This was a congenial group of Utah transplants Captain Mike had put together: everyone was interesting, fit and excited about living here and being outdoors as much as possible. Hopefully we'll get together again for another outing soon, before the snow flies (again).

preseason

2011-10-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, that giddy time when all the ski resorts start hinting that Opening Day is just around the corner! Here is a list of anticipated, condition-dependent openings (you can find further details and much much more over at Ski Utah too):

Solitude - November 11
Alta - November 18
Park City - November 19
Brian Head - November 19
Snowbird - November 20
Brighton - "mid-November"
Canyons - November 25
Powder Mountain - November 26
Deer Valley - December 3
Sundance - December 10
Eagle Point - December 15

Snowbasin, Beaver Mountain and Wolf Mountain are all currently hedging their bets as "TBA."

Also, Ski magazine has published its readers' survey results for the country's top ski resorts and Utah makes out pretty well: Deer Valley #1, Park City #6, Canyons #16 and The Bird #20. More interestingly, I think, is the ranking for the resorts with the best snow, frou-frou amenities aside: Alta #1, Powder Mountain #3, Snowbird #4, Brighton #6, Solitude #7 and Deer Valley #10. You know where my heart lies: you can have your haute cuisine, exciting apres ski and solicitous staff - give me snow, snow and more snow. Alta, we're counting the days.

little cottonwood canyon hill climb #2

2011-10-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again: that time when H jumps on his road bike and rides from our house to the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Once again, I met him up at the top with a PBR and the camera to commemorate the event. One difference this year? All the snow up there, whereas as last year there was none. There were tons of ski tracks all over Alta and we could watch three snowboarders hiking up and jumping off an old ski jump on the North Rustler trail.

Happy to have gotten that over with

After we toasted to his not having to do that again for another year, we drove back down the canyon and then over to and up Big Cottonwood Canyon for a celebratory lunch at the Silver Fork Lodge. The place was packed, surprisingly - I would have thought breakfast was their biggest draw. Although it was chilly (low 50s) with high, thin clouds, plenty of folks were sitting outside on the deck, snuggled up to the propane heaters. We opted for an inside table instead, and dined on meatloaf and mashed potatoes (me) and a Cubano sandwich (H). I thought lunch was okay, not great, but I had been hoping that they served breakfast all day and was thus slightly disappointed when I couldn't get my favorite sourdough pancakes. Still, the service was good and a nice fire was crackling in the fireplace - it's really hard to complain.

deep pow pale ale

2011-10-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Right after we bottled our Cecret Chardonnay and freed up the equipment, H started a batch of homebrew, using the kit I'd gotten him for his birthday. He's made beer before but not for years, and not out here in the west, so we had stopped by the Beer Nut to see if there were any tips or tricks to high altitude brewing. The folks at the Beer Nut are friendly and more than happy to talk at length about home brewing. We learned that the only thing that would be different out here is the water: it's really hard in SLC and full of minerals, so you either have to boil all the water and let the minerals settle out if you're using tap water, or buy spring (not distilled) water and use that instead. Other than that, brew away!

1200 So. State St., SLC

A basic difference between making beer and making wine at home is that wine (from a kit) is easy - basically mix juice and water and a few additives, and then wait for 6-8 weeks - whereas beer is labor-intensive at the start but you get the end product pretty quickly. The pale ale kit H had used whole grains which had to be steeped in hot water for 45 minutes, then discarded (we tried a spoonful of the warm grains afterwards: would have been tasty with milk and sugar), then the malt added and boiled for 45 minutes; then the hops added and the wort cooled. The recipe had four different hops: Amarillo, Glacier, Warrior and Columbus. We like hoppy beers.

After the yeast was added and everything cooled enough, the beer went into the primary fermenter for four days, and then the secondary fermenter for another ten until the final specific gravity was reached, and then bottled.

Good-lookin' and good-tastin'

After bottling, you're supposed to let the beer age for a month or so. We could only wait for a couple of weeks, however, and opened some last night: nice carbonation, very little sediment, gorgeous color, fairly strong hoppy flavor with no bitter aftertaste ... we deemed H's Deep Pow Pale Ale a rousing success! We do have to exercise restraint, however, and ration out this new beer - two cases won't last long otherwise, not with a home brew this tasty.

first snow of the season

2011-10-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

It's gone now, but it snowed a couple of inches down in the valley today and it stuck around for several hours. That means we've had a grand total of 4 1/2 months without snow - the last snow was May 24th, I think - that's a heckuva long winter. The mountains got a fair amount: Alta's current forecast is for a winter storm warning, temperatures hovering in the high 20s, with accumulations possible between 8-16 inches. The ski resorts are getting psyched and Solitude has already announced its opening day for November 11, weather permitting. That seems early! It's going to warm up again next week, back up into the high 70s, but in the meantime, as I look out into the back garden, I think this early snowfall may have put an end to my tomatoes for this season. That's okay. They weren't producing much anyhow. I can't believe ski season is just around the corner!

I think this is the end of the 2011 garden

happy second utahniversary

2011-10-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked our second year in Utah (we were travelling home from a weekend wedding in Minnesota) and we just cannot believe that we've been here for two years. It goes so quickly! Here are some of the last year's highlights:

October. We did some hiking; I tried cooking with tomatillos for the first time; we watched the U crush Colorado State 59-6 in the rain; we tried a couple of new places to eat; H had a birthday and rode his bike up Little Cottonwood Canyon.

November. We went out to breakfast and raked a lot of leaves; we checked out the Park City ski swap; we picked up our Alta season passes; opening day was 11/20 with a "settled snow depth" of around 40 inches and on 11/21, we skied in another 12" of brand new powder, an auspicious start to the season; I ran the Thanksgiving morning Turkey Trot in 12F temperatures and then we went out for 10:00 a.m. beers, as we do.

December. We mostly skied, although I hurt my back and had to take a couple weekends off, and by 12/18 we had a base depth of over 6 feet; it took me three hours to drive home from work one day in a snowstorm because Utah drivers are terrible; and we skied some more.

January. Skiing, skiing, skiing, including H taking up telemark and me going by myself for the first time ever; we ate at a Lebanese restaurant (good) and a BBQ place (mediocre); I had a birthday.

February. We went to a neighborhood preparedness meeting; we watched World Cup speed skating at the Oval in Kearns, Utah; it didn't snow that much early in the month but we still had some amazing days at Alta.

March. We tried another BBQ place (no good) and also a downtown dive bar (former dive bar); we had Eastern ski guests and ridiculous amounts of snow in the mountains.

April. I finally got powder skis; we tried yet another new BBQ place (okay), a pizza place (okay) and an Indian restaurant (good); Alta was looking at a 206" base and 724" snowfall season-to-date and we skied and skied and skied.

May. Alta closed (snif!); we tried new BBQ (mediocre) and Thai (quite good); we fixed up the backyard, smothering the weeds with two tons of crushed rock, carried by hand; H's parents came to visit and we all went to St. George to explore for a weekend; we bought mountain bikes.

June. We mountain-biked and started hiking, despite the wet spring; we saw Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in concert; we found a BBQ festival and also went to a Vietnamese noodle house in SLC; we had a friend visit from back East and did some hiking and moose-viewing; I ran 8K all downhill (ouch).

July. We did a bunch more MTBing and hiking; a California friend came to visit us; H did the Porcupine Hill Climb on his road bike; I discovered a fantastic Asian supermarket.

August. My two girlfriends came to visit for a weekend; our California friend came back and he and H went camping; we had a blast watching the Tour of Utah (yay, Levi!); we hiked a lot and MTBed; we went back to Log Haven for our tenth wedding anniversary and then went pseudo-camping in a Forest Service cabin in Ashley National Forest.

September. We filled our MTB tires full of thorns at Antelope Island; we made thirty bottles of homemade white wine; we checked out the big SLC farmer's market; we had a wonderful long weekend of MTBing, hiking and road-riding down in Moab; we saw the XTERRA National Championships, and Lance Armstrong, up at Snowbasin; we hiked, of course; and we saw a terrible Real Salt Lake game.

And now we're starting our third year. The weather this week isn't supposed to be that good - after over a month of gorgeous weather, it's finally cloudy and raining ... but it's also supposed to snow up in the mountains and that means ski season is just around the corner. We're still loving it here, and enjoying exploring Utah. Stay tuned for more adventures!

bad beer, worse officiating

2011-09-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

H and I finally got to a Real Salt Lake soccer game tonight. Someone at his work had vouchers for free tickets and, as I always say, you should never underestimate the power of free - we ended up with seats about eight rows up from the field near the north goal. RSL was playing the Chicago Fire and although RSL is currently third in the Western Conference and the Fire is seventh in the Eastern Conference, Chicago blanked RSL 0-3.

This was actually one of the worst games of soccer we've ever seen. The refereeing was absolutely appalling: nearly every single call was against Salt Lake, including a red card to a key midfielder in the 11th minute. Chicago is an amazing bunch of actors and dove more than Jacques Cousteau. RSL did manage to score in the second half, when it was already 0-3, but the ref called it back, we think for offsides although what with the scrum of players wrestling in front of the goal, I'm not sure how you could have been sure.

The best part of the game were the fans. One corner of the stadium stood up and played music - drums, horns - constantly throughout the entire game. Our section was not the family section due to the hilarious and obscene cheers and taunts emanating around us. I don't think I've heard that much swearing since we moved to Utah (and I did feel back for the LDS family next to us, but their kids were savvy enough to plug their ears for the "Oooooooooooooooooo - you suck, @$$%!%#" on every goal kick).

That linesman right there? Awful.

Rio Tinto Stadium, Real Salt Lake's home field in Sandy, Utah, is a gorgeous little (20,000+ capacity) stadium, with a natural grass field and swooping roof sections that glow at night from the interior lights. Their beer options, however, leave quite a bit to be desired: Budweiser, Bud Light, Shock Top and Michelob Amber-Bock (all Anheuser-Busch products). We went with the "amber-bock" as it was the darkest option ($5.50 for a tiny; $9.00 for a large) and after the first couple of sips, H looked at me and asked, "Does this beer have any taste?" No, no, it does not, for the record.

On the plus side, since parking at the stadium is quite limited, we learned that if you go to the Sandy Crown Burger (9604 South State St.) and purchase at least $14.00 worth of food, you can park for free in their lot for the duration of the soccer game, stadium located just about a block north between 9000 and 9400 South. We had a Crown Burger combo and a Junior Crown Burger combo and were very happy about all of it. Except the soccer game. May RSL have better luck, and better referees, next time.

unrelenting

2011-09-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

We got a late start for our hike last Sunday, sleeping in, walking the dog and then going out to breakfast (Cottonwood Cafe: french toast for me; Denver omelet with home fries and sourdough toast for H), but since we're in the end of September, the heat wasn't an issue. Sunday was just gorgeous with cloudless, Utah bluebird skies; the temperature at noon at the trailhead in Millcreek Canyon was around the low 60s and even in the sun, later in the afternoon, it didn't get above 80 F - perfect.

Alexander Basin

The trail we did is one we've been talking about ever since we started hiking out here, but we'd never done it because it was described as being so steep: Alexander Basin to Gobbler's Knob, described in our guidebook as "[n]o one lost any time cutting switchbacks when making this trail." No kidding. We hiked 4.9 miles round trip with a 3,083 elevation gain. Let me repeat that: almost 3,100 feet of elevation gain in just under 2.5 miles. The trail (hard packed dirt, some loose gravel, rocky) goes straight up the center of Alexander Basin and the up starts right from the trailhead. It's really, really steep. Really steep.

Looking east down towards Mt. Reynolds/Butler Fork

Alexander Basin itself is a tiered bowl, full of the remnants of the summer's wildflowers. At the top of the basin, the terrain falls away to the south, opening up into another gorgeous bowl that drains into Big Cottonwood Canyon above Butler Fork. We walked along the ridgeline first to an overlook a little to the south of the peak, floored by the expansive views in all directions. To the south and east, we could see the top of the tram at Snowbird and Devil's Castle at Alta over in Little Cottonwood Canyon, the Silver Fork Lodge and Solitude's entry in Big Cottonwood Canyon; to the northeast we were able to pick out Parleys and Emigration Canyons and the backsides of the Park City area ski mountains. It's really fun now as we're getting more familiar with the area to know what we're looking at. And from up on that ridge, we were looking at a lot.

We figured out the self-timer!

We retraced our steps along the ridge to summit Gobbler's Knob - just a few feet higher but if you're going to climb a mountain, you might as well reach the top. Our descent was slow at first, what with the loose rock underfoot and the steepness of the trail, but once we reached the middle of Alexander Basin we were able to make pretty good time (just under three hours hiking time, with just over an hour spent soaking in the views at the top).

Once down we changed into dry clothes and drove back down Millcreek Canyon until we found a spot by the stream (we had to go quite a ways down since all the picnic spots were full of families enjoying their late September dinners al fresco). There, we cracked open a couple of PBRs (naturally), watched a couple of funny little American dippers* ducking and diving into the creek for their own meals, and just enjoyed being outdoors again on a glorious Utah afternoon.

* Thanks to Paul for the ID!

xterra national championships

2011-09-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

The XTERRA National Championships are up at Snowbasin Resort this weekend, with the triathlon USA finals Saturday and the trail run national finals on Sunday. We often watch the XTERRA tri series on television and decided to head north to see the race in person today. (Because Lance Armstrong recently decided that he wanted to do this race, a lot of other people went too, who might not normally have gone to the event.) Snowbasin is, as always, a gorgeous venue and today was no exception, with a mix of sun and thin clouds and red foliage dotting the mountainside. The temperatures were pleasant: low 60s in the morning and warming up to high 70s in the afternoon - pretty good conditions for a race.

The swim portion of the triathlon was down in Pineview Reservoir: a 1.5 km swim broken up into two 750-m laps with no running in between. After the swim, the racers jumped on their mountain bikes - because, unlike the Ironman series, for example, XTERRA is not on pavement and both the bike and the run are on trails - for the 28 km climb from the reservoir to Snowbasin, a 3,400 foot elevation change. After the bike, the athletes switch to their running shoes and head out on the 9.8 km trail run, across the ski trails and through the woods, with another 700 feet of climbing.

Lance heading out on the run

We opted to skip the swim portion and drove straight to Snowbasin, We snagged a spot on the fence at the bike-to-run transition area, right by the run exit, and were able to easily see all the pro leaders, including Dan Hugo and Conrad Stoltz (So. Africa), Nico Lebrun (France) and Josiah Middaugh and Lance (USA) for the men, and Melanie McQuaid (Canada) for the women. Lance's transition was a little slower than the other guys (understandably, since they do this regularly throughout the year) and Josiah had to walk the last mile of the bike segment because of a shredded rear tire.

