Aerial photo of the canyon complex we hiked into on Tuesday. I had been to this canyon several times ( I actually used to guide trips into this canyon a long time ago for Seldom Seen Smith) but had never been up any of it's forks. We went up the first fork this time and I was surprised at how lush it was. It is one of the prettiest canyons around Moab, full of cottonwoods and box elder. We followed deer and turkey tracks in the wet sand all the way to where the canyon ends in a large dryfall.

Can you tell where it is without looking at Google Earth?

Spring walks

Yesterday we hiked up on "Johnson Up On Top" a mesa just south of town. One of the original Moab families (the Johnsons) homesteaded on top, and now you know how the mesa was named. The cacti were starting to bloom.

Tonight we took a little jaunt up to the forks of Mill Creek. Everything was blooming and the air smelled so good, perfect temperature and the gnats are not out yet, good time to be out.

The beavers have been busy over the winter and built several very large dams on the creek. It will be interesting to see how long they last with high water. The dams were full of little trout surfacing and eating something that was hatching, we threw a tent caterpillar in and it became dinner pretty quick, which River was not too happy about. I might have to go up with the fly rod this week, just to say I caught a fish in Mill Creek.

Everett

I still can't believe that Ruess's body has been found on Comb Ridge.

Radio West did an interesting show on the discovery of his body and on his life today.

After reading his journals and other books written about him it seems like he was very comfortable being who he was and that he had a pretty good idea on what he wanted from this life. I hope I feel the same way when I leave.

"Music has been in my heart all the time, and poetry in my thoughts. Alone on the open desert, I have made up songs of wild, poignant rejoicing and transcendent melancholy. The world has seemed more beautiful to me than ever before. I have loved the red rocks, the twisted trees, the red sand blowing in the wind, the slow, sunny clouds crossing the sky, the shafts of moonlight on my bed at night. I have seemed to be at one with the world. I have rejoiced to set out, to be going somewhere, and I have felt a still sublimity, looking deep into the coals of my campfires, and seeing far beyond them. I have been happy in my work, and I have exulted in my play. I have really lived."

La Sal Spring

The backside of the La Sals, you can still see all of the red sand on the snow that blew in with the "Hell Storm". It pretty much ruined the spring skiing on the mountain.

The bears are out and fattening up, I saw this big track in La Sal Creek today

Socialism Bad, Torture OK

I do not claim affiliation with any political party but I love people who see the Obama administration as a sign of the last days with socialism at our doorsteps, but who apparently had no problem when the last administration got us into a unjustified war, wire tapped citizens and justified torture in the name of national security. So I really enjoyed this editorial from the Trib.

"An overheard conversation among several women at a local deli: "I can't believe this country elected Obama as president; it must be a sign of the end times when the Constitution will hang by a thread." The irony of this uniquely Utah political thread about church elders saving the Constitution might have shocked the lunch bunch had they read The Dark Side by Jane Mayer (Doubleday, 2008).

Reading Mayer's disturbing book is likely to lead to the conclusion that the Constitution is more imperiled than ever; but it also reveals the troubling fingerprints of several of my fellow Mormons whose handiwork, not the Obama election, did so much to create the present crisis.

Although the decisions which put us in the grim business of torture, body-snatching, extraordinary renditions, making people disappear, indefinite confinement without charges and warrantless wiretapping were made by the president and vice president, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints served as helpful enablers. Not only did they provide the legal architecture, they provided the "scientific" patina for the plunge into the barbaric business of torture."

Read the rest of the Editorial here

Trail Canyon

We hiked into Trail Canyon in the Dark canyon wilderness the last two days to lay out a project that we will be doing in June with Wilderness Volunteers. I had not been down Trail Canyon yet into the wilderness. The trail down is an old stock trail that has been blasted out of the slickrock and winds around ledges and drop offs. I don't think I would take a horse down it right now. Just getting to our trailheads can be an adventure this time of year. We ended up sawing out a huge Pondersoa that had fallen into the road and busting through a few snowdrifts. Once you get down into the canyon it feels like you are really out there, which is the best place to be.

I think the elk must use Trail Canyon to access Dark Canyon to winter there as there was sign of elk everywhere.

