csa summer: fifth box

 No, really, now we're really hitting summer's stride.  CSA box #5 from Tagge's Famous Fruit and Veggie Farms (which, total kudos for putting an easement on their farmland to protect it from the rampant development that infects Utah - for that commitment alone I will continue to sign up for their CSA subscriptions) really feels like summer ... although if I'm honest, with the heat and the wildfires, we're sort of ready for fall (although if I'm honest, I'm already sad that the days are getting shorter)).  We got corn, green beans, carrots, two different kinds of cucumbers, a zucchini and a summer squash, tomatoes, two kinds of peaches and a watermelon.

Ooh tomatoes and peaches!!!

Per usual, we ate the corn and beans immediately.  The watermelon was not nearly as good as the last one so I cubed it and froze it and we blended it with tequila for margaritas.  Some of the cucumbers got quick-pickled, along with the skinnier carrots.  The tomatoes, some of the cucumbers and the peaches got taken to work for lunches (if I'm honest, I don't love these donut peaches so much - I find them much less flavorful than the regular kind).  The heftier carrots got diced and put into a batch of lentils, along with some onion - not soup, just lentils to put on rice as an alternative to black beans which we've been eating a lot of recently.  It's been WAY too hot to turn the oven on so beans (of all kinds) have been our primary protein lately.  

And, if I'm honest, I took three cucumbers, the zucchini and the summer squash in to work, leaving them in the breakroom for folks to take.  They all got claimed but the summer squash got claimed FIRST, which I find baffling - that is for sure my least favorite squash.  Blessings on the person who took it home.

csa summer: fourth box

 We are on the verge of full summer in a box ... but until then, more beets!  The fourth box was pretty good, with two cartons of blackberries, a ton of green beans, Swiss chard, lots of apricots, a couple of ears of corn, a mini watermelon, carrots with dirty tops (sigh), candycane beets (sigh), a cucumber and two zucchinis (sigh).  

Beginning to look a lot like summer

We ate the corn and half the beans right away, and the blackberries we split evenly and completely devoured.  The zucchini got shredded and frozen (we now have about eight cups of shredded zucchini in the freezer oy vey) and the apricots got frozen too: the apricots will be made into more BBQ sauce or pie filling; the zucchini will go into baked goods - I have a really easy Jiffy cornbread "recipe" that uses up a lot of shredded squash - or snuck into soups and sauces.  We sauteed the chard with EVOO, garlic and chile flakes.  And the watermelon got cubed and eaten - it was pretty good.  I have on my list of things to do this weekend to deal with the cucumber and beets ... seems like some quick pickling is in the mix.

top tier

 This last weekend we were again in SLC.  Saturday, while H did a seven mile trail run and then a road ride, Milton and I did our five mile Dimple Dell loop.  It was kind of humid, a holdover from the brief rain the night before, and H and I were total drama queens about how sticky and muggy it was.  (It wasn't that bad.)  That evening, we three got social and drove up to the RoHa Brewing Project to meet E and K for beers.  We really like that little brewery: they have a ton of beer on tap, live music each time we've gone, both indoor and outdoor seating, with a food truck out front, and are super dog-friendly.  The bartender said they're technically not supposed to have dogs inside but when we got there, there were at least five other dogs already arranged under the various tables, one Frenchie lying directly on the floor vent, keeping her tummy cool.  After saying hi to his girlfriends E and K, Milton wasted no time making friends with everyone at all the other tables.

Green gentian with bee

Because he'd gotten to go to a bar the day before, I didn't feel too badly about short-changing Milton on his Sunday morning walk and instead taking myself up to Snowbird for a wildflower hike.  The Wasatch Wildflower Festival had been at the Bird on Saturday - and was wrapping up at Alta on Sunday - so I figured I might not have to fight the crowds if I got there early enough.  I pulled into a largely empty parking lot at about 7:45 a.m. (not that early, tbh) where the sun was still behind the mountains and it was a glorious 59F.

