Week 26 Feb. 27 - Dark Canyon

Again, more to come but a quick cell phone update.

Sunday was day 6 of a 7 day 6 night backpacking trip in Dark Canyon. We set up camp Saturday where Lost Canyon runs into Dark Canyon. Sunday morning we followed Dark Canyon 5 miles down to where it runs into the Colorado River.

I have hiked every weekend for half a year! Only 26 hikes left. How will I top this one?

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Total Distance: Approximately 9.5 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 1000 ft. 

Time: 10:15 am - 4:30 pm.
Weather: Cold, mostly cloudy, a little rain and a few sun breaks.

There is not much else to say.  I love this wild place.  It is primitive.  It is untouched.  It is natural.  It is one of my favorite places in the world.  I cried on the last day out looking back into the canyon.  I will return again, but not soon enough.

Orchid: The Colorado River.

Onion: The thought of leaving this magnificent place.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 25 Feb. 20 - San Rafael Swell and Valley of the Goblins

More to come later, but a quick update from my phone.

I had an amazing hike through Little Wild Horse canyon and Bell Canyon. Came back to camp and my best friend from work, who is my co-leader, and I took a little hike to the valley of the goblins.

Great times, tomorrow I descend into dark canyon for 7 days.

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And here is more...

Total Distance: Approximately 11 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 1000 ft. 

Time: Forgot to check.
Weather: Brilliantly sunny and a bit cool.

This week's and the next week's hike were hikes I did with twelve students and two other teachers at the school I work at.  We have an awesome program that gives teachers a maximum of 12 days to plan unique course offerings.  The minimum is at least a 5-day classroom time experience.  Some kids do class blowing, local community service work, or building an Adirondack Chair.  Other teachers use the mid-winter break before the program starts to design trips ranging from Japan, Italy, China, The U.A.E, and backpacking trips to Southeast Utah.

We started the day at the Hanksville Inn, run by Ed, an awesome dude. If you are ever in the area of Hanksville, UT I recommend staying here.  We drove into Goblin Valley State Park and set up camp in the campgrounds there.  We spent one night car camping and taking day hikes in the area.  After getting camp all squared away, we drove about 15~20 minutes out of the park on dirt roads to the west to a the trailhead in the San Rafael Swell area that would take us into Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon.

The hike was a little lolli-pop loop.  We walked out and hit a junction and took off to the right through the Little Wild Horse Canyon.  This was a fun walk through a slot canyon.  It was straight out of 127 Hours.  The sun in the mid morning was rarely shinning directly through the canyon, so it was a bit cold.  The water that rushes through to cut these slots has revealed layered colors in the rock that were simply beautiful.  There had been rain in the area a few days before, so some parts of the trail through the canyon were totlly submerged in two areas almost thigh deep some of the kids discovered. I did my best to climb up the sides and push against the both sides of the canyon walls with my feet and hands to move over the water.  It was totally sweet.

After a few fun slots, we did come out into more wide open parts of the canyon.  After a lengthy lunch break, we walked about another hour before we hit a dirt road and followed it back to the west. Shortly, we hit the trailhead for Bell Canyon.  At this point, I found myself in the back which became my customary position this trip.  Yes, with all the hiking I have done, I still hike like a slow old man.  The hike was good, it hit back to the junction where we went left into Little Wild Horse Canyon.  We started to see more traffic on the trail at this point.  Some older couples, then a group of about 5 young men, college aged to early 30s.

We got back in the cars and drove back to our camp.  It was about 3:30 pm, my best friend and I took off on a walk to the Valley of the Goblins.  This was great.  Just me and my best friend from work.  When we got to the valley, I was left almost speechless at the beauty of the hoodoos.  I could see how late in the night, it could look like Goblins.

Orchid: Walk to Goblin Valley.

Onion: The kid who argued about why iPods should be allowed in the backcountry.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 24 Feb. 13 - West Tiger Mountain 3, 2, and 1

Total Distance: Approximately 10 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 2600 ft.
     Min: 386 ft.  Max: 2806 ft.
Time: 9:30 am - 2:30 pm 
Weather: Sunny and cool, mostly cloudy.

This week was the first time in 5 weeks I was not going out to snowshoe.  It was a crazy weekend.  I flew from Tacoma down to San Francisco on Friday night, spent all day Saturday in San Fran, flew out at 7:00 am on Sunday, and had a my buddy from work, whom I have hiked with more than anyone else ever and he has been on 10 of these 24 hikes so far, pick me up and drive me straight to the trailhead.  He took me to the airport on Friday, and I left my pack and boots in his trunk, and I had packed hiking clothes to wear for the hike.  I did not want to mess with the logistics of a snowshoe trip so we planned a hike only about 30 minutes from the Sea-Tac airport.

