Canyoneering somwhere

Saturday, after stocking up on our weekly supply of goat cheese at the Farmers Market, we went out and explored a new canyon that I had been wanting to get to for awhile. Last spring the boys and myself hiked up from the bottom end to the last rappel, and I have been wanting to come down from the top since then. It was an amazing canyon with lots of cottonwoods and flowers.

Ty throwing gear across one of the potholes, before jumping in

River on the first rappel in the canyon

Chimneying out to the big drop off

River half way down the 130 foot rappel

River getting a little nervous as he approaches the overhanging part of the rappel

San Juan

We took the boys down the San Juan again last week, along with most of the Murdock Clan (except Mom and Kell and Creeds Family). We drove down to the Mexican Hat on Monday through a snowstorm in Monticello, but ended up having great weather.

The Navajo Dam is only letting out about 500 cfs this year so we were getting worried about not having enough water, but the little heat wave we got right before we went got the melt going on the Animas which gave us about 3000 cfs to float on.

The first night we got the kids favorite camp about 10 miles downstream from Mexican Hat, the second camp was at Ross Rapid which we have never camped at before, but with the large beach and shallow eddy it may be the kids new favorite.

Campfire at Ross Rapid right on the beach

Ridge and Rowan in the duckie

The boys and Ashli after surviving their trip into the hole at Ross Rapid

Mud lunch at Oljeto Wash

Floating the Paco Pads out on the last day

Cuttin it Old School

I spent the last few days at our Guard Station on Elk Ridge conducting what was probably the first official cross-cut saw training on the District, at least in the last 70 years.

One of the things I really enjoy about wilderness management is keeping the old traditional skills alive, like horse packing and cross-cut saws.

A ruin just off the forest that I have been meaning to visit for awhile

Old School woodsmen skills

View from the Notch towards the high Abajos and Chippean Ridge

I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok

"Ruess"ing it in the Elk Ridge Canyons

Our annual spring Wilderness Volunteers trip was this past week. We had originally planned on going back into Dark Canyon to work on a tamarisk removal project, but due to the heavy snows there is still snowdrifts blocking the trail we needed to access. So we switched to Plan B, which was to do trail work and some tamarisk work in another of the wild canyons that is cut into Elk Ridge.

I packed food and gear in with the horses on Monday and went back in Friday night and packed the group back out Saturday morning. Ty came down and helped me out Friday and Saturday.

It was a great group and despite the unseasonably cold weather much great trail work and tamarisk work was accomplished.

Early morning at camp down in the Canyon. It froze every night.

Side canyon, looking up towards Elk Ridge

Three fingered pinnacle in the sunset

Tyler "Ruess"ing it with P.D. the fat Forest Service horse

Middle Mountain Cirque

Friday I walked into Warner Lake Campground to see how much snow we still had up at the campground and I could see the glorious northeast face of Tuk baking in the spring sun so we headed out early Saturday to go and check it out.

The forecast had called for warm temps and some wind, but as we skinned into Middle Mountain Cirque the high clouds kept the long run off Tuk from corning up. So we turned around before going all the way up and skiied the breakable crust ( I mostly skidded and rolled down ) until we got to the lower elevation where things softened up and became turnable.

The little black dot is Ashli and Tuk (the dog) in Middle Mountain Cirque

Survival telemark turns up high

Back in the Cirque

We made it back up into the Central La Sals for more skiing on Monday. Walking out to the truck wearing ski pants and carrying skis in Moab in May tends to elicit strange looks from the neighbors, but the spring skiing is so good this year I have to take advantage of it while it lasts (which will probably be into July this year). The snow was not quite as good as the first trip but it was still great spring skiing.

Bootpacking the headwall

Spring in Moab

A video of Toad skiing off the shoulder of Tuk on our trip back into Red Snow Cirque on Monday.

White Rim and Child Endangerment

After a little house work on Saturday myself and the boys drove out Potash to the White Rim Trail. I had not been out there for awhile and forgot how long it takes to get anywhere. We came back out the Shafer Trail.

A diving board over Musselman Canyon.

The boys sitting out on Musselman Arch. I walked them out there and told them to not move at all. Of course Rowan kept trying to stand up and go further out.

When you are on top of the arch it really does not look very exposed, but from the side view it was unnerving to see all the boys sitting out there. The arch is formed out of a piece of the White Rim hat held together as the softer rock below was eroded away, so instead of actually being arched it is a perfectly flat piece of sandstone suspended above the canyon.

Snow and Water

Saturday Todd and I skiied up into Red Snow Cirque in the Central La Sals and got severely sunburnt and got some great spring skiing in. We got about 10 inches of new snow this week in the high country so instead of corn conditions we actually found great powder conditions.