I love sulphur buckwheat

With cream-cheese bagel in hand (also hiking poles, because knees), I headed up the Peruvian Gulch trail.  That trail is brutal.  The first mile, from Snowbird Center to the Peruvian Gulch road, follows a drainage and basically goes straight up, without messing around with any switchback nonsense.  I passed one older woman on my way up; she, and the youngest woman ahead of me, kept climbing on the PG Road, while I turned off onto the PG Trail.

Headed up that ridge to the tram tower

The second mile, while still going up mercilessly, was not quite as steep as it opened up and crisscrossed some flower-filled meadows.  I got passed by one trail runner on the Cirque Trail, just before starting the ridge walk, and other than him, had the place to myself.  There were a few patches of snow up on the headwall of the cirque, and more snow over on the Gad Valley/Regulator side, but it was all pretty dry up there.  It was windy on the ridge section and I had to hold onto my hat a couple of times.  And right before coming off the ridge, where it gets REALLY steep, I did question my life choices somewhat.

Those orange paintbrushes were incredible

As I started the fourth mile of the hike, however, it was all downhill on the Peruvian Gulch road.  Towards the top, I said hi to four MTBers who were heroically grinding their way up the mountain (on real, people-powered, non-e-bikes).  Snowbird stopped allowing bikes on the tram during Covid ... but never reinstated them, for some reason, despite having spent the time and money to put in the magnificent Big Mountain downhill MTB trail.  Now the only way to ride the BMT is to put in the work and ride to the top, which thins the herd quite a lot.

Lupine, sunflowers, two colors of paintbrush

and Lewis's monkeyflower (plus more I don't know)

Walking down the PG road has its own challenges.  It's pretty steep and the gravel is loose in spots - not fun on the knees and slippery.  As I worked my way down, more hikers were coming up; I'm sure they thought that I'd taken the now-running tram up and was just hiking down.  Little did they know that I am far too cheap to pay for a Snowbird tram ticket.  After a 6.5 mile round trip (and 3.5 hours - that trail is too steep to be fast, at least for me), I was back at the car, changing my shoes and sneaking an oat soda before heading home.

Clover-headed mint (not anemones,

as previously thought)

What I love about that loop - not how steep it is, ugh - is the wide variety of wildflowers.  As you move through the different sections/ecosystems, the flowers change.  There are just so many of them!  There seem to be some different kinds than at Alta too, so it's nice to do hikes at each resort to experience the variety.  Every year I think, I don't need to take a bunch of wildflower photos again but each year I do, because they're just so pretty.

Tiny little yellow blossoms

on the coneflowers

csa summer: third box

 We got kale in our third CSA box!  We love kale!  We also got very good cherries, some sugar snap peas, a couple of zucchini and a summer squash, spicy little radishes, a bunch of apricots, rainbow carrots with tops, two (!) boxes of raspberries and more beets.  And although there wasn't any corn on the cob in the box, I bought three ears (for $1/each).  The ears seem a little small but the corn was still tasty.

I think I'd actually rather more

zucchini and fewer beets

I gave away one zucchini to a coworker and then shredded and froze the rest for future use; we also gave away almost all the cumulative beets to friends; the raspberries were devoured on their own, plus I put some in my morning oatmeal; the kale, radishes and carrots went into salads; and the carrot tops were clean enough this time that I was able to make them into carrot top pesto (rounded out with a little kale).  I don't know if we'll be able to eat all the apricots fresh before they get too soft - but if it starts getting close, I'll flash-freeze them for future baking (crisps/crumbles/galettes). 

here be flowers

The Wasatch wildflowers are in full swing right now.  In fact, the 2025 Wasatch Wildflower Festival is going on July 12 (Brighton) and 13 (Solitude) and then July 19 (Snowbird) and 20 (Alta).  If you're up there then, be warned that there are just oodles and oodles of people.  And also please don't pick the flowers and do stay on the trails.