Back to the Gothic Nightmare

Toad, Ash and Kell came down this weekend and we went up and explored some unamed canyons that I had not been into yet. The hike makes a loop by climbing out of one canyon into a namphitheatre with some of the most amazingly bizarre towers around, and back down another slot. The towers are so big and narrow and fragile looking that they don't look possible.

Toad hiking through an unnamed canyon in the Cutler Formation

Curtains of fluted mud

Short rappel to get down another canyon. I move so fast the camera can't catch the action.

Climbing out of the canyon on the fixed line

NEMO Found?

The May edition of "National Geographic Adventurer "(which I stopped my subscrpition to several years ago as more than half the pages are glossy marketing ads, outdoor gear marketing is still marketing and I can't stand it in any form, but I digress) contains a story by Dave Roberts where he calims to have found the remains of the patron saint of the Red Rock Wilderness, Everett Ruess.

Through a series of Navajo stories passed down through a family the reamains of a young anglo male were found in a crevice burial high on Comb Ridge, 90 miles from Davis Gulch in the Escalante country where searchers claimed to have found his last camp in 1934.

At first I thought the claim was pretty far fetched and blew it off as nothing but hype for "Adventurers" 10th Anniversary Edition, but after reading it they make a pretty good case. The bones and other artifacts show it was approximatley a 20 year old 5' 8" anglo killed around the time Everett disapeared. DNA results are still pending, which makes me wonder why they published the article before getting them back?

I think more than anything I just don't want Everett to be found, I think of him out there wandering still, maybe someday I will run into him.

Wilderness Song

I have been one who loved the wilderness:
Swaggered and softly crept between the mountain peaks;

I listened long to the seas brave music;

I sang my songs above the shriek of desert winds.

On canyon trails when warm night winds were blowing,

Blowing, and sighing gently through the star-tipped pines,

Musing, I walked behind my placid burro,

While water rushed and broke on pointed rocks below.

I have known a green seas heaving ; I have loved
Red rocks and twisted trees and cloudless turquiose skies,

Slow sunny clouds, and red sand blowing

I have felt the rain and slept behind the waterfall.

In cool sweet grasses I have lain and heard

The ghostly murmur of regretful winds

In aspen glades, where rustling silver leaves

Whisper wild sorrows to the green-gold solitudes

I have watched the shadowed clouds pile high;

Singing I rode to meet the spendid, shouting storm

And fought its fury till the hidden sun

Foundered in darkness, and lightning heard my song

Say that I starved; that I was lost and weary;

that I was burned and blinded by the desert sun;

Footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases;

Lonely and wet and cold, but that I kept my dream!

Always I shall be one who loves the wilderness:

Swaggers and softly creeps between the mountain peaks;

I shall listen long to the seas brave music;

I shall sing my song above the shriek of desert winds.

-Everett Ruess

First Trip Down the River

Mom and Dad and Nate and Miranda drove through the snow to come down for the weekend. Nate brought his boat down, and I pulled big blue out and dusted it off and we went down the river with the kids. The water is still pretty cold but the air temps are getting warm down here, not swimming weather yet but plenty of warm for a float. I put River on the oars for some of the rapids and he did a good job keeping us off the rocks.

After church we took the kids out to the big dune across from Arches with the "sand" sleds. My Mom bought all of the boys sleds for Christmas but they don't really slide on snow, strangley enough they work great on sand.

Rowan going down face first and full bore as usual

Ridge, just before eating a sand sandwich

Hell Storm

Photo of yesterdays storm in Moab. The winds kicked up most of Canyonlands park into the air and then brought it over Moab and rained it down on us. The Weather Service listed it as "unknown precipitation". I was on the back side of th La Sals when it hit and could see a huge red cloud coming over the mountain.

Coast

We made a pilgrimage to the edge of the continent last week part work, part fun. I went to the interagency trails planning training that was held on Tomales Bay this year. We spent all week laying out trails in the coastal ranges and hiking different trails looking at trail designs and structures in the Mount Tamalpais area.