Women's event podium

After the leaders and a good portion of the amateur sports came through the transition, we moved up the hill under the gondola to watch them finish the run. The final fifty meters to the finish was lined with cheering spectators and the racers slapped high fives as they came down the last stretch, except for Lance who seemed to be struggling slightly. For the event, Nico Lebrun came in first for the men, with Dan Hugo, Josiah Middaugh, Conrad Stoltz and Lance rounding out the top five; Melanie McQuaid took first for the women, and Lesley Paterson (Scotland) took second, then Danelle Kabush (Canada), Kelley Cullen (USA) and Emma Garrard (USA).

Men's season podium: Stoltz took the season;

Lebrun (to his right) won the event

Snowbasin put on a great event with burgers, BBQ and beer, vendors, gondola rides and live bluegrass music to keep everyone entertained and involved. It's apparently a tough course - in a post-race interview, when asked if he had fun today, Lance deadpanned "No" - but the athletes seem to like it and XTERRA will be back again next year, having chosen Utah for its finals home.

moab long weekend (day 3)

2011-09-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

Our last day in Moab dawned sunny, clear, dry and warm. We packed up our gear and meandered over to Main Street for breakfast on the patio of the Peace Tree Cafe. We were the first people sitting out there but by the time I'd finished my homemade granola with watermelon, apple, dried cranberries and yogurt, the patio was hoppin'. We checked out of the Kokopelli Lodge and drove straightaway up to Dead Horse Point State Park. On Saturday, when H rode his bike up there, he couldn't see a thing it was so socked in with clouds. On Sunday, however, we could see for miles. DHPSP is perched on the edge of a mesa, looking down over incredibly high red cliffs to the Colorado River wandering through its canyon below; the state park stood in for the Grand Canyon in the last scene of Thelma and Louise, by the way - it's just that impressive.

Looking at the Colorado River from DHPSP

After wandering around the scenic overlooks (the whole frickin' thing is a scenic overlook, really), we saddled up on our mountain bikes and hit the new Intrepid Trail System (as recommended by the Chile Pepper Bike Shop MTB chick on our second inquiry), which "offers slickrock for beginners." There are three loops of increasing length and difficulty: the 1.1 mile Intrepid, the 4.2 mile Great Pyramid and the 9.0 mile Big Chief. H decided that we would do all three of them in order, starting at the parking lot for maximum trail time. It was so much fun! The trails are fantastic - hard pack, slickrock and a little sand - with rolling hills, rocky step-ups and views absolutely everywhere.

H tearing it up on the trails (so focused!)

I did get a little dehydrated (not fun and not recommended) so after our ride, when we cleaned up and drove into the neighboring Canyonlands National Park/Island in the Sky district, I had to sit in the truck, drinking Gatorade for a little while before I felt well enough to walk about. Canyonlands is just incredible (I seem to say that a lot about the Utah scenery, don't I?): wild-wild-wild, rough, desolate and gorgeous. The Island in the Sky district is the easiest one to get around in, with its scenic drives and short, user-friendly hikes; the Needles district to the southeast and the Maze district to the southwest are pretty much only accessible by backcountry permit, and out in the Maze was where Aron Ralston lost his arm and nearly his life (see 127 Hours for slightly moviefied details). We did walk out 1.4 miles to the Upheaval Dome, a possible meteor crater or burst salt bubble, marveling at the colors and swirls of the rocks around us. We agreed that we'd like to go back to Canyonlands and do some more exploring, especially down on the White Rim road, a 4x4 road that follows the rim of a sandstone bench 1,200 feet below the Island mesa and still 1,000 above the canyon floor (explorable by 4-wheel drive vehicle and/or mountain bikes).

Why do they call it the White Rim?

It was starting to get late - we wouldn't end up getting home until after 10 p.m., making poor B stay another night at the kennel - but it was difficult to tear ourselves away from the sun-scorched beauty of southern Utah. It's so very different from where each of us grew up, and we like it so much; there's just so much to see and do out there, we'll have to go back again soon.

Shafer Trail heading down to the White Rim

moab long weekend (day 2)

2011-09-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

The rain was just letting up Saturday morning as H headed off for the Moab Century Tour at 6:45 a.m.; the two-mile ride in the drizzle to the start guaranteed that he'd be wet for the entire ride. I lingered in the motel room until about 7:30 a.m., then got in the truck and drove the short distance to Arches National Park. Having a national park pass meant that it was feasible for me to drive in early, do the 3 mi. round-trip hike to Delicate Arch and get back out of the park before it got busy. There were a few other people out and about but by the time I got to the arch, perched precariously on the slickrock, there was just one other hiker up there. We'd seen Delicate Arch from a distance when we were in Arches in 2008; up close it's much more fragile-seeming. The canyons surrounding it are just gorgeous: curved and swirling red rock.

Delicate Arch, Arches National Park

After that little hike, I headed back towards town and drove ten miles down the Potash Road, Scenic Byway 279, to the trail head for Corona Arch. This was another 3 mi. round-trip hike, fairly gentle, which first followed an old road up to a gap, and then meandered up a cairn-marked wash to the red rock cliffs. The canyon is just stunning, with the railroad tracks just barely visible below, and there are two arches up there: Bowtie Arch and the impressive Corona Arch (140 x 150 foot opening). I hung out under the arch for a little while as the skies cleared and the sun came out, wondering how many more amazing natural features might be hiding in the neighboring canyons.

Corona Arch (there's tiny people in there, for scale)

I got back to the truck at 11:45 a.m. and started driving back to town, keeping an eye on all the cyclists as Potash Road was the second leg of the century, as well as the sum total of the 40 mile ride, when I realized that I recognized the jersey up ahead. It was H, well ahead of schedule and almost done with his ride! He flagged me down and asked me to bring shoes and dry clothes to him at the finish, so I hurried to the motel and then back meet him to get the full story.

The first leg of his 100 mile ride was to Dead Horse Point State Park and back (60 miles) and was completely fogged in the whole way - he couldn't see a thing. He did learn, however, at the turnaround, that only three guys were ahead of him, so he went charging back down the hill and to the second leg, the out-and-back on Potash Road along the Colorado River (40 miles). He ended up being the fourth finisher overall (out of 928 riders), with a blistering time of 5:18:56 - absolutely fantastic since he hasn't done any long rides all summer. I was so proud of him!

100 miles later, still smiling

He was a little worn out, understandably, so after we had some tacos and beer as provided by the race organizers, we went back to the motel. H vegged out for a little bit while I walked up and down Moab's Main Street, stopping in at Lin Ottinger's Rock Shop and Moab Coffee Roasters, and generally window shopping. When I got back, he was starving and ready to go, so we strolled back down to the Moab Brewery for beer, fish tacos (me) and a big plate of pasta (H) and the Chile Pepper Bike Shop for MTB trail recommendations for Sunday and a new helmet for me.

It was an early evening, as you might imagine. Back at the Kokopelli Lodge we watched the Utah Utes crush the BYU Cougars into smithereens before calling it a night. On the schedule for Sunday: more mountain biking!

moab long weekend (day 1)

2011-09-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

On a bit of a whim, we decided to go to Moab, Utah, for a long weekend getaway. There was a big road ride going on - the Moab Century Tour - so when I managed to snag a last minute motel room due to a fortuitous cancellation, H registered for the century, we tossed B in the kennel and loaded up the truck. We really need to get a bike rack but H managed to fit it all in: two MTBs and a tub of gear in the back of the truck; his road bike and our overnight bags behind us in the cab. It's about a four hour drive from our house to Moab so we got up and got going Friday morning, and rocked out to country music the whole way down. (You really have to listen to country music when you're driving through the back of beyond in Utah.)

We made one brief refueling stop in Green River, where I picked up a Crenshaw melon from a Vetere family melon stand - growing the famed Green River melons since 1958. We arrived in Moab in time for a late lunch at the Moab Brewery, the only microbrewery in town; I had a Deadhorse Ale, a traditional English mild ale, and H had their Scorpion Pale Ale, which is a tasty and hoppy brew. Next door to the brewery is one of Moab's many bike shops, the Chile Pepper Bike Shop. There, a cute MTB chick gave us a suggestion on some beginner MTB trails. Moab is a mecca for outdoors sports - hiking, river running, canyoneering, climbing, 4x4ing, and especially MTBing - the surrounding slickrock is pretty gnarly, though, and much of it way above my skill level, so we wanted some advice from the locals.

Kokopelli Lodge in downtown Moab

First, however, we checked into our motel, the funky little Kokopelli Lodge (72 South 100 East). Built in the 1950s, this eight-unit motel was just what I hoped for: extremely reasonable, quiet, just a block off Main Street, colorful and not a cookie-cutter chain. The room was small but comfortable, with a private bath, mini-fridge, microwave and coffee maker, and the A/C cranked. Two office dogs, Ruby and Jed, helped check us in; we kind of wished we could have borrowed Ruby for the night since we hadn't brought B. We will absolutely stay there again.

After we'd checked in, we changed into MTB duds and drove a few miles north of town, as recommended, to the Moab Brand trails. We opted for one of the two easy rides, the Bar M trail, an 8-mile loop with only about 300 feet of elevation change. The trail surface was hard pack, a little loose rock and slickrock, and the terrain was rolling ups-and-downs, much more enjoyable to me than the all-up/all-down canyon riding I've attempted along the Wasatch Front. The scenery was pretty good too - lots of fun.

Always check your brakes before a ride

We only made one loop, though, because the thunderclouds were rolling in. By the time we'd gotten back to town, the storm was in full force - thunder, crazy lightning and lots of rain - and it rained off and on all night, letting up enough to let us scurry around the block for a quick dinner at Eddie McStiff's (used to be a brewpub but now they contract the brewing out to SLC). We called it an early night since it was going to be a big day tomorrow - H's 100 mile ride, for instance - and fell asleep to the sound of rain on the roof. So far, Moab was looking to be a good choice for the weekend.

crickets

2011-09-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

Been quiet around here, hasn't it? Well, to be honest, we've sort of laid low this past week. On Sunday, H rode his bike from our house, up to SLC and then up to the top of Emigration Canyon; I drove up there to meet him and then we had breakfast at Ruth's Diner (Sunrise Spuds for me and a club sandwich for H). After that we stopped by the Sandy City Hall to see the Healing Field memorial, where more than 3,000 American flags were set up on the lawn, one for each person who died in the attacks on 9/11.

Other than that, we've just been working, road riding (H)/going to the gym (me)/hiding under the bed (B), and hand-tweezing the remaining thorns out of our MTB tires. We seem to have gotten them all - so far, everything's staying inflated - which would be nice because we'd like to ride this weekend.

Sorry for the unexcitement but sometimes things are just mellow (oh! H started a batch of homebrew but that'll get its own post sometime later). We'll see if we can't rustle up some doin's this weekend to tell you about..

farmers' market

2011-09-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

We hadn't been up to the Downtown SLC Farmers' Market yet this year, so when the weather forecast on Saturday was for afternoon thunderstorms, we decided to not venture into the mountains (where the thunderstorms like to hang out) and instead head in town. There was a lot going on in downtown SLC on Saturday: the weekly farmers' market, the Greek Festival, the Dew Tour and a 1,000 bike motorcycle ride in honor of 9/11.

The Farmers' Market is massive, nearly covering Pioneer Park with farm stands selling all manner of produce, baked goods, cheese, pork, lamb, nuts and flowers, craft stands selling all manner of handmade jewelry, clothing, pottery, artwork and metalwork, random musicians (a didgeridoo, a bicycle-towed upright piano, a Swedish fiddle, folkies and bluegrassy types) and a lane of food tents. We stopped by the Middle Eastern vendor, Amal Wa Salam, which is owned and run by a fellow who works in H's office, and bought a couple of falafels. They were fantastic: three falafels - molded and fried while we waited by Sami's cute little mom - served on a tender pita with shredded lettuce, cabbage and carrots, ripe tomato slices, dabbed with a very spicy red chile paste and drizzled with a light yogurt sauce. The falafels were hot, light and crispy - so good. We stood under a tree and gobbled them down, watching the swirl of people and dogs move past us.

Busy place, the Farmers' Market

After our snack I bought tomatoes, peaches, plums and green beans from a couple of different farm stands. I've missed going to a farmers' market on a regular basis. In Maine, there was one every Wednesday not far from my work, so we'd walk up at lunchtime to make our purchases. Here in SLC, this huge market is on Saturdays and is all the way up in town; we're usually off hiking or biking and it really isn't convenient for us. There is a Tuesday late afternoon option, however, that I keep forgetting about - just farm vendors, not the crafts - but that I should remember to hit after work.

Buying a bucket o' green beans

Laden with super-fresh fruits and veggies, we strolled back to the car, stopping in at Squatters to hydrate after having been out in the midday sun. H had the Full Suspension pale ale, of course, but I branched out and had the seasonal bitter - a really nice beer, a little lighter than the Full Suspension.

wine making on the wasatch front

2011-09-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

Utah's liquor laws are complicated. You can still get a drink, no worries: there are bars, and restaurants with liquor licenses; you can buy beer in grocery stores (3.2% alcohol by weight/4% alcohol by volume) and the liquor stores sell booze, wine and higher alcohol beer. It's really not that big a deal - just be patient with the bartenders when they are explaining it to you because it's not their fault. But if you don't want to deal with all of that, if you want to stockpile without breaking the bank or if you're looking for a six-week project, you can make your own wine at home. If I can do it, anyone can!

Salt Lake City actually has a home-brewing supply store, The Beer Nut, located at 1200 South State Street. It's a cozy little shop, selling beer-, wine- and soda-making kits, ingredients and equipment. They have a pretty big selection of wine-making juice kits: the majority seem to be red wines but my dad, who has been home-brewing and home-vintnering for decades now, told me that whites are easier than reds, so I picked out a Winexpert Luna Bianca, a chardonnay blend. We already had much of the equipment we needed because H brews homebrew from time to time (although he hasn't done it out here yet) and I borrowed the most expensive thing I didn't have, a 6-gallon glass carboy, from a work friend.

You do have to be patient when making your own beer and wine. I started primary fermentation on June 26 ( I had been waiting until the basement temperature was a constant 70 F because fermentation requires 65-75 F), mixing up the juice, oak chips and various additives and then letting it sit. On July 4, the specific gravity was 1.010 which meant I could decant the wine into the glass carboy for secondary fermentation. Then I let it sit for ten days. After that, I checked the specific gravity (which for the variety I was making would not get lower than 0.998) to check that it remained the same for two consecutive days. Stabilizing and clearing came next on July 15, which involved stirring the yeast sediment back into the wine and adding clarifiers. Then I let it sit for eight days to clear.

