literal dog days of summer

On a recent weekend in Moab, we did some dog sitting for a friend.  He and his family had to go out of town for a funeral and asked us if we could watch their seven month old lab-pit mix named Marshmallow.  Of course!  We love dogs!  I mean, it's been decades since we've had a puppy in the house but we're experienced dog owners.

Same size but Marshmellow is WAY beefier

We three went over to their house the night before so Milton and Marshmallow could reacquaint themselves.  Milton met him for the first time in June (when he was MUCH smaller), and they spent the evening chasing each other around the yard.  We had brought Milton over for a second meeting in July (when he was BIGGER) and Milton was not impressed with the size or the energy.  This time, with Marsh as tall as Milt but brawnier, Milton wasn't having any of it.  Marsh wanted to play so badly and was in Milt's face; Milt issued correction after correction (barks and snaps) and the puppy just didn't get it.  An inauspicious start.

Calm in the car

Friday morning we took care of our exercising: H ended up doing a five mile trail run with M (after suffering a flat tire on his road bike just a block from hom) while A did the 10.3 mile Pipe Dream - Hidden Valley - Moab Rim hike (which was a bit of a suffer-fest as I felt dehydrated and drank nearly all my water - which I almost never do.  

Our friends dropped Marshmallow off around 1 and Milton was again unimpressed.  Our neighbor and her dog were home so we introduced them ... and Marshmallow, who had no chill at all, was sharply corrected several times by Moscow.  That night was a little rough too: although crate-trained, the puppy was nervous and cried/whined the entire night.  We all woke up exhausted and Milton couldn't believe that he was stilll with us.

Cutieeee

But it went MUCH better from there.  I took the dogs to Millcreek (Milton off-leash, Marshmallow on-leash) for four mile hikes both Saturday and Sunday mornings.  They were well-behaved in the car and Marsh loved splashing in the creek.  He did get a little out of control wanting to meet other dogs, but since he was leashed, it was easier to manage.  He never chewed anything and only had one accident on the kitchen floor; he calmed down for the second night; and he was just such a sweetie, with full-body tail wags and exuberant snuggles.

BOOP!

When his family picked him up in the early afternoon Sunday, the house seemed bigger and it was very, very quiet.  All three of us (Milton especially) were exhausted - puppies are a LOT!  Sweet, but a lot.

csa boxes the ninth and tenth

 I forgot to take a photo of our ninth box, but we got apples, pears, a small watermelon, three tomatoes, some red potatoes, two ears of corn, purple bell peppers, poblano (or similar) peppers, an onion and a cucumber.  The melon wasn't that good (did I wait too long to cut it? did I not wait long enough? the world will never know).  The corn was eaten right away; the peppers and onion were sauteed up for a vegan sausage meal; the tomatoes and plums were quite good eaten out of hand.

Still getting berries!!

The tenth box had a nice variety.  Green beans, two ears of corn, a cantaloupe, two (!) cartons of raspberries (!!), three bell peppers, two plums, two big tomatoes, a cucumber, assorted chiles, five big apples and an onion.  We ate the beans and corn on the first day - a little late in the season but still edible, if not amazing.  The berries were good, if a little fragile: I ate a third and split the rest for my overnight oats.  The melon is pretty good.  The fridge is starting to fill up with apples so I'm thinking homemade applesauce is in the near future.  And what to do with all those nice chiles ///

twenty-five (years, not miles)

On August 25, we celebrated our twenty-fifth (!)(!!)(!!!) wedding anniverary.  Amazingly, we have been out in Utah for most of our marriage, despite having met, originally lived, and married in Maine.  To celebrate the occasion, we took the day off.

This hawk was entirely unimpressed with us

First order of business was a family hike.  In Millcreek Canyon, the odd-numbered days are the off-leash dog days, so that synced up perfectly.  We didn't want to go anything too long and settled on the Desolation Trail to the Salt Lake overlook.  The last - and first, and only - time we've done this trail was back in July 2011.  After doing it again now, we are kicking ourselves for having left it for so long.  It's a great trail!  About five miles round trip, mostly shaded with mostly packed dirt underfoot, it rises steadily (about 1,200 elevation gain) but never steeply.  

Thirsty work

The fact that we were there early on a random Tuesday morning certainly helped - I suspect this trail is very, very busy on the weekends.  We encountered fewer than five people on our way up; while there were definitely more people heading in as we headed out, it wasn't ever what I'd call busy.

At the overlook

There are lots of picnic tables at the trailhead (also a four-stall outhouse), so we got out our cooler and sat in the shade, having celebratory post-hike beers and recounting some of the last twenty-five years.  We did some more recounting back at home, dragging out the photographs from our wedding (everyone was so young in 2001!).