Every time I go to the coast it feels like travelling to a different world from the arid Colorado Plateau and Great Basin that I am used to. Everything is so green and humid, and the trees are all so different. Redwoods, huge Coast Live Oaks, Madrones and Bishop Pines.

The ocean itself is such a foreign entity to me. Growing up on the eastern edge of the Great Basin (Wasatch Front) the first time I actually remember seeing the ocean was in Brazil travelling by bus at night, I could see the moon reflected in it and I had no idea what it was. I think I actually asked somebody on the bus what it was.

Even though I realize the Earth is 70% water it still seems unbelievable to look out across that much water always moving and crashing into the land. It doesn't seem right for something that big to be moving. I always forget how loud it is too, out on Point Reyes it was almost deafening. I was reading in National Geographic last month about Native American names in North America and saw that the word "Malibu" (as in that place in southern California)translates something like "that place over there where it is always noisy". Sounds like a pretty good description.

The boys looking out into the wild surf off Point Reyes

I love this photo, it looks like Ryder and myself sitting down amoung the carcasses of dead aliens on the beach

Sculpted Beach

Tule Elk.

This suspecies of Elk that used to live in the marshes and deltas of Californias Central Valley was presumed extinct and then a small population was found and transplanted out to Point Reyes.

21 armed purple sunflower starfish that Alina found in a tidepool, of course River was the only one that dared pick it up.

Backpacking on a Different Tectonic Plate

After spending the week on Tomales Bay, we backpacked into Drakes Bay, named after Sir Francis Drake who landed here in 1579 on his way around the world. We had very windy conditions all week on Tomales Bay as storms passed by to the north, but when we went backpacking we had perfect weather. Alina saw some sort of whale rising out of the water as we were setting up camp the first night. The area we backpacked into is within the Point Reyes National Seashore and the Phillip Burton Wilderness. From a geologic viewpoint the area is also on a different tectonic plate than the rest of the US. The Point Reyes area is on the Pacific plate and is slowly drifting north grinding against the North American plate.

Santa Maria Creek flowing off of Inverness Ridge and into the Pacific.

Coast camp. It actually froze our first night there.

Keeping the packstring moving along. The boys are starting to pack more and more of thier own gear.

Hiking in with packs and hands full

Arch on Sculpted Beach

Big Trees Sequoia Semprevirens

During our time on the coast last week we made it down to Muir Woods a protected old growth Coast Redwood grove, named after John Muir. I have only been to see the coast redwoods a few times but everytime I walk amoung these big trees it is a spiritual experience. To see and touch something so colossal and old and living is humbling. As humans we feel like we have things pretty well figured out, we feel so secure in our selves and our institutions and technology, but these trees have watched human civilizations come and go and will maybe see ours go as well. Maybe they are the ones that have it all figured out.

Holding up the sky

Boys and Mom in the UN Grove. The United Nations met here in this grove several days after they formed. At the meeting FDR gave a speech outlining that without sustainable use and conservation of natural resources world peace was impossible. That being said the US has cut the old growth coastal redwoods so extensivley that there is only about 6% of the stands left. Not very sustainable.

The Pinchot Tree

Nevills Arch

Nevills Arch in Owl Canyon, whichI have always assumed was named after legendary river runner Norm Nevills, but have not been able to verify

Cedar Mesa

Myself and Ty and Bre went down to Cedar Mesa over the weekend and hiked the Owl/Fish Canyon loop. We had tried to do this hike in December four or five years ago but did not make it around because we ended up hiking into so many side canyons looking for kivas and pot shards.



Cedar Mesa is one of my favorite places. When you are on top it looks like a big endless plain of pinyon and juniper and then you start walking and canyons begin to cut into the mesa and drop away for a 1000 feet or more. The corneaters loved it too. Every nook and cranny is full of thier structures and art.

Ruin at the very head of Owl Canyon with an intact door

Well preserved ruin on the rim in Owl

Tyler looking at me like he does not trust me as I lower him over some sketchy ledges after retreating from the elusive ruin that I have tried twice to get into. Next time.

Trying to figure out a route to the ruin. I am begining to belive in flying humanoids

Big water/dry fall in Owl Canyon. The pothole below the fall was still frozen.