Sunday we floated Westwater at 7,000 cfs. It was a great level. My back two passengers (Sam and Jess) got bucked off in Sock it To Me without the rest of the group even knowing. So as we were celebrating our clean run of the rapid Sam and Jess were struggling to get out from under the boat and get back in. Once we realized we were missing two crew members we pulled them out of the cold river and apologized for not noticing they were gone. Good trip, no photos.

Todd waiting for me and eating lunch in Red Snow Cirque

Perfect spring conditions on the glacial morraine. Tuk in the background

Tracks off the north ridge of Tuk

Todd skiing the north ridge back into Red Snow Cirque

Todd skiing into the white ocean of Red Snow Cirque

Comb Ridge

Last weekend we headed down to Comb ridge to watch the cottonwoods leaf out, listen to coyotes and look for more ruins of the Ancient Ones.

This is a ruin that I have been looking for for a few years and finally found it. It is amazingly well preserved and nearly impossible to get into. One of the things that intrigues me almost more than the structures themselves is there setting and the places these people chose to build their dwellings. This ruin is perched right on top a a 200 plus foot vertical cliff with a small set of steps chipped into the rocks to access them. The snow covered Abajos are in the background.

Me and the boys at the Eagle Nest

Monarch Cave

The Procession Panel. This panel has 179 anthropmorphs (human figures) walking in a long line.

Chaco and Aztec

We headed south to Northern New Mexico for Spring Break to escape the annual internal combustion invasion in Moab and hoping that if we went far enough south we would outrun the strong spring storm that was heading into Utah.

We did escape the parade of people looking at each others engines (i.e. Jeep Safari) but did not escape the storm. We were planning on camping near Bluff on the San Juan but when we got to Bluff it was a sand storm of biblical proportions so we drove on to Farmington,N.M. and got a room (and ate pretty good Thai food, who knew there was Thai in Farmington?). We woke up to a white out the next morning and headed to Aztec Ruins in Aztec N.M, hoping that the storm would let up and let us get to Chaco Canyon the next day.

I was glad we made it to Aztec as it is the largest of the Chaco Greathouse outliers and was an impressive site. The Great Kiva at Aztec was rebuilt in the 1920s to what they thought was its original style. It is a pretty amazing place.

The next day it was still snowing but we decided to still head to Chaco. We drove south out of Farmington and turned onto a dirt road at Nageezi, N.M. Part of the Chaco experience is driving out to the site and wondering why the Ancestral Puebloans ever decided to construct their largest communities in what seems to be the most inhospitable part of the entire Colorado Plateau (which is already an pretty inhospitable place.)

If you have any interest in the prehistoric cultures of the Southwest Chaco is Mecca, you have to go at least once to get a sense of the scale of the place and how it influenced so much of the region. The most elaborate burials excavated in the Southwest were found here, along with an immense amount of pottery, jewelery, macaws, copper bells and even chocolate.

Part of the Murdock Clan deep inside Pueblo Bonito, this area was probably 4 stories high, 800 years ago. It is considered the largest prehistoric structure in North America.

Mesa top view of the Kin Kletso Great House

Cold day in downtown Chaco

Pueblo Bonito

Hallways in the Aztec Great House

New Wilderness and Spring Powder

I had the chance to go to our annual Wilderness Managers Conference in Cedar City last week and also visited one of Utahs newest designated wilderness areas (designated in the 2009 Omnibus Bill) the Cottonwood Forest Wilderness.

Canyon in the recently designated Cottonwood Forest Wilderness

I also got back out to South Mountain for what may be the last of the spring powder? Great day in the snow and sun. Corn season is next and it should be a good spring in the La Sals with 170% of snowpack as of today.

Mozart and Mill D North

We traveled north again this weekend for some skiing and culture. Creed and myself toured into Mill D North on Saturday morning and found great conditions on the north faces and a couple of new avalanches.

Saturday night we tried a new restaurant in SLC, the Himalayan Kitchen, (very good) and then we went to the symphony (Mozart and Bruckner). I know I am not the most sophisticated guy around but I actually really enjoy classical music and really like seeing it live. Every time we go to the symphony everybody always says "You are so nice to take Alina to the symphony" as if it was something I had to endure. I just want to make it clear that I actually enjoy it.

Creed touring the ridge between Mill D North and Beartrap Canyon above fresh avalanche debris

Alina and the Chihully statue at Abravenal Hall after the symphony

Haystack Peak

I got back out for a field day yesterday, after staring at a computer screen for way to long this week, responding to comments about a trail project we are working on in the Abajo Mountains.

We took the machines up to Warner Lake and cleared the roofs on the Forest Service cabin and shed and then went for a tour into upper Mill Creek to look at the snow pack. We saw a number of large avalanches from last weeks storm.

The snow surface actually had gotten quite wind and sun damaged this week so the skiing conditions were not great above tree line, but the snow was still good down in the trees.

Winter Aspens

North Face of Haystack

Skining up towards Haystack