Holy moly

And then because I decided I didn't want to cook on our anniversary, we three went to the Watershed, the local scruffy dive bar with a big vegan menu and a big dog-friendly patio.  Their misters were going full-blast; the waitresses and the bouncer fawned over Milton; and we enjoyed our vegan buffalo wings and vegan bacon (vegan) cheese (vegan) burger with great relish.  

Smooch!

Here's to the next twenty-five!

csa day: box the eighth

 This was quite a good box in terms of variety, although we had been hoping for another melon as well.  We got three big tomatoes (I am hopeful that we'll get lots of tomatoes this year to make up for the fact that the stone fruits are less plentiful), two ears of corn, two bell peppers, two each of jalapeno and serrano peppers, a good sized onion, a head of garlic, three big pears, one each of cucumber, zucchini and summer squash, a carton of blackberries, a not-too-big eggplant, six apples and three nectarines.

Shop local, eat local

The corn and blackberries were consumed the day we got the box - the berries were pretty soft, so that season is definitely winding down.  I gave the garlic away (I can't tolerate garlic that well so fresh (non-jarred) garlic just doesn't get used).  Two tomatoes and the eggplant were turned into a delicious, creamy pasta sauce for the freezer.  The apples are bagged and in the crisper drawer, possibly to be turned into applesauce; the nectarines are good for fresh-eating.  And the pears that don't get eaten fresh (pears are actually pretty good this year), will be turned into a tasty baked good.

eleven miles

Continuing the quest to see just how far she can go, A did eleven miles on Sunday.  The heat advisory had finally broken (Saturday was spent with H trail running and road riding, A and M walking through Dimple Dell, a tiny touch of weeding, reading, watching the weather and hoping for rain, and some cooking (a quart and a half of enchilada sauce for the freezer and buffalo cauliflower "wings" for dinner, since it was actually cool enough to turn on the oven) and a little bit of rain moved through the Salt Lake Valley.  It topped out low 90s which, after the summer we've been having, was delightful.

Heading south

Since I was running out of long distance options at Alta - without adding in a whole bunch more uphill - H suggested some of his routes from when he was training for the trail marathon.  He had some good options and I decided to drive to Hidden Valley Park trailhead so I could hop on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  There are other places to access the BST but the HVP trailhead is not hard to find and the trail from there south to Corner Canyon has pretty good footing.

Sage

There were only a couple of other vehicles when I pulled into the lot at 6:50 a.m.  Grabbing my bagel, I climbed up (kind of steep, kind of loose) .3 miles to the BST and turned right, heading south.  The last time I was on this portion of the BST was April 2010; I'm guessing it hasn't changed all that much, other than having had lots and lots of people on it, but I sure didn't remember much of it.  One nice thing about this section of the BST is that it stays in the shade well through the morning this time of year.  Another nice thing is that once you get up on the bench, it's pretty level and the path is nice to walk on - mostly packed dirt/sand with some rocky sections.

NO DOG okay okay jeez

From the Hidden Valley trailhead, it's 3.3 miles to Corner Canyon.  Dogs are not allowed on most of the trail because of watershed/private property owned by water companies.  This would have been too long a hike for Milton anyway.  At Corner Canyon, there are maps and outhouses and picnic tables and, as the morning continued on, lots and lots of MTBers.  I can't picture how busy it must be on Saturdays.  There are tons of MTB and mixed-use trails (foot, dog-friendly and equestrian).  I continued out along the BST for a while, then turned off onto a foot-only (Burnham Creek) trail and then a foot and horse (Hoof and Boot) trail for a while.

Didn't have to dodge MTBs here

All this faffing about on little trails messed with my distance plan, however, which had been a solid 5.5 out and back.  I wanted to stay in the shade as much as possible - it was humid from last night's rain but the temperature was nice - and ended up heading back on the BST a little short on distance.  This meant that when I got back to the Hidden Valley connector, I had to continue going north on the BST for about a half mile.  Which isn't that big a deal except: (1) had already done 10+ miles and (2) the trail north was incessantly, steeply up on an old, rocky, loose road.  If I wasn't already sweaty from the slight humidity (I was), I definitely was by the time I'd gone far enough to turn around.

Or here, on the Hoof and Boot Trail

I finished with 11.07 miles in 3:50 hours.  The Bonneville Shoreline Trail is a great resource that I have completely ignored in favor of Little Cottonwood Canyon, Big Cottonwood Canyon and Millcreek Canyon.  It is heavily used, due to its proximity to the city, and it bakes in the afternoon sun.  But at the right time of day, in the right time of year, it's fantastic, with lots of little side quests available.  