Saw some folks hiking up with their

skis for some Ballroom turns

In any event, after taking Milton on a foreshortened neighborhood walk (only a mile, he's so deprived), I drove up to Alta for a solo hike.  I didn't get up there until 8:15, wanting to wait for H to get done with his early morning bike ride so I didn't have to put the dog in his crate, and it was already busy.  I had decided on a different loop so as to avoid the Supreme lift construction, so after parking up above the Albion base area, I walked down to Wildcat base - along the road so as to avoid additional construction along the rope tow.  There's a lot of construction at Alta right now (and they're paying for it by raising lift ticket prices AGAIN).

Gordon's ivesia

From Wildcat base, I went up the Collins Gulch access road.  That is such a slog.  It's very steep from the base area to the angle station.  But I actually prefer going up it because I find the steep dirt road slippery for descending.  I also preferred it because there were so few people on the front side of the mountain: I passed one hiker going up and only saw four other people going the other way.  That time of morning the access road is also pretty shady, which is welcome when youre churning your way up.

Lupine and paintbrush

At the top of the Collins lift (3.75 miles), I had a snack and then dropped over into the Sugarloaf side, following the cat track down through Sugar Bowl and under the lift.  Then I turned left, and followed the access road around the bowl and down the long switchbacks under East Greeley.  I started seeing a few more people, including six MTBers heroically biking up those long switchbacks.  The flowers were fantastic.

At first I thought cow parsnip

but now I'm not so sure

When I passed Alf's and continued down the Homerun trail below the Albion meadows proper, the hordes really started horde-ing; I had selected Homerun rather than the main trail to try to keep away from most of the crowds, but even so I stopped counting at 70 people.  (Two people I was happy to count was a hiking/running/dog mom woman, whom I follow on Instagram, and her husband: I recognized her and introduced myself, then let them continue on their way.)

I know this one! Elephanthead!

Back at the car I had a beer and some peanuts while I changed my shoes and watched the continuous stream of cars looking for parking place.  I may have been late getting up there but I wasn't as late as they were.  Note to self: be earlier next time though.

Hike stats: 7.4 miles round trip (which is almost the same mileage as my regular Catherine's Area loop) in 2 hours 50 minutes.

gold knob

Although I so very much appreciate it and enjoy it, I may be getting just the tiniest little bit bored with always going to Millcreek in the summer.  When Sunday rolled around (we had planned to get up really early on Monday to drive back to SLC, that way avoiding the returning holiday traffic jam going into Spanish Fork on Sunday afternoon (but definitely experiencing the Utah/Salt Lake County morning rush hour traffic) - choices), Milton and A decided to return to Gold Knob (4.25 mile RT hike) after a nearly six (!?!) year absence.  H opted out, preferring to go on a solo bike ride.

Gorgeous blue columbines

It does take a while to drive up to the Warner Lake campground, where the parking lot trailhead is: 24 miles on pavement, up the LaSal Loop road, and then five miles on a dirt road that could use some grading in spots.  After about an hour in the car, we pulled into the day use lot and got on the trail at 7:53.  It was a glorious 50 F.  Less glorious was the hooplehead who parked sideways instead of heading in, taking up about three spots.

"Was that a deer?"

It took us just over an hour to get to the top, going up through aspen glades, dark forests and wildflower meadows.  I kept M on leash the whole time, knowing that if we saw deer (and we did, plus chukkars, a bunny, a woodpecker and squirrels), he would chase them and likely get lost.  Neither of us particularly enjoy leash hiking but he did tow me up the steep spots, so that was all right.  

Kind of hazy but Castle Valley view

At the summit, we met a couple of paragliders and their dogs who were coming up to do some flying.  Not the dogs.  They were just there for the views, which are spectacular.  It took us just over an hour to get back to the car - which tells you how steep the trail is, even with the switchbacks.  The day use lot had several more vehicles in it (and also that hooplehead still) and it had "warmed up" to 70F.  Still glorious.