On July 23 I racked the wine - siphoning the clear liquid off of the dregs into a clean container - and then let it sit another two weeks to finish clearing. It looked pretty good on August 7, but my dad said that at this point, I could leave it there in the carboy almost indefinitely before bottling. That was good because we got busy with friends and summer stuff in August and it wasn't for another month that we finally got around to bottling the stuff. I rented a corker from the Beer Nut, washed all the bottles we'd collected and soaked the natural corks. Then H and I did the bottling, six gallons of wine into 30 bottles, with just over two wineglasses of overage.

It looks like wine, so that's a plus

The bottled wine is supposed to age for at least a month but we had to drink those two glasses: it's kind of fruity and a little sweeter than I prefer (note to self: next time buy "dry," not "off-dry") but it's absolutely drinkable and a splash of seltzer takes away most of the sweetness, turning it into a refreshing wine spritzer. We're calling it "Cecret Chardonnay," from the nascent WeWentWest Winery - I'll put up another photo when we get the labels done. Looking at those thirty bottles on the counter was a hoot - I don't think I've ever had so much wine in the house all at once. With the cost of the kit, the corks, the sanitizers and the corker rental, the price per bottle comes out to about $5 - or the price of a pint of beer at the Porcupine. I'm not saying we're giving up on going out, I'm just saying it's kind of fun to have homemade options.

flattened

2011-09-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

The plan was solid - it was a good plan. We were going to take our MTBs out to Antelope Island State Park and ride on the trails there. The island has lots of dirt roads and hiking/biking/horseback-riding trails which run along ridgelines or follow the undulating foothills, nothing too hilly or steep or rocky or switchbacky, so I should have been able to ride them no problem. The weather was perfect: clear and sunny, high 70s with a steady breeze. We checked in at the visitors' center and the super-friendly ranger there talked us through our trail possibilities; we decided to try the Mountain View trail which runs the length of the island on the east side and continues past the Fielding Garr Ranch, heading towards the southern end of the island which is inaccessible to those folks in cars. We drove a little ways down the road to the Frary Peak trailhead road where there was access to the Mountain View trail, put on our gear and jumped on our bikes.

the scenic Mountain View trail

For the first 1.4 miles it was wonderful. Gentle terrain, a dirt path (with some sandy spots) surrounded by wild sunflowers, pronghorn antelope bounding away through the grasses and bison watching us unconcernedly as we pedaled on by. At about 1.4 miles we stopped so H could take some photos of the picturesque path and as he laid his bike down, I heard a hissing. "Hey," I said, "I think one of us has a flat." We inspected our tires. Yes, one of us did have a flat, and the other of us had a flat too, and actually both of us had two flats each as our tires were simply pincushioned full of thorns. We were each carrying a spare tube but that would have left us still with a flat tire apiece, so there was nothing to do but push our bikes back to the truck, sorely disappointed but grateful that we'd only gotten 1.4 miles out and not, say, ten.

When we got back to the truck, we started pulling thorns out. We stopped counting when we got to 200, and that was only the big ones; our tires were still riddled with tiny thorns that will require bright light and tweezers to remove. And we're going to have to get them all, because if we miss any at all it'll mean an automatic flat as soon as the new tube is inflated. Like I said, we were pretty disappointed - because it would have been a great, easy ride in such a beautiful spot - but we found that a cold PBR eases the pain a little.

All. Four. Tires. Are. Flat.

We also found a party going on over at the other side of the island: the sixth annual Antelope Island Stampede Festival, which we hadn't known was even going on until the visitors' center handed us a brochure. Hot air balloons (only in the morning, so we missed those), tons of colorful kites, live music, food vendors and a BMX bike team demo managed to keep us entertained for a while.

This guy? Doesn't have flat tires (or any fear)

In order to break up the drive home, and also continue to keep ourselves entertained and ease the pain, we dropped by Squatters for a couple of Full Suspension pale ales (they've also got a very nice seasonal bitter on tap right now, but I was going to be one and done today and the pale ale was what I went with) and some food. There were a decent number of folks there for such an off time on a Sunday afternoon, and quite a few people were enjoying the pleasant temperatures out on the patio - always a good time at Squatters. And there at the bar we toasted to good plans gone amok: because even we didn't get to ride like we wanted, we still got outside on a nice day in a beautiful spot, and it's hard to hate that - no matter how many thorns there are.

1.11

2011-09-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Some days are mellow around here. Saturday, September 3, was one such day. H went for a road ride and I took myself hiking, going back up to Alta to do the Catherine's Pass loop H and I had done just a couple weekends ago. The wildflowers were definitely past their prime, but it was still plenty colorful. There were lots of folks up there too, holiday weekend and all, I guess, but not so many that they bothered the big ol' bull moose leisurely dining under the Cecret chairlift.

Alta moose enjoying a meal

After we'd gotten home and cleaned up from our respective outings, we went to the Porcupine for the 1 year-11 month anniversary of our arrival in Utah. Yes, we're still counting, and yes, I cannot believe we've almost been here two years - where has the time gone? A pitcher of Full Suspension pale ale, a Szechuan veggie stirfry (me) and a BBQ meatloaf with mashed potatoes (H) later, we were back at home, in for the evening early, just content to be mellow.

trout creek guard station - part 3

2011-09-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Because we never, ever have completely fabulous weather on our vacations, Sunday was pretty much a washout. We'd planned to do a higher altitude hike (trailhead at 11,000 ft; high point at 12,000) to a lake to see if there were any fish to be caught, but the thunder and lightning evident at the trailhead changed our minds. Instead we followed our map around a bunch of Forest Service roads, checking out Oaks Park Reservoir, a bunch of range cattle and a good number of folks on ATVs, all wearing raingear. (The people were wearing raingear, not the cows.)

Riding the storm out

We got back to the cabin in the early afternoon and settled into the long haul - the thunderstorm moved around us for about eight hours. I read on the porch, bundled up as the temperature plummeted (by dark we could see our breath), while H painstakingly prepared shavings for the evening's campfire and our range cows lowed calmly to each other. It was pretty peaceful, but we almost ran out of beer. The rain finally stopped at 7:30 p.m., giving us enough time to build a campfire. We'd planned to cook a pork tenderloin over the fire but it just got too late and we had leftovers instead.

The master firebuilder gets it done even

on rainy days

Monday meant we had to leave and, of course, the day came in clear and brightly sunshiny. We packed up our gear, swept out the cabin, took a few more pictures and said goodbye to the cows. We decided to drive out a different way than we went in, which dirt road took us through winding Brownie Canyon and Dry Fork, the latter of which ends in dramatic red and white rock cliffs and hoodoos. The drive west was uneventful and we got back to SLC in time for a pitcher of Full Suspension at the Porcupine before we liberated B from the kennel.

A little scruffy and completely happy

The stack of laundry was imposing and we desperately needed/wanted showers, but it was bittersweet to be home again (as much as we like our house): the Trout Creek Guard Station is a lovely place, pulled out of the world where we really felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere, away from absolutely everything. We're so glad we went there.

trout creek guard station - part 2

2011-09-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning brought us mostly sunny skies and ham-egg-cheese sandwiches for breakfast (as well as truly nasty Folgers instant coffee - bleh). The weather looked like it was going to hold up so we decided to try to hike a loop that we'd pieced together on our map: trail 029 from behind the cabin to trail 025/Highline Trail to ATV trail 009 to Forest Service road 020, which goes right by the cabin. It was all laid out there, clear as could be on the map, but we decided to bring the compass just in case.

Trail 029 right before we saw the elk

It was a dang good thing we did too. The first half of this nearly 12-mile hike was really difficult, not because of the terrain but because the trails were so lightly traveled and so very poorly marked. Instead of paint blazes (which they don't use out here but we're used to from back East), they'd chopped hatchet-slashes into the trees - which tend to get overgrown as the tree ages. There were occasional cairns too, but those were pretty sporadic, plus there were a lot of blown-down trees so we often had to scramble over them, off the trail, and then find the trail again. Eventually we learned to search out the old blow-downs that had been chainsawed years ago to clear the trail. The forest on the 029 section was particularly beautiful and we even saw a herd of elk as they ran away from us. (Elk are very shy.)

Joyfully leaving 025 behind in Manila Park

The Highline Trail/025 was even tougher to follow than 029, especially when we got to the high point of the trail, a moonscape of strange sandy/rocky dunes punctuated with the occasional wizened tree. And no trail to speak of. As thunder rumbled ominously overhead, we searched in vain for 15-20 minutes, trying to find some semblance of a path. We knew we could go back the way we came, but we really didn't want to try to find the trail again backwards, knowing how tough it had been the first time. Finally, after getting out the map and compass to orient ourselves, we went back to the last tree we knew had a blaze and then searched until we found one fallen tree that had been sliced by a chainsaw. And so it went, chainsaw cut to faint blaze to chainsaw cut, until we found the switchbacks and got off that ridge. I'm not going to lie to you: it was a little stressful, not knowing where the trail was.

Manila Park (no cows)

We picked up ATV trail 009 in a lovely meadow, Manila Park, and from then on out it was easy travelling, the trail well-worn and evident. We passed through some pretty woods and a couple other parks populated with surprised range cattle. 009 came out on the forest road that, after an hour's trudging, delivered us right at our cabin. A little while later, we listened to our range cows mooing as we cracked open some PBRs, cooked bratwursts and baked beans (right in the can) on the campfire, enjoying the sitting down as the thunder rumbled - again - and those glorious stars came out.

Big Brush Creek, along trail 009

trout creek guard station - part 1

2011-09-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

Up until last weekend I couldn't have told you when the last time was I went camping, but now, after last weekend, the clock has been reset - we went camping last weekend! After dropping B off at the kennel, we drove east nearly all the way across the state on Utah-40, passing through the teeny towns of Fruitland, Duchesne, Bridgeland, Myton and Roosevelt, plus a whole lot of nuthin', to get to Vernal, Utah, which is near enough to Dinosaur National Monument that every other shop and motel had a dinosaur motif going on. Then we drove north from Vernal for twenty miles on a paved road (191), and then northwest for another twenty miles on dirt roads until we got to the Trout Creek Guard Station in Ashley National Forest, in the Uintas range.

Trout Creek Ranger Station, elev. 9300

Built in the early 1930s (along with all the other Forest Service ranger/guard stations in the area, only a couple of which still survive), the TCGS sits at an elevation of 9,300 feet, at the northern end of Trout Creek Park, a verdant cow pasture with many creeks and streams and a population of range cows, both curious and cautious about us. The supercute (and clean) cabin has two rooms and an excellent porch (I love porches), is plumbed and has a shower although the water is currently turned off, a propane stove and fridge, solar-powered lights, bunkbeds and a double futon couch, a kitchen table with four chairs, a woodstove inside and fire-pit outside, screens on the windows and plenty of dishes and silverware of varying condition. There was firewood stacked on the porch and more filling half of the garage behind the cabin - H was immediately in heaven and started chopping wood for a campfire as soon as we'd unloaded.

Fenceline art shot

Other outbuildings include a small barn and an outhouse, both of the same vintage as the cabin and garage, and a newer vault toilet, as well as a split-rail corral in the woods and a larger barbed wire fenced pasture. There were cowpies everywhere, so we had to watch where we stepped as we explored, finding a hiking trail out back and a quickly running, clear stream, perfect to use for washing hair and dousing campfires. The temperature had dropped from 88 in Vernal to 59 as we headed into the forest, the sun mostly out but dark clouds building to the north/northwest.

Looking west over the little barn

to Leidy Peak (photo taken Monday a.m.)

H built an incredible campfire, lighting it with one match and using neither newspaper nor lighter fluid. We ate our al fresco dinner of chicken and broccoli alfredo and had s'mores (and PBRs) as the sun went down and the incredible stars came out. Sitting there, listening to the range cows moo, we could feel ourselves relaxing bit by bit; we'd just gotten to TCGS and we already loved it.

tenth

2011-08-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, we're repeating ourselves (and I don't mean skiing weekend-in and weekend-out at Alta): our TENTH wedding anniversary was last Thursday and we went back to Log Haven to celebrate. You can click through here and read all about our first visit on our ninth anniversary.

Things were slightly different this time. It was much busier on a Thursday evening; our server was a little shyer and not as personable, though certainly competent; they didn't serve those luscious little watermelon-goat cheese tastes. But we got a table right by the waterfall, had a bottle of Greenpoint shiraz (just like last time) and toasted to our ten years of marriage. (Note: you can bring your own wine and pay only a $15 corkage fee; had I known that, I probably would have brought the bottle of champagne that sitting downstairs, waiting for an occasion.)

The food: H had the baby romaine salad with a local aggiano cheese and I had the organic greens with heirloom tomatoes (some of them were purple!), green beans and wheat berries. They brought around a bread basket several times, with chewy kalamata olive rolls, parmesan-encrusted foccacia and other tender breads. For our entrees, I had the grilled bison NY strip steak, served with roasted cauliflower, pancetta and fingerling potatoes (some of them were purple!), while H went with the filet again - this time, seemingly much smaller than last summer. We of course had dessert: the honey-topped creme brulee and the warm chocolate lava cake.

Log Haven is just such a beautiful spot, the old lodge nestled in the cool green of the canyon, and was the ideal place to celebrate the past ten years and look forward to the next adventures together. We started those next adventures with a camping trip ... that'll be the next post!

alta in the summer

2011-08-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago we were in the mood for a shortish, don't-let's-get-started-until-the-afternoon hike (approx. 5 miles). We headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Alta, parking in the Catherine's Pass trailhead lot just below the Sunnyside lift. We hiked up to the pass through Catherine's Area, traversing the bowls and meadows we frolicked in all winter, now in full summertime wildflower bloom.

Self portrait atop Catherine's Pass

At the top of the pass we could see down into Brighton in Big Cottonwood Canyon, a couple of small alpine lakes (Catherine and Mary?) below us. We walked up along the ridge to the top of the Sugarloaf lift, peering down the chutes we ski and marveling at how dang steep they are - things are a lot less steep when you've got your skis on. I'm serious. I wouldn't have wanted to hike down any of those chutes but I ski down them with hardly a second thought. Well, maybe a second thought but almost never a third.