There was a great network of trails in the West Tiger Mountain Park, so we were confident we could walk around a lot. We got to the trailhead around 9:30 am and I noticed my phone only was at about half power.  I tried to use the GPS tracking app, but my phone died on the hike.  Here is part of the track: West Tiger Mt.  I did have a full charged camera though.  Anyway, we geared up quickly and hit the trail up to the summit of West Tiger 3.  This was about a 3 to 3.5 mile hike pretty much all uphill.  Immediately, I was struck by how much I love hiking in the woods.  I love snowshoeing, but it had been awhile since I had walked on a forrest floor of dirt covered in dead leaves and being surrounded by  trees, but ferns and rhododendrons.  Hiking is magical and awesome.

We made great time and were at the peak of West Tiger 3 by 11 am.  And there were at least 30 people around here, no joke.  It was a great day, by PNW standards, for February and many people got out to enjoy it.  We sat around to eat a snack and plane what to do next.  Just about everyone else went back the way we came up, and I was almost positive there was a trail that continued to West Tiger 2.  We found the trail and continued on.  Soon we were at the next peak, which had a big power transformer or cell phone tower surrounded by chain link fence at the top.  We continued on down a dirt road for about 30 minutes and found the next trail sign confirming we were on our way to West Tiger 1.

After a short, but steep walk up another dirt road we were at the summit.  While there was another transformer/cell tower thing, the view of the valley below was spectacular.  We could see part of Rainier below the clouds, the fertile farm land of valley below, and the buildings of downtown Seattle.  There was a trail leading back into the woods just to the left of all the chain link fence surrounding the transformer, and we choose to take it and see if we could loop around the peaks.

As we descended into the woods, it got eerily dark in the tall trees.  Eventually we came across another hiker and confirmed we could loop around back to the trail.  His directions were to turn left then right then we would get back to the trailhead.  We followed, but after the right turn we felt we were heading deeper into the forrest.  We turned around and stayed left.  We came to another intersection, we went right and then the same thing happened.  It looked like we were heading back up the mountain.  We turned around and took another left.  This trail was marked the West Tiger Mountain trail and we had seen signs for this trail earlier in the day, so we were finally confident we were at least heading back to somewhere we had been before.  Sure enough, after about an hour we were back on the main thoroughfare and back among the crowds.

We walked down and spent a total of about 5 hours walking in the woods.  We took very few breaks and other than the snack break at West Tiger 3, the breaks were short and only to hydrate or take off a layer.  I am confident we did at least 10 miles.  It felt great.

Orchid: Walking in the woods with one of my best friends.

Onion: Too good of a weekend to have an onion.

Picture:

Goggle Map 

Note about the next two weeks: The next two hikes are already planned.  Next Sunday night, I will be in Goblin Valley State Park in Southeast Utah spending the night with 12 students and 2 other teachers.  On Monday, we are going into Dark Canyon in SE Utah.  We will spend the next 7 days and 6 nights backpacking in the canyon.  The next two blogs will be posted, on or before Tuesday March 1.  There is a chance that next week's blog can be posted on Monday Feb. 21, but I make no promise there.  No worries about me and my integrity, I will be hiking in the backcountry the next two weekends for hike 25 and 26.  I am so pumped to have my half year mark in one of the most remote areas of the lower 48!

Week 23 Feb. 06 - Mount Rainier, Paradise

Total Distance: 3.02 miles
Elevation Gain: 1204 ft. 
     Min: 5357ft.  Max: 6229 ft.
Time: 10:45 am - 2:00 pm 
Weather: Cold, foggy, overcast, and rainy.

Another walk in the snow this weekend, but this was a little shorter than usual and also with the Outdoor Club I helped start at the school I work for.  There were eight of us today, 5 students and 3 teachers.  We began the day early, meeting near school at 7:45 am and getting on the road by 8.  We were in Ashford by 9:30, where we picked up another teacher.  We also rented snowshoes for one kid from the nice people at Whittaker Mountaineering.  I love this store.  There are really nice, knowledgeable people who know a lot about the area, and there is a really cute woman who works there too.

We were back on the road shortly and reached Paradise with no problem on the roads at all.  We geared up and took off.  I set my phone GPS right when we began, and I remembered to end it when we were done hiking.  As we started walking the weather was really crummy.  I personally try to not complain about weather.  I have noticed that hiking every weekend means that you will get all the weather this area of the world has to offer.  The conditions did mean, limited visibility.  

The original plan was to go up past Glacier Vista, up to Panorama Point, and down onto Mazama Ridge to play.  What happened was a blind walk into the white nothingness and everything-ness ahead, finding and designing some crazy fun sled runs, and cold windy conditions the higher up on the mountain we walked.

It is always fun to be out, but this was some tough weather.  We wanted to head down and find, hopefully, better conditions below.  A lot of the students brought sleds, and on the way down they found lots of places to have fun.  We stopped on this one hill and made several runs.  It was still rainy and cold.

When we got back down, we went into the visitor's center to warm up.  It was only minutes later that we were eating and warming up inside.  After a healthy feast, we were talking about our plans.  Up at the top, we said we were going to go down to Reflection Lakes, but that was another 3~4 mile roundtrip.  It was obvious the kids didn't want to, so we made the choice to head out.

A great, albeit short, day in the backcountry.

Orchid: Sled runs on the way back down.

Onion: Crummy weather...

Picture:

Google Map