Seriously.  Don't park like this. Be considerate.

We had a quick beer/snack session before heading back down to Moab.  I know that we tend not to go up into the LaSals because it's a bit of a drive and the roads can be rough.  But with temperatures and trails like that, it's worth it.  We need to remember that.

holiday long weekend

 What? We put together a long weekend over the holiday and went to Moab? SO UNUSUAL.  After picking up our first CSA box on Wednesday, we skedaddled down to the desert as is our wont.  The drive was uneventful and fairly light traffic-wise.  Most Utahns and Coloradans seem to give southern Utah a pass during the summer months, knowing how dang hot it is; most of the tourists are from away.  But we got a gift from the weather gods this time and the temperatures on the 3rd and the 4th didn't even hit 90s (!!!!).  And when it did warm up for the weekend, it still stayed below 100F, which we all appreciated.

Posies

Despite the cooler temperatures, we didn't veer from our usual summer activities much.  On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Milton and A did their Millcreek loop, getting to the trailhead before the sun came over the LaSals and enjoying the quiet on trail.  We did meet some nice people and dogs, and heard canyon wrens, and the creek water, while low, was cool and refreshing to walk through.

Creekside

In the late mornings, H and A then did their road rides on the bike path.  There is definitely less traffic - bike and pedestrian - on the path these mid-summer days.  That will change when we turn towards autumn, of course.  The first two rides were standard operating procedure: from the house to the river, up and then down the river, up to (and in H's case, past) Arches, up and down the river again and then home.  On Saturday, however, A got a flat tire at Arches.  We had the stuff needed to fix it - everything except any shade.  So while H rode straight home, A hike-a-biked back to Lions Park.  (A couple of kind folks, one on a MTB and one on a road bike, stopped to see if they could help.)  When H showed up in the Subaru at Lions Park, he had also brought Milton, a hat and shorts for A to change into, Gatorade and beer.  We made the best of it and enjoyed surreptitious parking lots beers while talking with tourists from Brooklyn.

The BEST boy

The late afternoons found us supporting local businesses (going out for beers) and the early evenings were spent back at home, with dinner and library books.  We aren't wild and crazy but we do know what we like.

csa summer: first and second boxes

 It's CSA season, that wonderful time of year where we vegans eat all kind of local produce (and get way too much squash).  We've had our first two boxes already; I forgot to take a photo of #1 but did remember to write down what we got: garlic scapes, zucchini, cherries, apricots, a head of romaine, two kinds of beets with greens and Swiss chard.  The zucchini got shredded and frozen; the garlic scapes got chopped up and frozen for adding to various dishes (stir fries, scrambles, etc.); we ate all the beet greens and the chard on three separate dinners, each time sauteed with EVOO, crushed red pepper and garlic [scapes]; the fruit just got et up; and, sadly, I tossed the romaine because it was super tough and bitter.  Lettuces struggle in the Utah heat, I think.  

Box #2 was better: rainbow carrots, green leaf lettuce, sugar snap peas, big apricots, amazing cherries, grilling onions, the tiniest scallions, beets without greens (boo) and summer squash.  The fruit got et up; the lettuce was pretty good and we ate it with beans and grains in salad bowls; the carrots, peas and onions got added to a curry; and the squash met the same fate as the zucchini (shredded and frozen for later use). ETA: There were so many apricots that we knew we couldn't eat them all before they spoiled, so a whole bunch went into a homemade apricot BBQ sauce that is fruity with a slow-burn heat.  Yum!  And a good way to not waste a bunch of apricots.