What Vicki's/3 Bears looks like in the summer

For the descent we followed ski trails: Upper Big Dipper to Rock N' Roll, then followed the access road through a cluster of private cabins and back to the car. It's so much more fun hiking up at Alta this summer because now, after having skied there every weekend last winter, we know what we're looking at. There's still a fair amount of snow up there, tucked away in the shade in Castle Apron, and I imagine it'll not melt before there's new snowfall. Last summer, the first snow was August 28th ... wonder when it'll be this year.

Seriously, the wildflowers are nuts out here

rocky road

2011-08-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

It had been ages - yes, ages! - since I'd gotten on my MTB, so in a last minute decision, we headed over to Park City to try out the Glenwild Trails. Glenwild is on the north side of I-80, near Kimball Junction. Because it's Park City, the Spring Creek Trailhead had plenty of parking and an extremely swanky (i.e., not a port-o-let) restroom. Because it's Utah, it was all frickin' uphill.

Well, not all of it, but the first bit for sure. And H and I learned a couple of lessons. First: discuss which trail you're going to ride on. I assumed we'd be doing the Glenwild Loop, which we did, but because the trail was narrow and rocky and up from the get-go, I psyched myself out and walked, pushing my bike up the trail. At the first junction, I went left, whereas H had continued straight on and was waiting for me at the top of the hill. So I continued on and on, up and up, pushing my bike up the Stealth Trail to the top of the hill, fully expecting H to find me at any time. Then, at the top of the hill, I rode down the Cobblestone Trail for a bit, chickening out on all the steep and rocky switchbacks, until I wasn't entirely sure that I was still on the loop ... and turned around to start pushing my bike back up what I'd just ridden down. (By now, what with all the walking in bike shoes, I had a huge blister on the back of my right heel.)

H did find me before I had walked up more than four switchbacks. Poor guy: after waiting at the top of the hill, he rode all the way back down to the parking lot in case I'd given up or was stuck in a ditch. When he didn't find me, he turned around and rode back UP the hill, this time going to the left the way I had gone until he caught up with me. I hadn't been terribly worried - I knew he'd find me, especially if I really had managed to stay on the loop (which I had). I turned back around and we kept riding to the bottom of the steep, rocky hill where the singletrack turned and meandered through the rolling sagebrush-covered hills. By the time we'd wound our way back around to finish the loop, I was wicked tired and ready for a band-aid and a beer. Luckily, we had both of those things in the truck - ready for anything.

Still smiling!

red rock south

2011-08-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

If we're in downtown SLC, our go-to microbrewery tends to be Squatter's. There's another brewpub just around the corner from them, though: Red Rock Brewing. They've got the SLC location, one in Park City and just now have opened a third location at "Fashion Place Mall" in Murray. (I'm sorry, but that's just about the dumbest name for a mall ever.) We went there to check it out on a recent date night.

The place is absolutely enormous with two huge dining rooms, patio seating and a rather smallish bar given the size of the dining rooms. It was busy when we went that Friday night but we were able to score seats at the bar without waiting, and were able to watch everyone else bustling around, taking in sustenance after some hard mall shopping. The space is pretty much decorated in late 20th Century Brewpub with glass walls, exposed ventilation ducts and a mostly open kitchen, including a view into the brick ovens. There are lots of fantastic photographs of various Utah red rock formations, adding some nice warm color to the space.

I think I know why we haven't been to Red Rock Brewing since before we moved here: I find the beer and the food okay but not great. I had the bitter, which was on the cask, and H had the IPA: his beer was floral but not overly hoppy; mine was pretty nondescript, although it was a lovely color. I had a Caprese sandwich with mozzarella, carmelized onions, roasted Roma tomatoes and basil - tasty enough but too much (and too dry) bread. H had the Cobb salad which was quite big and piled high with bacon, egg, cheese and avocado.

It looks like the new location is being well-received, which is great, and I'm thrilled to see a local company holding its own in a mall dominated by national chains. Still, given the choice, I'm going to stick with Squatter's if I'm downtown and the Porcupine if I'm south - the food is better at both of those places, and I can get Full Suspension at both of 'em too.

red pine lake revisited

2011-08-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

One of the first hikes we did when we moved to Utah was up to Red Pine Lake. We picked it as a recent weekend hike because it's mostly shaded and, with the late start we'd gotten, shade was going to be important under the Utah August sun. Also, that hike kicked my butt the first time and I have wanted to go back and see if it would do the same now that I've acclimated and gotten my hiking legs under me. Verdict: I need to spend more time on the stairclimber at the gym, apparently.

H on the shore of lower Red Pine Lake

It's about a 7-mile round trip, with the trailhead elevation around 7,700 feet, lower Red Pine Lake at around 9,650 feet and the upper lake at 10,000 feet. The trail is rocky - something I need to remember about both the Red Pine Lake hike and the White Pine Lake hike: gorgeous lakes but tough on the ol' footsies - and pretty steep in places, especially between the lower and upper lakes. The first time we did it, in November 2009, there was a ton of snow, so much so that we were post-holing, and I remember taking two steps, then pausing to breathe, then taking another couple of steps. It wasn't nearly so bad this time (snow fields in the bowls but not really any to walk on) but I was still puffing pretty hard by the time we reached the upper lake.

The upper lake is just up above that

higher clump of trees, below the ridge

These glacial-blue alpine lakes are so beautiful, nestled down in their rocky (quartz monzonite, up there around the upper lake) bowls. We didn't see much wildlife - a woodpecker and one pika - but heard from various other hikers that the fishing had been quite good, particularly in the lower lake. The flowers were incredible too, a little late this year due to the late snow and probably just at or about peak right now.

Lupines and ... yellow ones

crazy for/at the tou

2011-08-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, one more post about the 2011 Tour of Utah and then I'll get back to posting other stuff (just as soon as we do something other). This Vimeo video is from Stage 5 on Tanners Flats and it is a party for sure. Seeing spectators get so close to the racers always makes me nervous ... but it looks like such a party that we may have to tailgate there for 2012's race.

Tour of Utah - Queen Stage - Wacky Food Hand Ups from Roots Culture Connect on Vimeo.

2011 tour of utah - stage 5

2011-08-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

2011's Stage 5 was about the same as 2010's: a 161 km (100 mi.) ride from Park City, through Kamas and Midway, down Provo Canyon to Sundance, up and over Alpine Loop and descending through American Fork Canyon, then climbing up and over Traverse Ridge, through Draper and Sandy, and, finally, climbing Little Cottonwood Canyon to finish at Snowbird. Dang. That's a heckuva lot of mountain climbing: 11,000 vertical feet, including 3,500 feet over the final six miles.

Henao and Levi (in yellow) about to finish

We packed a cooler (ham and cheese sandwiches and PBRs) and headed up to Snowbird around noon, finding a shady spot near Little Cottonwood Creek to consume our repast. A stroll through the expo showed Snowbird taking advantage and selling both food and beer (the latter up at the lodges but folks felt free to take their brews to go, so we did too). They had a Jumbotron set up near the finish line so we hung out there for a while and watched the cyclists make their way up and up and up. Then, when the riders were just a couple miles away, we found spots at the rail to watch as they crested the final climb before coasting downhill to the finish line.

Stage 5 podium: Henao (1), Levi (2)

and Brajkovic (3)

It was Radio Shack vs. Gobernacion de Antioquia the whole day, with Leipheimer, Brajkovic, Henao and Sevilla playing cat-and-mouse with each other. And once they hit LCC, it was just Levi and Henao. They came over the final crest together and then Levi, in a classy move since he was about to win the Tour, never challenged so that Henao was able to win the stage. Brajkovic took third behind his teammate Levi, and Tommy Danielson came in fourth.

Final general classification podium: Levi (1),

Henao (2) and Brajkovic (3)

The tough little Colombians won the best team competition - gleefully spraying each other with champagne - and it was wonderful to see the crowd cheer so loudly for them ... almost as loudly as they did for Levi, winning his second Tour of Utah in a row. It was a great Tour, for us spectators as well as the riders, and Levi promised us that he'd be back again next year to attempt a three-peat. Can't wait!

2011 tour of utah - stage 4

2011-08-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

If Stage 3 was hot, Stage 4 was a scorcher: 96 F under cloudless skies for the downtown SLC circuit race. The course was a brutal eleven laps for a total of 132 km (82 mi.) and somewhere in the vicinity of 7,000 feet of climbing all told. The race started at 1:00 p.m., so we got there a little early to walk through the expo set up at the start/finish alongside the state capital (where I was disappointed to only find two food vendors (aside from the ice cream/sno-cones), one of which was only selling vegetarian hot dogs - again, a missed opportunity to sell a lot of food).

Charging up from the start

We watched the start from a head-on vantage point before meeting up with my work friend Jody and her husband who scored prime real estate in the shade near the top of the toughest climb, 500 m. from the finish atop State Street. The peloton held together for the first few laps but had started to disintegrate by lap 5, with a breakaway, the main peloton and then stragglers falling off the back. The crazy climbing Colombians were extremely impressive, several of them leading the breakaway all day. Poor Team Radio Shack basically imploded, though, unable to handle the heat and the climbing, leaving just Levi and Brajkovic to work together.

Levi (in yellow) on Lap 4 - still with

support from his team

In the end, Javier Acevedo won the stage (2.56'18"), with the Spanish rider Javier Megiasleal coming in second and the Swiss Rubens Bertogliati taking third. Levi held onto the yellow jersey for another day but Henao crept up to within 23 seconds of him.

Stage 4 podium with skis for prizes

2011 tour of utah - stage 3

2011-08-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

Stage 3 of the Tour of Utah was Friday night out at Miller Motorsports Park in Erda, Utah. H picked me up from work and we headed out there. Finally getting to attend a stage in person, we saw that the Tour was much better organized than last year with better signage, lots of staff and volunteers and more barriers set up to delineate spectator area. (They also now restrict the grandstands to VIPs only.) This stage was an individual time trial: 14.5 km (9.0 mi.) on the racetrack.

Tommy D. working the crowd

We stood right next to the start for most of the riders, then walked around to the other side where we could scurry between the start and the finish. Tom Danielson got himself a new fan (me) when he grinned at the crowd and waved to get the cheers louder, all whilst sitting on his bike waiting for his start. The crowd ate it up and it was nice to see one of the cyclists let their game-face slip for just a bit.

Big George Hincapie ready to go

Tejay Vangarderen gave himself a stage win as a birthday present (17'33") while Levi finished second (17'39") and the Colombians - climbers, not time-trialists - scarcely made a showing and Hanao had to give the yellow jersey up to Levi who moved into first in the general classification.

Stage 3 podium: Vangarderen (1),

Leipheimer (2) and Gretsch (3)

Random notes: it was really hot out there in the setting sun with scarcely a breeze (which the cyclists probably appreciated); the event organizers needed to have some concessions open - they would have made a fortune in hot dogs since the race went from 5-8 p.m.; and the podium girls were wearing too much make-up, hair extensions and truly street-walkerish shoes.

2011 tour of utah - prologue, stages 1 and 2

2011-08-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

It's been Tour of Utah time again around here! It went off a week earlier than last year and with much better weather: sunny, hot and not too windy this time around. H wasn't able to get to the first three events, so I'll synopsize them for you all together; we both went to Stages 3, 4 and 5 and I'll put up photos from those in subsequent posts.

Prologue (8/9/11): the short-but-steep Prologue was held in Park City's Utah Olympic Park, a 2 km (1.25 mile) ride up 615 feet with some 7% grade stretches. One of the Colombians from Team Gobernacion de Antioquia-Indeportes Antio won: Sergio Henao, with a time of 4'05". Paco Mancebo came in second (4'07"); Oscar Sevilla, another Colombian third (4'10"). The Colombian team is going to be a factor in this Tour: they are young, tiny and used to racing at altitude. Levi Leipheimer came in sixth.

Stage 1 (8/10/11): the Stage 1 road race took place up at Ogden, a 187 km (116 mi.) ride consisting of a 38.5 mile loop so that the riders have to climb the North Ogden Pass Road three times (nearly 3,000 feet of climbing each time), then circling around through Eden Valley and Pineview Reservoir before returning to Ogden through Ogden Canyon. American Jesse Anthony won the stage with a time of 4.39'29" and Henao and Sevilla were right behind him, as was Levi and Radio Shack teammate Janic Brajkovic; Henao kept the yellow jersey.

Stage 2 (8/11/11): Stage 2 started in Lehi, went south down the west side of Utah Lake, then curved around north to finish in Provo, 161 km (100 mi.) - much, much flatter than Stage 1. Kiwi Jack Bauer won the stage with time of 3.33'43" and Henao kept the yellow jersey, although Levi scootched his way up to third in the general classification.

tour of utah report coming soon

2011-08-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Today is the final stage of the Tour of Utah ... this evening I'll post about the Tour, to report on the stages we've gone to. The Columbians are going to give Levi a run for his money today!

camping in the uintas

2011-08-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

I meant to get this up ages ago, at least before girls' weekend, but life got in the way and I didn't. So it goes. A couple of weeks ago, our friend R rode his motorcycle out to our house from California. He and H went for an overnight camping trip to the Mirror Lake Highway region of the Uintas; I stayed home because we sort of had to cobble together enough camping equipment (we don't have much yet so they rented a tent and a propane stove from REI) and I wanted them to do a test run before I committed myself.

One of the lakes along their hike on Saturday

This area is national forest, in the Heber-Kamas Ranger District, which meant that our national park pass covered the entrance fee. Even without reservations, the boys were able to score a tent site for Saturday night at the Shady Dell campground ($7.00): large, tree-filled sites along a stream with a picnic table and fire pit; a spigot for water and a vault toilet. The campgrounds along Mirror Lake are popular and several of them were still closed as of two weeks ago, what with flooding from the above-average snowmelt. H had hoped for a site along a lake but said that the Shady Dell campground was perfectly serviceable - they couldn't see or hear any other campers.

Itchy! (and limber, for such a big guy)

The hike they did Saturday was the first hike H and I had ever done in Utah, with Captain Mike way back in October 2009; please feel free to click through on the link and read about it. That night, H rustled up some penne alfredo with chicken and broccoli for dinner and rumor has it that some beers got drunk too. They had visitors as they broke camp Sunday morning: two young bull moose moseyed into the campground and laid claim to a clearing across from the boys' site, calm and unafraid of the campers taking photos of them. After the moose photo shoot, H and R did the Lofty Lakes hike that H and I had done last July. There was still quite a lot of snow up there, whereas last summer I think we only found a small patch; many of the switchbacks were buried so the guys had to do a little bushwhacking.