Suspension bridge at Bear Canyon

middle (august) management

On a recent, mid-August long weekend in Moab, it was still hot. (It would have been just as hot if we had stayed in SLC for that weekend, dang lingering high pressure/heat advisory.)  But you expect it in Moab: same elevation as SLC but further south.  So we did what we've been doing all summer* which is: getting up before the sun, getting on the trail at sunrise and getting our exercise done well before noon.  On the one hand, you're all WOOHOO I got all my exercise done before noon!  On the other hand, you're like OMG now what do I do, I can't crack a beer yet lol.

We drove down mid-afternoon Thursday so we could take Friday off.  Friday found all three of us on the Pipedream trail: H and M doing a five mile trail run and A doing a seven mile hike.  The fellas left first and we crossed paths as they were heading back.  It was pretty quiet out there.  Then, H did a solo 26-mile road ride on the bike path.  Then there was lunch, reading, catching up with neighbor A and, eventually, beer.

Prickly

Saturday was much like Friday, only not quite.  While H did a six+ mile Pipedream trail run, A and M instead drove to Millcreek for a four mile hike and creek splash.  We saw a trail buddy who gave us a heads-up about fairly recent bear scat in the canyon (bears have been venturing down into Moab from the LaSal mountains since the heat is impacting the vegetation they usually eat this time of year), and Milton got a bunch of dog cookies from a lady at the trail head.  After that, both H (25) and A (21) did a road ride on the bike path.  Then there was lunch, reading and, eventually, beer.

Finally, Sunday found Milton taking a rest day (after an extended neighborhood stroll) and H and A back on their road bikes.  H did 20 miles but A only managed ten, after getting a flat in the same place as her last flat, just south of the Arches NP entrance.  That's only a two-ish mile walk back to Lions Park, though, so I hike-a-biked there (three different cyclists stopped to see if I needed help) while H hied it back to the house to get the truck and the dog and come pick me up.

That was pretty much it.  We got back to the house, cleaned it and ourselves up, stopped in Green River for a delicious Krenshaw melon and were back in Sandy mid-afternoon.

* Seems like forever, really.  This has been such a hot summer - we can't wait to be cold again.  Remind me that I said that when I'm bitching about how cold January is.

csa days: boxes the sixth and seventh

 For as much as our farmers have been struggling this growing season, we CSA folks have been getting some unusual and fun things in our boxes!  Much appreciated!

Our sixth box contained a carton of blackberries (likely the last of the summer), a big head of cauliflower, a cantaloupe, tomatillos (!!), two ears of corn, a couple of chonky pears, two green peppers, a couple of peaches and one apple.  The berries and corn were consumed right away; the melon was chunked up for immediate consumption as well.  The peaches took a couple of days to ripen and the pears took a full week, but were really very good - and this coming from someone who doesn't prefer pears at all.  The tomatillos and peppers (plus a small zucchini and summer squash that were languishing in the crisper drawer) were eventually cooked down into a nicely spicy enchilada sauce for the freezer.  And that giant cauliflower (would rather have broccoli but better than more dang squash) was cut into florets, blanched and frozen for future use.

Psyched about those tomatillos

Box #7 had a couple more peaches (not yet ripe as of this posting), a couple of pears (ditto), a couple of nectarines (tart and sweet), small orange and red bell peppers, larger green peppers (love to get peppers - we use a lot of those), two ears of corn, a teeny zucchini, two tomatoes (!) about fifteen brussels sprouts (!!), another cauliflower, an onion and a cantaloupe.  The melon was cut immediately and eaten (good but it suffered in comparison to the Krenshaw melon we picked up in Green River) and the rest of the fruit was eaten as it ripened.  The corn: eaten day of, and better than the prior week.  The sprouts were blanched and frozen for future use - I'm picturing a big tray of roasted veg this winter.  And my hopes for this smaller cauliflower are to transform it into vegan buffalo wings, if it cools down enough to turn the oven on.  If not: florets, blanched, frozen.

Fun little peppers

ten miles

 Continuing with the incremental increase in distance project, A did ten miles up at Alta on Sunday.  (Saturday was spent with early morning dog walks (A and M), trail runs and bike rides (H), before it got back up to the triple digits.  This excessive heat is getting, well, excessive.  We're over it.)   It was already 80F at the house in the valley when I left to drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon, but a lovely 62F at the Albion base parking lot.  