Oh, I'll use a couple of beets to add to hummus and pickle, but I'm going to give most of them to friends who enjoy them.

late for snow, early for flowers

It has been hot and dry this late spring-into-summer and the snow has melted quickly up at Alta.  I'd been keeping an eye on their webcams to see if hiking was feasible.  It was and, on Sunday, after taking Milton for a 3.25 mile walk around the neighborhood while H did a road ride, I drove on up there.  There were already a lot of cars parked above Albion base: I got there at 8:30 a.m., which is close to 1.5 hours later than I usually go.  But it was 64 F, cool and sunny, and a perfect day to be up there.

The flowers are just starting up at Alta

From the parking area about Albion, I walked up the Summer Road to the connector trail to the Albion meadows.  From there I went up the main meadows trail to the Catherine's Pass trailhead (1.5 miles), then continued up to Catherine's Pass (another 1.5 miles).  There were a number of other folks out on the trails, although not like the hordes that will show up in July for the wildflowers.  Although I wonder how that is going to work: Alta is replacing the Supreme lift (again), which means heavy equipment all through the campground area and I can't imagine they'll let tourists drive up while the work is going on.  I may have to reroute my regular exercise loop too - guess we'll see how it goes.

Well, my hat is gross

From the pass, I continued up and across Catherine's Area to the top of Supreme.  It looked weird with the lift towers removed.  I descended via the access road and at mile 4.5 finally got passed by two trail runners (about H's and my age) who'd started out when I had.  When I said that I knew they'd catch me eventually, they grinned and said I had been setting a pretty good pace up to Catherine's Pass.  I'm definitely better going up than down!

Gentian - one of my favorites

I took the Homerun trail down through the meadow and back to my car, finishing up the 7.25 miles in just under 3 hours.  As I changed my shoes and chugged a surreptitious beer, I copped to the fact that I might have overdone it a wee dite, with 10.5 miles before lunch.  I've been doing okay on mileage this spring but being up at elevation (8,000 - 10,500 feet) is for sure more taxing.  Nothing a nap wouldn't fix though.

The new cut for the replacement Supreme lift

(should have stuck with that old triple chair)

that squirrel wished we'd gone to millcreek again

On Friday, A wanted to do something other than Millcreek.  Dog-friendly hiking options in Moab in the summertime are limited as you really do need to stay near a water source.  Millcreek is of course a wonderful trail and we are grateful that it's so near our house.  But we do it a lot and sometimes you just want to mix things up a little.  (Not Milton - he doesn't care where he goes as long as he gets to go.)

Before the sun came over the mountains

Another option is Grandstaff Canyon.  It (like Millcreek) is very popular and very busy but when you go the secret way, you avoid the people until the very end.  So H dropped A and M off at the antenna on the Sand Flats road with arrangements to pick them up down at the Grandstaff trail in a couple of hours.  He then went back to the house, did a half hour trail run and a 21 mile road ride (headwinds both ways, seemingly) while we made our way down the canyon.

Sun coming into upper Grandstaff

We walked in to Fins 'N Things, then dropped into the Wilderness Study Area of upper Grandstaff at the overlook.  You can stay on the trail, which gets a little exposed for dogs, I think, or you can make your way down into the wash and just follow the creek out.  Just like when we did this last, this does involve some fighting through vegetation, clambering over downed trees and just plain tromping through the water.

Datura (don't eat it)

Just before our route connected with the main Morning Glory Arch trail, the canyon opens up and the trail (such as it is, what with the fading in and out) moves away from the creek.  It was here that Milton had his very best day ever: he caught a ground squirrel.  He was psyched; the squirrel was not.  He did end up dropping it and it scurried away into a burrow, apparently/hopefully uninjured.  I had to leash Milt and literally drag him away but soon enough, out of sight meant out of mind and we continued on our way off leash.

Layers

H picked us up shortly after we got to the trail head.  He'd had the foresight to pack a cooler with snacks and beers and we sojourned to our favorite picnic spot overlooking the Colorado River so I could regale him with his dog's hunting exploits.  This hike is only about 5.7 miles but it was hot enough and windy enough that I figured that was enough exercise for one day.

Right before the Great Squirrel Incident of 2025