H on the Lofty Lakes hike

They came back out of the Uintas, dirty and reeking of bug spray (the Uintas are known to have mosquitoes and they are late this year, due to the extra snow and water), and I met them at the Porcupine for dinner. Seems it all went pretty well for as haphazardly equipped as we are - now it's time to buy our own tent so I can give it a shot. Hope I remember how: I don't think I've been camping since I was about thirteen!

girls' weekend

2011-08-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, my two bestest girlfriends came to SLC to visit. It is practically criminal how long it's been since the three of us have gotten together, so we made up for lost time by practically talking nonstop from Friday evening when they got here until just about now when we dropped them at the airport. Neither of them had ever been to Utah so it was fun to do the introductory tour. We began, of course, at the Porcupine for nachos, beers and burgers - because that's how you start vacation.

On Saturday, while H escaped for a road ride and a self-guided fishing expedition up Big Cottonwood Canyon, the girls and I leisurely breakfasted at home, then drove up to downtown SLC for a (free - see prior post) visit to Red Butte Garden, the fabulous University of Utah botanical garden. The sun was out, clear and strong, so we happily wandered through the gardens, pausing in the shady spots ... except for where the rattlesnake was hanging out. We snapped a photo there and then moved out without disturbing him. We were hot and parched after that, so we stopped by the Desert Edge brewpub at Trolley Square for a light lunch, and then hit a shave-ice stand for frozen treats - I had the sour pink lemonade which was quite good.

Cheers for beers!

We packed beers and a supper picnic and drove up to Snowbird for that evening's Cool Air concert, snagging a prime umbrella'ed table for our make-your-own chicken, black bean and corn burritos. The chairlift rides close at 6:00 p.m. so instead we bought tickets for the tram ride to the top, spotting a cow and a calf moose far below and then enjoying the fantastic views all around from the 11,000 ft. summit. When we descended, we enjoyed a couple more beers in the pleasant cool as the live music (Marshall Crenshaw himself!) wound down and the sun slipped over the western mountains.

Sunday morning found us up and at 'em and at the Silver Fork for breakfast, then taking a stroll around Silver Lake at Brighton to watch the numerous fishermen not catching a thing. Guardsman Pass from Brighton to Park City is finally open so we drove over that - LEY spotted a huge bull moose grazing in the aspens - but didn't linger in Park City as it was swarming with people for the PC Arts Festival. We went to Sundance Resort instead for a beer at the Owl Bar, then continued up and over the Alpine Loop beneath Timpanogos, exiting through American Fork Canyon and returning home in time for cleaning up and snacks before the girls had to be back at the airport.

Top o' Snowbird, under the tram

I'm so glad they came to visit - I'm so glad the monsoon thunderstorms gave us a break this weekend - and I hope they had fun. I know I did, and I really enjoy showing off my new home to old friends.

score

2011-08-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I should be sharing this with you, since I don't need the competition, but I'm guessing most of my readers don't live in SLC so it's okay. I have girlfriends coming out to visit this weekend (yay!) and as part of planning what we might do, I thought that visiting Red Butte Garden might be fun. I've never been there myself but it's supposed to be spectacular: a non-profit four-season botanical garden run by the University of Utah. Adult admission is $8.00 ...

... unless you have what I've got, which is a Community Exploration Card that will allow me and three guests free admission to each of Red Butte Garden, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Fine Arts and Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. We can go to each place only once, and it has to be in this month, and I can't get another card for six months. There are eight of these CECs offered on the first of each month at every Salt Lake public library. They're available on a first come/first served basis (no reservations) and, as you might imagine, are in pretty high demand. I was waiting at the main library before 9:00 a.m. on Monday (along with the mass of great unwashed homeless who apparently surge into the library on a daily basis, looking for A/C in the summer and heat in the winter) and managed to snag the second one. It's a great program and I'm glad I found out about it.

ocean mart

2011-07-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

My regular state liquor/wine store is currently "closed for remodeling" (and what, by the way, is the point of that? People come in, buy booze and leave - it's not like you have to doll the place up or anything) so I had to go to another one, down on 9000 South. When I pulled into the parking lot, I was thrilled to see that Ocean Mart Asian Market was right next door. I'd read about Ocean Mart somewhere but hadn't gotten around to checking it out yet - and here was my chance.

When I walked into the market, I must have looked like Charlie walking into the Wonka chocolate factory - it was awesome. I nearly got whiplash from turning my head left and right to try to take it all in. There's a food stall just as you come in, with those big red ducks hanging up, selling soups and rice dishes and boba drinks, and nice wooden tables and chairs to eat at. The produce section had good looking fruits (I forgot to check out the veggies unfortunately), peaches and plums and citrus, plus lots of ginger and lemongrass and things I couldn't name for the life of me (one thing looked like durian fruit but was about the size of a Corgi dog). A butcher department lined the back wall.

The aisles were stuffed full of just everything. Mangoes and squids in fresh, canned, preserved, dried and fried forms; coconut water, coconut juice, organic coconut juice, coconut juice with pulp, coconut juice with jelly (?), coconut custard; sesame oil, crackers and candy; rice, rice wine vinegar, rice noodles, rice candies, rice puddings; frozen pot-stickers, dumplings, red bean paste steamed buns, black bean paste steamed buns, lotus seed paste steamed buns, red bean ice cream; a whole refrigerator case of tofu (regular, fried, frozen, spiced, sliced, diced and more); a bewildering array of teas, soy sauces, fish sauces, oyster sauces, chile sauces, curries ... I didn't know what most of it was but I absolutely could have filled a grocery cart full of things I wanted to try.

I managed to get out of there with just one package of frozen red bean steamed buns and a tall can of coconut juice (with pulp). I will absolutely be going back there and buying all my soy and fish sauces, curries and pot-stickers there - and I'm so intrigued by all the frozen desserts they had. And to my family in Maine: you are hereby notified that for the next few Christmases your presents will likely mostly consist of exciting and possibly unidentifiable Ocean Mart items. Ocean Mart is fantastic!

murdock peak

2011-07-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's generally pretty hot out here in Utah this time of year, snow and ice in the mountains notwithstanding, so we try to find hikes that are at least partly shaded. Last Saturday took us up to the top of Millcreek Canyon (itself a fairly well-shaded place) and a hike up Murdock Peak. Our go-to hiking book, 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Salt Lake City, describes it as a moderate, mostly shaded hike to a saddle at the top of the canyon, overlooking Park City on the east side. We did that, then added on a bushwhack to Murdock Peak just for the heck of it.

Still some snow at Canyons ski resort

The Upper Big Water trailhead parking area at the top of Millcreek Canyon is pretty big, but even so we had to park 0.7 miles down the road as that parking area, the lower parking area and the overflow parking were all full. Despite this, we saw hardly any people which led us to believe that there must be lots and lots of other trails up there, enabling the recreating folks to spread out. Although this trail was supposed to be an out-and-back, we managed to make it a loop by ascending on a newer, still under-construction (but really 99% done) trail with nice, soft, packed dirt footing. The trail was in and out of wooded areas and mountain meadows; we saw lots of huge dragonflies and a couple of hummingbirds taking advantage of the wildflowers.

That's the drainage we bushwhacked through

to reach the trail down below

At the saddle, we joined up with the Great Western Trail, a popular mountain-biking trail that we had touched upon last year on our Desolation Lake hike. We took a look out to the east, identifying the town of Park City and Canyons ski resort, before forging our way up the ridgeline, following game trails and bushwhacking through the scrubby growth. We walked along the Canyons ski boundary line, finding a couple of sizable snow patches, before summiting on Murdock Peak.

Admiring the aspen grove

As we admired the view, we realized we could see the return trail far below us on the upper canyon floor. A clearly defined drainage led down to it through a grove of aspens and we figured that we could easily bushwhack on down. That aspen grove was gorgeous, like a great green cathedral, bright blue sky peeking through the leaves. We easily found our way back to the trail and followed it out, opting for the older, lower trail on the exodus. This trail's footing was slightly less pleasant than our outgoing walk: rocky, muddy and with several creek crossings - which H just tromped right through, enjoying the cool-off.

Speaking of cooling off, when we got back to the car we liberated the cooler and took it down to the banks of the creek for our post-hike beverages. I stuck my feet in the water but had to yank them back out after only twenty seconds - still wicked cold with snowmelt!

Hike statistics: 8.6 miles, approximately 1.4 of which was bushwhacking; 4 hours 16 minutes, including snack and view breaks; beginning elevation 7,052 ft., Murdock Peak summit 9,602 ft., total elevation gain of 2,550 ft.

alta in july

2011-07-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

I had Monday off (recognition of Sunday's Pioneer Day holiday) and decided to take a jaunt up to Cecret Lake to see how dear ol' Alta was faring. There isn't that much snow anymore - well, there's lots more snow than there was last July when H and I went up there - but relatively speaking, there's not too much. There were, however, fairly fresh ski tracks up at the Apron, and the little streams are full to bursting as what snow there still is continues to melt. There are hardly any wildflowers even though this is typically prime time in Albion Basin for wildflowers and the little U.S. Forest Service campground at Albion Basin is still not open, as they continue to clean up from the past winter's snowfall.

Let me give you all a visual to help convey just how much snow there was up at Alta this year. The first picture was taken on April 23, 2011, a week before Alta closed for the season. Note how I'm bent over the trail sign to Cecret Saddle:

This next picture of the Cecret Saddle trail sign was taken on July 25, 2011. That's my hydration pack leaning up against the sign. That pack is 18 inches long.

Let me help you with the math: in the April photo, I was standing on approximately 18 feet of settled snow. It's a wonder that as much of it has melted as it has. My guess is that the snow that is still stacked up in the Apron will be there, still, in the fall when the snow starts falling again. Incredible! (And, in related news, Alta season passes go on sale next Monday!)

happy pioneer day

2011-07-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

It's late but it's been a while since I posted anything, so I'm going to talk about what we did today and save yesterday's hike for later. We learned today that we need to get back into the habit of preparing for weekend activities ahead of time, and not leaving decision-making and organizing until the last minute. We were pretty good about that last summer but for some reason, not so much this year, resulting in late start times, hiking in the heat of the day and missed opportunities picnic pavilion-wise.

For instance, this morning (Sunday) I announced that although I would like to go MTBing, I was leery of falling on my still-present bruises so perhaps we could do something else. H suggested going to "the beach" (which means finding a reservoir or lake where we can swim/fish/sit and watch the water/etc.) and I suggested a hike. So then we flailed around far too long before not coming up with a hike we wanted to do - despite the fact that just yesterday we were marveling at all the hiking in the area we have yet to do. We decided to skip the hike and go to the beach instead. Somehow, we managed to load up the car and hit the road within twenty minutes of making that decision, but then we had to stop and get sandwiches from Subway, and then we had to go have breakfast at the Cottonwood Cafe where we totally looked like tourists, reading our guidebooks and Gazetteer, trying to figure out what reservoir we wanted to visit.

We settled on the Jordanelle Reservoir State Park, on the far side of Park City, the largest in the area and very popular. The Jordanelle has two areas and we decided to try Rock Cliff because it was less developed and certain to be less busy. Rock Cliff is in the narrow arm of the reservoir, more wetlands than open water. We saw numerous osprey and sandhill cranes but what we didn't see were any covered picnic pavilions and since the morning was quickly running into noontime, we knew we needed shade. So off we went to Hailstone, the more developed Jordanelle S.P. campground. Hailstone has a sandy beach and a marina and a restaurant and over 200 RV/tent campsites and lots and lots of picnic pavilions ... all of which were full, of course. We drove through, realized that we'd like to come back (and rent a party boat!) but early next time.*

We ended up at Rockport State Park, on a smaller reservoir in Wanship. We'd gone there once last year and ended up sitting at the same covered picnic table. The reservoir was pretty busy with powerboats, jetskis, small sailboats and catamarans; folks were fishing and swimming and floating around, enjoying the sunshiny day (temperatures were in the very pleasant mid-80s). We'd remembered to bring our swimsuits and ventured in for a dip; although the top six inches were pleasant, the water got cold quickly and neither of us stayed in too long. H got out his fishing gear and cast from the shore for some time as well - got his very first Utah fish too, a nice little bass!

The one that didn't get away!

We stayed at Rockport for about five hours, finally dragging ourselves away and back to the hot (96 F) Salt Lake Valley. Now the sun is down and the lunatic neighbors have begun lighting off their fireworks. B is doing remarkably well (she takes her Benadryl with peanut butter) but I'll be glad when fireworks season is over in the next day or two.

* Oh, and were we ever happy to have our state park pass what with these failed attempts!

bruised and battered but unbowed

2011-07-19T10:30:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we threw the MTBs in the truck and drove up to Snowbasin. It's been ages since we've been up there - probably since we skied there in March 2010. As we pulled into the parking lot, I realized that I'd forgotten how gorgeous it is up there. It definitely wins the prize for being the best looking ski resort in the summer season, with the lush green trails running up to the cliffs high overhead, plus the lodges are so beautiful and well-kept that you feel like you're in a luxury hotel, not a ski lodge. The temperature was perfect too: a balmy 71 under bright blue skies.

Idyllic spot for a MTB ride

Snowbasin has a lot going on the summertime: gondola rides and mid-mountain dining, disc golf, cookouts and free concerts, hiking and MTBing trails. You don't have to pay to ride their trails (only if you want to take your bike up on the lift) and there's even a regularly scheduled shuttlebus to bring you back to the main lodge if you end up at the bottom of one trail, far down the access road. We picked up a trail map and determined that the green trails would be best for me: lower Needles, Last Chance Trail and the Green Pond Loop, all winding up and down through the rolling hills beneath the peaks.

Foot down but upright, so call it a win

The trails here are awesome - which is not to say that I didn't struggle, because I did, on the switchbacks and on the hills where the trail surface was rocky. I've learned that a big part of my problem is just going too slowly up (or down) the rocky bits and then just falling over, unable to get my feet uncleated in time. I stopping counting the fall-overs after six and while I'm scratched up pretty good now and will have some spectacular bruises later, I didn't really get hurt. Plus I'm sort of used to falling over now and am not afraid of it any more. H had a couple of fall-overs too - going too slowly because he was waiting for me - and gouged his right shin pretty well. After that I told him it was okay if he rode ahead at his own pace as long as he'd wait for me at the trail junctions. (I have a whistle in case I fall and get hurt and need him to come back for me.)

Poor H's leg!

But let me get back to how awesome the Snowbasin singletrack is! None of what we rode was ever too steep; much of the trail surface was lovely hard-pack which is a dream to ride on; and the views are phenomenal, both east over the rolling green hills and west to the cliffs towering over the ski resort. H in particular did great, riding up and down and over absolutely everything ... except one bridge that was just pallets stapled together. In all, we rode for 2 hours 40 minutes - well, that was my time, as H could have finished up 25 minutes sooner had he not been waiting for me.