Chunky whistle-pig

It's getting more difficult to put together the mileage I want to do up at Alta without also dramatically increasing the amount of uphill hiking.  I'm looking to challenge my distance, not elevation.  For this ten miler, I did what I did for the nine miler, with just a couple tweaks: up on Supreme, I decided not to do that half mile on the ridge towards Devil's Castle; when I got out of the campground, I veered right on another access road, which took me up to the top of the Sunnyside lift where I hopped back on the trail to the Catherine's Pass trailhead, before rejoining the regular route down Homerun.  

Past peak, still pretty

When I got to the Albion Meadows gate, I was at 8.4 miles.  It's only .6 miles to the car from that gate, so in order to meet my miles, I walked UP the Summer Road half a mile, before turning around and going back down to finish things up.

See those tiny yellow dots? Those

are the coneflower's actual flowers

There are noticeably fewer folks up hiking than even last week, and hardly any kids.  What there was a lot of this time were marmots.  I stopped to observe a big one and a small one under the Sunnyside lift; when I got up to Catherine's Area and Devil's Castle, I could hear a bunch of them yelling at me; and when I came back down to the CA trailhead, the big one was still there (I'm assuming it was the same one).  I also saw a couple of pikas up under the Castle - they also yelled at me.

Surveying his domain

Hike stats: 10.12 miles, 3:47 hours.  Would have been faster if I hadn't stopped to talk with the marmots.

csa day: box the fifth

 Got some high value stuff in this box (although I was sure we were supposed to get a melon too ...): green beans, sugar snap peas, a couple heads of broccoli, two cartons of blueberries, one carton of blackberries, a red onion, one each of zucchini and summer squash (sigh), big fat peaches, some donut peaches and a couple of ears of corn.

Request to double the berries and

halve the squash (wishful thinking)

As per usual, the corn and green beans got eaten post-haste.  The blackberries too - we snarfed those down quick (they're H's favorite).  The pea pods went to that tofu, rice and ginger sauce recipe; and half the broccoli went to a red pepper, tofu and rice noodle dish with a hoisin-peanut butter sauce.  Some of the blueberries went into morning oatmeal and the rest were snacked on - they were only okay but it's obvious that Maine blueberries are the best blueberries.  And the peaches were delicious just eaten on their own - no need to cook them down into pie filling this time.

nine miles

 After a couple of days respite, even with some scattered rain, SLC was right back up in its nonsense with triple digits for the weekend.  This of course involved getting up with (or before) the sun to do outdoors things (walking, trail-running, road riding, weeding) and then hunkering down indoors with A/C and cold drinks, grumbling all the while.  

Summer is over when fireweed

blooms to the top

But on Sunday, A did her early morning walking up at Alta, this time putting together a nine mile effort.  I pulled into my parking spot around 6:40 a.m., noting 61F and fewer cars than the last time I was up there.  We're now 2-3 weeks past peak wildflowers and that (thankfully) has cut down on the number of photo shoots and looky-loos.  I mean, it's still busy but it's not quite as busy.

Flax (maybe)

Since I was looking to do nine miles, my route was like last time (8 miles) except that I would take the high road to Cecret Lake (adding another .5 miles) and going out and back a little bit up atop Supreme to make the mileage.  After two miles, I'd seen three mule deer, four hummingbirds and one fake "service dog."  No brides, though.  Just over three miles got me to Catherine's Pass and the sky was noticeably smoky - not terrible but definitely a yellow/gray tinge.

New Roka sunglasses (old everything else)

At the top of Supreme, I did a .25 mile out and back on the trail up to Devil's Castle, turning around just when it started to get some exposure.  On my way back, I passed a couple of hikers who were intending to do Devil's Castle; I wished them well and did not at all wish I was going with them.  Five miles found me halfway down Rock N Roll, just before turning off the cat track/dirt road onto the hiking/MTBing trail that goes under the Apron to the lake.  I had to pause for a couple of minutes there under the Apron when a very brave pika ventured within a couple feet of me.  Unfortunately I didn't get a photo - I didn't want to move and startle the little guy - but SO CUTE.  Bigger than a hamster but smaller than a guinea pig, and looking like a cross between a mouse and a rabbit.

Definitely a tinge of smoke

6.2 miles brought me to not-so-Cecret Lake and the hordes of people on its shores and making their way up and down the rocky switchbacks.  It is fantastic that the mountains are so close to the city (that's why we moved here, of course) but I sure do wish some of these folks understood trail etiquette.  I couldn't get out of there fast enough.  Luckily, it was all downhill and I finished up the last miles without incident, getting back to the car with a distance of 9.05 miles and a time of 3:36.  A bottle of Gatorade, a sneaky beer and a packet of trail mix later, there was nothing left to do but go back down into the heat.  Can I put together ten miles next weekend?

Flowers holding on at higher elevations