View to the west

After we got back to the truck and changed out of our dirty, sweaty, bloody MTBing clothes, we sauntered on over to the Snowbasin patio where there was a barbecue (bacon cheeseburger and pulled pork sandwich) and beer (Uinta Cutthroat pale ale) for purchase and consumption with a live band, Shades of Grey. We sat under an umbrella, eating, drinking and listening, surrounded by tons of other like-minded folks out enjoying the day. It was an outstanding finish to an outstanding day - and, coupled with our hike to White Pine Lake the day before, an outstanding weekend all the way around. We just love it out here!

P.S. While we listened to the band, we used H's phone to watch the last twenty minutes of the US v. Japan women's World Cup final. What a heartbreaker!

beating the heat

2011-07-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

Just under a year ago, we hiked up to White Pine Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon. You can read about that hike here - and you really should, because we went back up to White Pine Lake this past Saturday what a difference almost a year makes. I mean, almost a year and 200 inches more snowfall than last winter. The first part of the trail was exactly the same: steady and not too steep, rocky underfoot, largely shaded under a cloudless, sunny sky. It was quite a bit wetter, however, with creeks and springs overflowing and using the jeep road trail as their streambed. It had been a tough winter up there too as there were lots of trees down, many across the trail.

H crossing the meadow

When we reached the meadow - which at our last visit was verdant and filled to bursting with wildflowers - it all changed to being completely under multiple feet of snow. Lots and lots of snow. We couldn't see the trail but enough folks had gone up previously that we were able to follow their tracks, winding our way across snow bridges over roaring streams and up through the evergreen forests. We came out into the glacial bowl, where in non-snow-covered times switchbacks wind their way up to the lake, and immediately decided that we could cut some distance off this hike by climbing up the steep slope directly under the dam instead of trying to find those switchbacks. The slope was quite steep and as we didn't have crampons or YakTrax, we had to stomp footholds in the snow. (Note to self: buy another pair of YakTrax.)

Less than ideal fishin' conditions

We finally clambered up onto top of the dam at the end of the lake - and then nearly were blown right back off again, it was so windy. Also: the lake was almost completely frozen over and H noted that he was glad he hadn't bothered to bring his fishing pole. We found a somewhat sheltered spot and hunkered down to eat our apples and granola bars, marveling at just how frickin' much snow was up there. Totally different scene from almost a year ago.

Action shot! Note how I'm not falling

We didn't linger at the lake because I didn't want to get chilled from the wind, and glissaded right back down the way we came. I am getting better at glissading but I can confirm that snowplowing sans skis is not that effective. Walking out on the snow was pretty enjoyable, actually, because we made great time - half striding, half sliding - and the snow surface was very gentle on our knees.

That's at least seven feet of snow in them thar hills

When we got back to the car, we changed into dry clothes and kept driving up the canyon to Snowbird for some free folk/bluegrass at their Mountain Music Festival. We found a table in the shade, drank some PBRs and inhaled a can of Pringles (since we were craving salt), and agreed that the hike to White Pine Lake is at the top of our favorites list, whether it's covered in wildflowers or buried in snow.

promises promises

2011-07-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since I posted anything - hang with me for one day more. We did a great hike today ... I'm just too tired to post about it now. (Not that the homemade melon daiquiris are having anything to do with that.) Plus I think we're going MTBing tomorrow so there will be new content soon for sure.

rest day

2011-07-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, the day after the hill climb, we'd planned to go MTBing as it has been a while since we've done that. But H went out for a quick road ride and came back with fatigued legs, and suggested that maybe we should go find a state park reservoir for a "beach day" instead of hiking or biking. Now, I love hiking and MTBing but I am also very much in favor of sitting in the sun by the water, reading.

So we went to East Canyon State Park, out there in the middle of the rolling hills of Morgan County. We got there before noon and were able to lay claim to a still-empty picnic pavilion with a nice view of the reservoir. It was clear and sunny with a nice breeze and lots of people were out and about at the park: swimming, boating, fishing, jet-skiing. Although there were lots of folks around, it was still really peaceful; the pavilions are not right on top of each other and there's plenty of lawn for frisbee, whiffleball, etc.

Not that we did any of that. H did bring his fishing pole (it was a little too busy/breezy for fishing) but we just put out our chairs facing the reservoir and read, stopping only to eat lunch, grab a cold beer or watch the entertaining little Uinta ground squirrels (a/k/a "potguts") boldly scurrying around, looking for handouts.

The clouds slowly accumulated throughout the afternoon, as the weather report had warned they would, and by 3:30 p.m., the wind had picked up and the lightning that had been flashing above the distant hills was flashing above us. First we had pea-sized hail, then it rained, then both rain and hail. We watched it for a while, then gathered our things and made a dash for the truck. Even though the weather was moving through pretty quickly, the temperature had plummeted to 59 and we decided we'd had enough for one day. It was probably the right call, seeing how the clouds continued all the way back home, as did the rain, even though the temperatures came back up to around 80. That's okay: the ground can use the rain, just as we used our rest day - sometimes you just need to sit.

porcupine hill climb

2011-07-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

H signed up for the 2011 Porcupine Hill Climb two days before the actual event. The Hill Climb is a race up Big Cottonwood Canyon, from the Porcupine to Brighton Ski Resort, to raise money for the Huntsman Cancer Foundation. Despite not having trained, he wanted to do the race in honor of a friend of his who was a cyclist, who was with H on a MTBing trip in Moab years ago (H's first trip to Utah) and who recently died from skin cancer. The climb is 14.7 miles with an elevation of about 3,800 feet.* That's a dang long hill to ride up.

Pre-start

His group ("Citizens," the non-licensed racers) were to start at 7:30 a.m.. We got there early so H could warm up, and he did laps while I wandered around, drinking my coffee and watching all the other cyclists. Right on time they were off and heading up the canyon. The start was a little confused - the cyclists started in the Canyon Inn parking lot and had to do an immediate hard right turn onto the road up the canyon; it would have been simpler if they'd been started on the road itself - but once they started, the mass of bicyclists spread out quickly. I gave them fifteen minutes and then hopped in the car, driving carefully up the canyon past the laboring cyclists.

Unfortunately, the places I chose to stop were right after quite steep stretches and the first time H was so focused on his pedaling that he didn't even see me. My second stop was at Solitude, right before the road got really steep. H still looked strong, although he admitted to me afterwards that he was really hating it right about there.

Focused

I leapfrogged the cyclists, stopping a couple of times on the canyon road to applaud and take photos.
The finish was in the Brighton parking lot (and a slight uphill finish after a short flat teaser). H crossed the line in 1 h. 28 m., finishing 14th out of 30 in his age group and clearly in the top half of the Citizen group (the official results are still not posted anywhere we've been able to find them). We watched the rest of his group come in and then the first few finishers of the licensed racers before heading back down the canyon.

Back at the Porcupine, there was brunch for everyone (even those of us who didn't race) and the awards ceremony. When we learned that the top three finishers each got a free growler from the Porcupine, filled with whatever beer you want, we realized that if H does this hill climb again next year, he's going to have ride faster and get himself on that podium!

* H would like to point out that his race was approximately three times longer than my recent Millcreek race, plus all uphill as opposed to my all downhill. He's clearly way more badass than I am.

july fourth weekend

2011-07-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

We had a houseguest over the holiday weekend: R, one of H’s longest-running friends whose wife and kids were out of town. His request list included: beer and Crown burgers. We thought we could probably hook him up.

We picked him up at the airport Friday night and then proceeded to stay up way too late catching up as it had been about five years since we’d gotten together. Saturday morning arrived bright and sunny, so we packed up some hiking gear and headed off to the Silver Fork for a late breakfast. We timed it just perfectly too, managing a table outside on the deck with only a three minute wait to be seated. This was the first time we’d been out on the deck – every other time we’ve been to the Silver Fork it’s just been too chilly – and it was pretty fabulous, sitting in the sun, under an umbrella, surrounded by the mountains.

After breakfast we drove to Millcreek Canyon. R had asked us to take it easy on him hiking-wise so H picked out a gentle 5+ mile round-trip that was fairly well shaded: Desolation Trail to the SLC overlook, a pretty busy trail due to its location in heavily-visited Millcreek Canyon. We managed to perch out on some rocks at the overlook all by ourselves for a while, however, enjoying the views. On the return trip, we were grateful for as much shade as there was as it was getting hot (would end up being low 90s in the valley that day) and once down, grabbed the requisite cooler from the car and headed for some rocks along the cool and rushing Mill Creek. We weren’t the only ones who had that idea: in addition to the oodles of picnickers enjoying the grounds, I spotted my very first in-the-wild rattlesnake when I disturbed him from his spot in the shady undergrowth. First I saw the motion as he moved off the path; then I heard the telltale rattle; then I decided to take another path! We soaked our feet in the frigid creek waters while “enjoying” a PBR, then headed off to Crown Burger for lunch – which, I believe, was everything R had hoped it would be. Next was a brief respite at home, to clean up before we went to the cooler mountain air of Snowbird for their free Saturday evening concert: Guns, Girls and Glory. The last thing we managed to squeeze in was a trip to the Cotton Bottom for more burgers – garlic this time.

Us guys at the SLC overlook on Desolation Trail

Sunday was hot-hot-hot (high 90s) and since we didn't get up at the crack of early, we decided hiking was probably not a good idea. So after breakfast in town at The Other Place (we opted not to wait in line at Ruth's for two hours, if you can imagine), we cruised on up to Park City, hoping that it might be a little cooler up there. It was slightly cooler, in the low 90s. Park Silly, the every-Sunday street fair and farmers' market on Main Street, was in full swing and we wandered about, listening to the live reggae, goggling at the people, going in and out of art galleries and, of course, the No-Name Saloon. When we were done with Park City, we headed home, stopping in at the Porcupine first (since no houseguest is allowed to stay with us without a trip to the Porcupine). The remainder of the evening was spent on our front patio, relishing the cooler air and watching the fireworks go off all around us. (In Utah, you're allowed to buy your own fireworks and shoot them off from like July 1 through July 26. The dog is not happy about it.)

R headed home Monday morning, after threatening to possibly come back again this summer for a camping or MTBing trip. That's always a good sign, we think, when someone wants to come back.

round valley mtb

2011-07-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

A week ago Sunday (yes, still trying to catch up on the posts), we loaded the MTBs in the truck, swung by the Cottonwood Heights Cafe for breakfast and drove out to Park City in the hopes that we might find some MTB trails out there that wouldn't crush my spirit. [Note: not that I'm discouraged, mind you, I'm just tired of pushing my bike up all the steep, long hills on the Wasatch Front.] Park City has a fabulous system of MTB trails: well-marked, mapped out and nicely maintained. The ski mountains have some lunatic single track that I will never in a million years attempt. We headed to the Round Valley trails instead.

We parked in town and rode a rail trail out to Quinn's Junction trailhead; if you don't want to ride on a paved bike path from town, you can just park out at Quinn's. From there, we jumped on some wonderful trails: gravel jeep roads, grassy double track, hard-packed single track. We were away from the Wasatch Mountains a bit, riding through the rolling foothills, and that made all the difference for me. I was able to ride up the hills - even uphill around corners, with H's coaching - and I even passed some people! There's a whole maze of trails out there, everything interconnecting, so we rode around and around, taking different trails each time. We did end up on a few that were more technical, with steeper and loose descents, and I'm still not good at that. But we ended up riding for nearly 2.5 hours until my little legs pooped out, and it was so much fun the whole time. I gained a ton of confidence and can't wait to go back and do it again. Really, really fun.

Afterwards, we drove the truck up to Deer Valley and had a beer whilst watching the mountains. A guy on a BMW motorcycle, on 50-day road trip to celebrate his 50th birthday, with his MTB mounted on a bike rack!!), stopped and talked with us for a bit before jumping on his MTB and pedaling off into the mountains. And we watched him ride off, another happy MTBer enjoying what the Wasatch Back has to offer folks on two wheels. Awesome day.

You don't see that everyday: MTB on a motorcycle

what a difference a year makes

2011-07-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

After Paul left us to go back east, the weather turned clear and sunny and hot (80s-90s). On Saturday, after H went for a long road ride and I weeded and chatted with a neighbor, we decided to escape the heat and go for a hike. Since we weren't getting started until after 12noon, we wanted someplace close - which meant Millcreek, Big Cottonwood or Little Cottonwood Canyons - and we wanted someplace that maybe didn't have too much snow.

H heading up, with the Sundial behind him

We decided to do the hike to Lake Blanche (and Florence and Lilian) again, in Big Cottonwood Canyon. This was H's second time and my third time up there, as we'd both done this hike last October (click through here for a description of the hike and autumn photos) and I'd done it last June (the same weekend even) with some work friends. It's still beautiful, still steep and still popular; with our late start, however, we came across more folks coming down than going up.

Lakes Florence and Lilian still in their winter garb

The stream alongside the trail was cranking, fed with the snowmelt in the warm temperatures. Even so, we hit snow at around 8,100 feet and walked the rest of the way up to the still mostly frozen lakes on the white stuff. It was pretty well compacted and not too slushy so the walking was actually pretty easy. Going down was even more fun as we got to do some glissading - in my case, only when no one was around to see me flailing like a pig on ice.

Note the concentration

You can see from the photos here how much snow is still up there. Last June, there was only a little in the shady crevices, and if you click through to the post on this hike from last October, you can see what the scenery looks like without the white blanket. They say that the flood threat this year is going to continue longer than normal due to the excess snow. It's all got to go somewhere and that somewhere is downstream.

cuteness

2011-06-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

These little guys didn't make any of the prior posts but they're just so cute that I had to include them. Both were taken on H and Paul's excursions.

This fuzzy, adorable, little raccoon, clearly a juvenile, was scrounging around in American Fork Canyon, digging up worms or grubs or something:

And this Uinta ground squirrel - a "potgut," in local parlance - popped out of his Butler Fork hole and posed long enough for H to take his portrait:

deer valley

2011-06-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Recapping the events of a week ago Tuesday: On Paul's last day here in Utah, the guys were trying to figure out where they could hike that wouldn't have too much snow and that might have the possibility of spotting the shy and elusive elk. They decided to head to the Wasatch Back (Park City side of the mountains) since it tends to have less snow than the Wasatch Front, plus the only place H and I have seen elk has been on that side.

Some snow on the ski trails, but not that much

We don't have very many maps/books for the Wasatch Back, however, so they first stopped at REI to see if they had any maps of WB hiking. Nope, but try Cole Sports in Park City. Cole Sports: no maps, but Deer Valley is probably your best bet. Snow Park Lodge at Deer Valley: we're not sure where you should go, but you should ask at the Deer Valley mountain bike shop. DVMTB Shop: you're not dressed for hiking - there's way too much snow up there!

At this point, the guys just started walking, following ski trails and MTB trails up and down three different peaks. There was not too much snow up there and they had gorgeous views of Park City and the Jordanelle Reservoir.

View of the Jordanelle Reservoir and Dam

They also found a mama and a quite young baby moose strolling about the ski mountain, and were able to get close enough for some decent pictures without startling/annoying the mother. After they'd taken some photos, the moose family just unconcernedly disappeared into the woods. H may not have been able to deliver any elk, but he is the moose whisperer for sure!

Two moose are loose!

butler fork

2011-06-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

Recapping the events of last Monday: While I went back to work, the boys went hiking (lucky boys), doing a trail that I've always wanted to do because every time we drive by the trailhead, there's a bunch of cars there: Butler Fork to Reynolds Peak. It's actually right near Dog Lake, just a little lower down on Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Paul, heading up to Reynolds Peak in June

They followed the trail up to Dog Lake, encountering snow fairly early on, then walked up the ridge to Reynolds Peak, sort of but not always following the trail because the trail was difficult to follow, due to all the snow. From the peak, a steep, wide, snow-filled bowl led down towards Dog Lake and H decided that they should glissade down instead of going back the way they came. It was a little intimidating because it was so steep, but the snow was compacted enough that there wasn't any worry of breaking through and postholing.

Paul, glissading down from Reynolds Peak

They had to bushwhack a little from the bottom of the bowl until they reconnected with the Dog Lake Trail, then followed that trail down and walked the last little bit along Big Cottonwood Canyon Road to get back to the car at the Butler Fork trailhead.

Oh! And I almost forgot the best part: on the way up the canyon, they had to stop for a few moments because a young moose was standing in the road, taking a drink from a puddle. The guys were able to take a bunch of photos before the moose moved back off into the trees. I think H must be the moose whisperer, he's seen so many lately!

The moose is loose!

water, water everywhere

2011-06-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

After my race (yes, a week ago now - just trying to catch up) and breakfast, and a quick trip home to clean up, H, Paul and I jumped into the truck and headed east to search for more large mammals - inspired by the cow moose we'd spotted in Big Cottonwood Canyon who was enjoying her own breakfast. We decided to try Cascade Springs first, outside of Midway, in the Uinta National Forest. After a long, winding drive up a dirt road busy with ATVers and dirt bikers, we found it, a lush oasis hidden away in the foothills.

The cascading pools

Cascade Springs is a natural artesian spring where rain and snowmelt in the Wasatch Range makes its way through fractures in the bedrock and bubbles up to flow down the hillside in a series of cascading pools. More than 7 million gallons of water flows through here every day, making it a prime wildlife watching spot. There are slim brown trout in the shallow pools, badgers, moose, deer and elk, and songbirds galore. The DNR has constructed careful paved and wooden boardwalk paths in three short loop trails around the springs. We walked them all, marveling at the beauty and diversity of plant and animal life. (We didn't see any badgers but we did spot a mule deer trying to pass unnoticed in the gambel oaks.)

After Cascade Springs, we headed to Kamas to pick up the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway. You can't go all the way through to Wyoming because of the still-deep snow, but you can get in there to camp and tour around. To be completely honest, at this point I was pretty sleepy from the 4:15 a.m. wake-up and the run, so I snoozed in the truck while H and Paul walked along the madly rushing rivers - there is a LOT of water in northern Utah's rivers and creeks right now - and took photos of moose and mule deer.

River along Mirror Lake Byway/UT 150

When the clouds had started to roll in and the temperature dropped, the guys woke me up and we headed back to the Salt Lake valley. Knowing it was going to be an early evening for all of us, we got a quick meal of garlic burgers and beer at the Cotton Bottom before heading home. I daresay each of us slept pretty soundly, thanks to the long day and plenty of fresh air.

crack of dawn

2011-06-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Because I'm a crazy person, I signed up for the Crack of Dawn 8K which took place Saturday, June 18th, at 6 a.m. Did you get that last part? 6 a.m. start. The only reason I thought this was a good idea was because the race was all downhill: the start was a mile above Log Haven in Millcreek Canyon and the finish line was in the shopping plaza at the base of the canyon road. I'm guessing that the reason the race started so early was to get the runners in and out of the canyon before all the hikers/bikers/dog-walkers/picnickers started showing up as Millcreek is a very popular place.

Our instructions were to pick up our timing chips at the finish line between 5-5:15 a.m. and get up to the start by 5:30 a.m. There were buses bringing people up to the start or, if you could convince someone to get up early with you, you could get dropped off. I promised H and Paul that I'd buy breakfast if they'd take me to the start and thus, because we're apparently all nuts, we got up and out the door by 4:35 a.m. to meet all our deadlines. The sky started getting brighter around 5:30 a.m. while the guys waited with me at the start. I sent them down the canyon at 5:45 a.m. and by the time we started running, the sun was peeking over the canyon walls.

Eight kilometers (right around five miles) is a lot of down, let me tell you that. I was worried that my knees would take a beating but it was my quadriceps that ended up being sore. The first mile was great - and when I checked my pace, I was running nearly twice as fast as my regular flat pace! - but then it started getting steeper in some spots, and I could feel the stress in my legs. Breathing wasn't a problem since gravity was doing all the work; the fatigue came from fighting the downhill for that distance. And if that wasn't enough, the last .5K was uphill - a tiny little rise to the finish line, which was just mean.

Bring on breakfast!

It was actually quite fun, above grumbling aside. My pace averaged out to being two minutes/mile faster than normal and I finished in the top half of the 106 entrants, which surprised me because it seemed like everyone was passing me. And the best part was that I had run five miles before 7:00 a.m., leaving me to chow down on corned beef hash and eggs at the Silver Fork Lodge completely guilt-free.

out of towners

2011-06-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

Our friend Paul arrived in SLC Thursday night for a few days to visit with us, do some hiking and take as many wildlife photos as he could. Friday was sunny and cool (low 70s), perfect for hiking - so H and Paul headed for the hills while I headed for work. The plan was to meet up later since my former boss and her husband were in town for just one night, so we were all going to have a drink together.

Mountain Man Paul

There's still a ton of snow in the mountains of the Wasatch Front but H picked a trail that was nice and dry: Mt. Aire in Millcreek Canyon (H and I did Mt. Aire last year on 6/6/10). They reported that the weather was perfect and the summit clear, with only patches of snow.

View from the top of Mt. Aire

I met up with my former boss and her husband and, after a stroll through Temple Square to see the sights, we met the guys at Bar X. It was quiet when we got there, but when we left - my group to go to a very nice dinner at the 9th and 9th Mazza; H and Paul to go looking for moose - inside was filling up and the little sidewalk patio was quite full.

H and Paul went back up Emigration Canyon to where H had gone MTBing earlier in the week. And, as I said before, that is definitely the place to find moose because they found another one. Now I am WAY behind on my moose-viewing - going to have to do something about that.

The moose is loose

la-cai noodle house

2011-06-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday (I know, I'm behind, but we've got houseguests to entertain) we met some friends for dinner at La-Cai Noodle House (961 State St.). Since our friends live in Davis County (north of SLC) and we live by Little Cottonwood Canyon (south of SLC), La-Cai seemed like a good place to meet in the middle. I'd been there before for lunch as it isn't too far from my work, but H had never been.

La-Cai serves Chinese and Vietnamese food. Our table shared appetizer orders of potstickers (small and rather well-done) and fresh (soft) wrapped spring rolls with peanut sauce. Our friends had the rice with curry shrimp and a beef stir fry; we had the rare beef pho for me and a gorgeous spicy beef sate soup for H, who said it was very good although he had to add some srichacha sauce to up the spicy quotient.

I like their pho: huge bowls of clear and tasty broth with noodles, veggies and meat-of-choice, served with sprouts, Thai basil and lime wedges. Some online reviews are not so impressive with the pho, but I like it (that's actually all I've ever tried at La-Cai) and until I find some I like better, I'm standing by it.

where to find moose

2011-06-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

H went mountain-biking with a co-worker after work on Wednesday. They met on the far side of Emigration Canyon, by Little Dell Reservoir, and biked up the Mormon Pioneer Trail to the top of Big Mountain Pass. At first I was a little envious ... but that was until I heard that they climbed 1,650 feet in 5.3 miles. The long climb made for an exciting descent too - H confessed to still being a bit timid on the downhill, but was raving about his big 29er wheels as regards the climbing and the way they ate up the ground once the trail flattened out.

He ended up pulling away from his buddy on the flat, in fact, due to the bigger wheels and the fact that H didn't mind charging through the mud puddles (took him a while to clean his bike when he got home, btw). And it was as he was tearing it up on his own that he surprised not one, not two, but THREE moose who really didn't expect MTBers on their walking path. It all happened too quickly for a photo opportunity, unfortunately, but H said he was easily within fifteen feet [Ed. note: not fifty, as previously reported.] of the big galoots.

That is so cool. And while I'm envious of the moose sightings too, I wouldn't have seen them anyway if I'd been there since I'd have been so far behind. That's okay. Now we know where to find them!

smoke on the river

2011-06-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday was pretty nice and after we did our morning activities - a 46-mile road ride for H; dragging B around my 3.5 mile loop and then weeding the backyard garden beds for me - we headed towards Heber City for the Smoke on the River BBQ Championship ... hoping to get a lead on some decent Utah barbecue.

The event was held at River's Edge at Deer Park, an RV-park/campground located on the Provo River right underneath the dam at the Jordanelle Reservoir. (Literally right underneath the dam: we were way under the level of the water and if the dam had given way, we would have been obliterated. Lucky for us, the dam looks to be pretty solid.) This is a pretty cool little family-run campground with big rig/RV hook-ups, cabins that sleep 4-6, wooden "yurts" that sleep 2 and a big "family compound" for up to 15 folks.

Can you read it? "IQ4U"

There were food vendors - Tommy's Texas BBQ (whom we will be visiting when next in Heber City, at 100S 650 W), corn on the cob (with this wicked cool corn cooker that looked like a giant one of those cafeteria toasters, where you put the corn in one side and the conveyor belt delivers it all roasted on the other side), hand-fried potato chips, beer - jewelry and crafts. Live music played all day: we got there for Lash Larue, who played some very agreeable bluegrass-ish tunes. And all around the campground the competitors had their smokers set up. Most of them were BBQ competition teams who also do catering, but there was a backyard division for amateurs too. Everywhere you walked, you could smell smoked meats ... it was heavenly.

Tasty pulled pork with very excellent pickles

The event was a little expensive for how low-key it was, with a $10 per person entry fee, plus paying for your food and your beer. But we decided we really couldn't complain as we sat in the sun, eating pulled pork and brisket sandwiches (quite good), drinking Moab Brewery Dead Horse Ale and listening to bluegrass by the riverside. We stayed to watch the awards ceremony: the grand prize winners, local boys R&R Barbecue, won around $4,000 (in addition to winning the whole shebang, they placed in every category, I believe, including at least two firsts) and are headed to Lynchburg, Tennessee, in October for the 2011 Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbecue. That's cool - make SLC proud, boys!

big bad voodoo daddy

2011-06-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

H and I don't go see live music all that often - unless it's during the day at a festival or something - I don't like the crowds and generally speaking, H doesn't like to stay up that late. But we'd seen a couple of songs from Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's set at a festival at Liberty Park last summer and when we saw that they were coming to the Sandy Amphitheater, we thought that might be a fun show to see. And oh yes, it was!

The Sandy Amphitheater is a great, open-air venue. At capacity it holds 2,750 people: 966 seats close to the stage and a lawn that will hold 1,800. There's a snack bar (no alcohol); the restrooms are big and clean; and the whole place is landscaped quite nicely, nestled into the hillside at 9400 South and 1300 East. Our seats were on the east side, about seven rows up from the stage. It was a little loud, so close and sitting right in front of a set of speakers, but it was nice to be close enough to see the musicians' faces.

BBVD, just gettin' into the swing of things

The Big Bad Voodoo Daddy puts on a dang-good show. They're a nine-member swing/jazz/Dixieland/big-band band: lead singer/guitarist, pianist, stand-up bass, drummer, two trumpets, two saxophones and a trombone. The guys have been together for nearly twenty years and they still look like they're having a blast, wearing their zoot-suits and playing the heck out of their instruments. The music is infectious: I was chair-dancing from the moment they started playing - and H was tapping his toes throughout. Their most recent album is apparently a tribute to Cab Calloway, so a lot of what they played were arrangements of songs from the 1920s and 1930s: the Calloway Boogie, Minnie the Moocher, Reefer Man, The Jumpin' Jive, etc. By the end of the second set, even the staid Utahn audience had gotten out of their seats and rushed the stage to dance. I don't think I've ever seen a group with such a random sense of rhythm, but they were having fun and that's what matters.

We'd absolutely go see BBVD again if/when they come back to the greater SLC area. And we'll go back to the Sandy Amphitheater too sometime - music out in the open air is the way to go.

don't be a joey

2011-06-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

This technically counts as a ski season post topic, but (1) since I forgot to post it this winter and (2) since Snowbird is planning on being open until July 4th and Snowbasin is reopening on the weekends until further notice, it's still technically ski season. So. When our ski friends were out here in March, Chris mentioned that his teenaged daughter and her buddies had a name for all the goobers out there that you don't want to ride the chairlift with - they're all Joeys. I immediately latched onto this - because then I could ski up to H in the liftline and say, out loud, "OMG, did you see what Joey was wearing?" plus we could yell "Joey!!!" at people from the chairlift, in each case without fear of offending anyone. We then had to come up with a list of who qualifies as a Joey (Andrea was totally appalled that we came up with so many in such a short time).

If you don't want to be a Joey, don't get caught on the hill with the following:

fur-lined hood
one-piece ski suit
fanny pack
NFL jacket (unzipped) worn over a hooded sweatshirt
rear-entry boots
flowered gaiters
helmet cover (spikes, fins, dreads, etc.) if you're an adult
costume - unless it's some special dress-up ski day
bouquet of lift tickets / series of lift tickets stuck onto each other
perfect feathered hair & sunglasses combination (especially if it's snowing)

Feel free to leave additional Joeys in the comments! And remember, friends don't let friends be a Joey.

stansbury island trail

2011-06-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

With the wet and cold spring (what spring?) and extra-deep snowpack, our northern Utah hiking options are somewhat limited*. But H found us a pretty good one - and one we hadn't done yet: the Stansbury Island Trail. All told it was a 10.2 mile loop which we did in 3:16 walking (plus 0:39 minutes' worth of stops); the highest point on the trail was just 4,974', which was just 619' above the trailhead, and our total elevation gain (all the cumulative ups) was 1,140'. Can you tell we got a new GPS? Lots of data to play with!

Looking south into the Rush Valley

over the salt evaporation ponds

Stansbury Island is located about 37 miles west of SLC, right off I-80. It's not technically an island since you can drive out to it, passing innumerable salt evaporation ponds run by Morton, Cargill and other salt companies, and it's part of the Stansbury Mountain range. The cool thing about this hike is that once you climb up to the high point, you just follow the ancient Bonneville shoreline around the island: 15,000 years ago, the enormous Lake Bonneville that covered most of northern Utah was at about 5,200 feet. The lake's shoreline left the "bench" along the Wasatch Front. When the lake suddenly drained 500 years later, the lower shoreline, called the Provo Shoreline, at about 4,840', is what's found on Stansbury Island. The Stansbury Island Trail traipses along this shoreline, winding in and out of several canyons, and working its way from the western side of the island to the eastern, skirting the southern edge. The views of the Stansbury Mountains, the Rush Valley, the Oquirrhs and the Wasatch range were fantastic.

Tabbys Canyon

We pretty much had the place to ourselves, seeing just one guy on the trail and a couple of redneck MTBers at the finish (and not counting a bunch of guys shootin' guns into the gravel pits at the south end of the island). The walk is pretty easy: the only up is right at the start, and the footing on the trail is either hardpack dirt or rock. The strenuousness comes from the length of the trail and the fact that there is no shade at all. Usually by June the vegetation is dry and crispy; because of our wet spring, the grasses were still green and the wildflowers were out, but it did get hot.

H on the bench

We found one tree near the trail to have our lunch under, at about 5.4 miles into the hike. I had wanted to go back the way we came, thinking that descending to lake level and walking back on the jeep roads (which is the return bit of the loop) would be (1) hot, (2) buggy and (3) too close to the shooters for comfort. H pointed out that we needed to minimize our time in the sun and walking back on the jeep roads would be quicker than following the trail in and out of the canyons. So down we went, blowing on our whistles to let the gunmen know we were approaching (and we weren't really that close nor anywhere near their line of fire). But I was right: it was very hot down at lake level and out of the breeze, and those little biting gnats got pretty bad for about a quarter-mile stretch. (By the end of it, I ended up with several itchy bites and H looked like a poppyseed bagel with all the gnats stuck in the sunscreen and dried sweat on his face.)

Art shot!

Although our guidebook said the jeep roads were intuitive and would lead right back to the trailhead, they seemed to peter out and we slogged for a little over a mile on the main road (which is still dirt, so it's not that main of a road). We saw a group of four or five jackrabbits - big bunnies - cross the road ahead of us and that was the only mammal sighting of the day. It felt really good to get our boots off when we got back to the car and even though it was in the high 80s when we quit, the cooler managed to keep the PBRs cold enough to be palatable.

I don't think we'd count this as one of our favorite hikes, what with the road-walking, and I think it would be more fun in the fall when it's cooler and less buggy, and perhaps mid-week might bring fewer shooters. But I don't think many people ever do that hike, so that makes it kind of special, and it was a good start to the hiking season.

* although a few more 85-90 degree days like Sunday should get the snow melting but good.

not-so dry creek

2011-06-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

H and I do try to make the most of our weekends (when they're sunny and dry or it's ski season): for example, today I weeded and gardened while H went for a road ride and then went in to work for a bit, then we took the mountain bikes up to the city for a ride up Dry Creek to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. We parked up in the Federal Heights area at Popperton Park and followed a bike path through a gated community (pretty high rent neighborhood) to the single track cutting up the wash through the rolling hills.

The track followed Dry Creek which, because of the extra heavy snowpack and all the rain we had in May, was not at all dry. We had to cross it numerous times, in fact. Since I am such a novice MTBer and nervous about riding into and out of rushing creeks, I walked my bike across, sometimes halfway up to my knees in the clear and (fortunately) not very cold water. Also, since I am such a novice MTBer and every frickin' trail out here seems to be up-up-up on the outbound leg, I found myself pushing my bike up many of the hills. H likened it to "hiking with weights;" I likened it to hyperventilating and trying not to fall over into the shrubs whenever I had to dismount.

View of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from H's MTB

After about 1.5 miles of nothing but up, we connected with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail as it followed the hills. We had fantastic views of the city - the U, the state capital building, the Great Salt Lake. I did a little better at that point, although the trail was fairly narrow and rutted in spots from the recent rains. We followed the BST until it connected with the City Creek trail, paused for the views and some water, and then turned around. I'd like to say that I'm much better on the downhill rides but no, that's not true. While I don't have to get off and walk (unless it's really rocky and/or a loose gravel steep hairpin turn or a drop-off into a rushing creek), I'm still a big chicken and go pretty slowly. Still, it felt good to be actually RIDING.

By the time we got back to the truck our brakes were pretty squeaky, so we dropped the bikes off at the bike shop in Sugarhouse for their 30-day tune-up and then, since we were in Sugarhouse, stopped in at Fiddler's Elbow for a pitcher of Full Suspension (totally fitting because, you know, of just having gone MTBing on fully-suspended bikes) and a black bean quesadilla. And now, back home, we've got sausages on the grill and bourbon slushes in hand and are planning what to do with the second half of our weekend. My money's on a hike - I'll let you know.

on the return trip

2011-06-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

May 22, 2011 - We didn't dillydally Sunday morning on our last - and as luck would have it, mostly sunny - day in St. George, instead getting up, packing the car and swinging by The Egg and I, as recommended for breakfast. Yes, The Egg and I is a franchise (with one apparently coming soon to Maine), but its only location in Utah is in St. George and you know, the food was pretty dang good: our table's repast included the raspberry-granola pancake with raspberry yogurt, a Greek frittata (loaded with artichoke hearts, tomatoes, asparagus, mushrooms and pesto), a granola/fruit/yogurt parfait and a Mexican omelette (chorizo, green chiles and pork green chile sauce). Plus H's Diet Coke was served in a carafe so he could refill to his heart's content.

The massive cliffs of Kolob Canyons

At Exit 40 on I-15 N is another Zion NP entrance, one much less travelled, leading into Kolob Canyons. There's a visitor center and a 5-mile very scenic drive to the Kolob Canyons viewpoint. There are several trailheads along the way but no campgrounds: we saw a number of folks down below us on the trails carrying big backpacking backpacks. When you park at the end of the scenic drive, there's a short (approx. .5 mi.) unpaved walk along the ridgeline to where the views of the red rock canyons festooned with deep green trees are particularly striking. We managed to time it just right so that the busload of French tourists was just going back to the bus when we were heading out. It was just spectacular and even though some high thin clouds were coming in, it really seemed as though we could see forever. We took a lot of pictures, there and about halfway out at the Taylor Creek Canyon - which was so verdant that I felt a couple of dinosaurs should have been ambling through the trees.

Looking into the Taylor Creek canyon

The drive north was much different than the drive south had been on Thursday. For one, it wasn't raining and/or snowing, so H was much more relaxed. Also, we could actually see the scenery out our windows. To break things up a little bit, we turned off I-15 at Cedar City and drove to the Parowan Gap to check out the approximately 1,500 petroglyphs carved into the sandstone. Thought to be as many as 5,000 years old, these petroglyphs are really incredible and so very little is truly known about them. There are geometric figures, lizards, snakes, bear claws, anthropomorphic figures ... one particularly cool figure, called the "Zipper Glyph", may have been created to serve as a solar calendar. Whatever it may be for, it - along with its surrounding glyphs - is fascinating.

Solstice Zipper glyph - about as tall as I am

When we got back to greater Salt Lake, none of us was quite ready to say the getaway was over, so after we liberated B from the kennel (happy, thirsty and shaved right down for her summer haircut), we stopped by the Hog Wallow for a beer on the patio. There, in the sun-dappled shade by the coolly-splashing fountain, we raised our glasses of Uinta Cutthroat Pale Ale and toasted an excellent excursion to southern Utah.

snow canyon

2011-05-30T17:47:00.000-07:00

May 21, 2011: Saturday morning brought us sunshine and the balmy temperature of 53 F. Well, at least it was sunny. We again had breakfast at the condo and packed a cooler, then headed off to Snow Canyon State Park, on the near side of Kayenta. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't what we found: Snow Canyon is spectacular! Massive red rock walls, waves of chunky black lava rock, rolling white rock hills ... all just minutes from downtown St. George. There are camping sites (hook-ups with water/electric, group sites and tent-only sites) with showers and restrooms, and more than eighteen miles of hiking trails. We re-upped for our state park pass at the entrance and then cruised the West Canyon Road, scoping out where we wanted to stop.

Petrified Dunes, Snow Cyn SP

We first paused at the Lava Flow Overlook where you can see all three rock colors (red, white and black) from one vantage point. Then we took a short walk up into the Petrified Dunes, crossing the Navajo sandstone formations and solidified red sand dunes - stunning under the (finally) clear blue sky. Next we walked the Pioneer Names Trail, under a towering red cliff, to where there's some 1880s graffiti: names of pioneer folk written on the rock in axle grease. Then, slightly chilled from the shade under the cliff, we strolled on part of the sunny Whiptail Trail as it meandered along the red sand dunes, spotting lizards, a bunny and tiny ground squirrels (?). I walked back barefoot in the dunes, which were still cool underfoot - but which I imagine are scorching when it actually gets hot out.

H's folks stroll the Whiptail Trail

We exited the park at the northern entrance and, utilizing our new book, Utah Byways by Tony Huegel (picked up at the Zion NP gift shop), took backroads through Veyo, Gunlock (stopping to photograph an impressive waterfall coming out of the Gunlock reservoir) and a Paiute reservation (stopping to photograph a bunch of cattle and their calves crossing the river as cowboys drove them to another pasture). Our destination was Mesquite, just over the border in Nevada. There's really not much there, this little town carved out of the desert, but there are casinos so we stopped in at one, the Eureka, after snarfing our sandwiches in the car, and played the slots/low limit blackjack and had a couple of $2.50 (read: small) beers. It was a good thing we went to Mesquite because it was there that we hit the high temperature of the whole trip: 82 degrees.

It was then a quick drive north on 15, back to St. George. Since we got back with plenty of time before dinner, H and I changed into hiking clothes and went back to Snow Canyon SP and did the Three Ponds Trail, a 3.5 mile RT with rocky slopes and deep sand, ending up in a slot canyon where holes have been worn in the rock that hold seasonal rainfall. Due to all the recent rain, those holes were full, and full of little frogs whose cheeping echoed off the 400-foot canyon walls.

That sand was not easy walking!

After we got back and cleaned up, we went to dinner at the Gun Barrel Steak and Game House (1091 N. Bluff St., St. George) where we had an amazing meal: tender, mesquite-grilled steaks and salmon, served with sugar snap peas, garlic mashed potatoes and the most incredible whole cooked mushrooms I've ever tasted (and I have no idea how they did them - but if you go, make sure you get the mushrooms). The space is rustic, with a massive two-sided stone fireplace, and all sorts of taxidermied animals, and our server was great, the perfect combination of friendly and unintrusive. A really fantastic dinner and the perfect end to our last full day in St. George.

YIKES!!

zion

2011-05-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

May 20, 2011: After breakfast at the condo and packing a cooler for lunch, we headed off to Zion National Park (53 degrees F under partly sunny skies). It's about an hour's drive from St. George, passing through the little towns of Hurricane, La Verkin, Rockville and Springdale. Taking advantage of our national park pass, we cruised into the park and found a spot at the visitors' center lots. From April through October, private vehicles are not allowed on the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive but they have a fleet of free shuttlebuses that go up and down the canyon, letting lookyloos and serious hikers off at eight different spots.

Looking out from under Weeping Rock

Our first stop was at Weeping Rock. There's a short (.5 mile round trip) paved trail through the forest up to an overhanging rock with dripping springs cascading down the cliff faces. In the heat of the summer, this must be a wonderfully cool and humid spot; at our visit, it was beautiful but a little chilly, especially when the droplets found their way down the backs of our necks. Small tenacious plants cling to the cliffs, drinking in all the moisture, and it's an amazingly verdant spot in the desert.

We next got off at Big Bend. There wasn't a walk there but an overlook of a big bend in the Virgin River rushing through Zion Canyon. We could see large birds wheeling overhead on the updrafts: the narrator on the shuttlebus said that there was a sizable population of California condors in ZNP but we couldn't tell if those were what we were looking for or the more common turkey vultures. Big Bend is right below the summit of Angels Landing, a trail so steep that early explorers thought only angels could land up there. Nowadays it's a popular trail, although dangerous with long dropoffs: we've heard that someone falls off every year or so.

The cliffs above Big Bend (amazingly, not a cloud in sight)

The top of the scenic drive is at the Temple of Sinawava where the canyon narrows considerably. There's a waterfall and a 1.1 mile paved walk along the river. The River Walk leads to the Narrows Trail which continues along the river up the canyon, but the Narrows was closed due to high water. We strolled the River Walk, shady and green, accompanied by the sound of the rushing Virgin River. The clouds gathered and it rained on us just as we got back to the shuttle bus stop, so the bus was crowded and damp for several stops until we drove out of the rain.

After a quick tailgate lunch in the parking lot (quick because it started to rain again), we drove the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway, running from near the visitors' center to the east entrance to the park, marvelling at the high cliffs, numerous waterfalls and the impressive tunnel cut through the mountains. Having gotten to see all we could from the car - it was now 48 and raining - we left the park and checked out the historic sites in nearby Leeds and Harrisburg (mostly old buildings from the mid/late 1800s) and the ghost town at Silver Reef. Silver Reef was one of the only places where silver was found in sandstone and at the town's heyday, there were 1,000 people living there. Now, only a few mining ruins and a couple of restored buildings are left, surrounded by some truly hideous McMansions.

Back at the condo we had drinks on the balcony - bourbon slushes! - because the sun had come out for a bit. Not enough that anyone wanted to try out the pools, but still, the warmth and light was welcome. We dined that evening at another pub, then returned to the condo for some highly competitive Quiddler. Then early to bed for the next day we were off to Snow Canyon State Park.

Too cold for swimmin'