What a nice pattern of little adventures: an evening in (literally) Millcreek, a hike up Big Cottonwood to test out the pack I finished Friday (more pics tomorrow!), and time with Toby in between.
Category: nature
We Went Back Outside
Maybe we weren’t too scarred from our big hike last week, maybe I just can’t resist a chance to Get In The Water–but we were out Friday night and most of Sunday (and it was fine!).
Friday, we went up to the top of kindly Millcreek Canyon at golden hour and splashed around:
(If you don’t get all the way in the stream, you miss the bluebells growing out of mossy rocks!)
And Sunday we took nephew and sister-in-law and a visiting aunt and uncle tubing on the Provo River. It was about a thousand times busier than the stretch of the Bear we did at the beginning of the month and was a LOT colder, too–but I had fun the whole way (I was In The Water!!) and I think the group had an overall enjoyable experience.
It sure is a pretty canyon and river. There were people who used the tube rental place like us and also people out in their own kayaks and SUPs. I think it’s just a matter of time before I convince Doc that we need our own watercraft.
Mistakes Were Made
Our first big Friday adventure in the Uintas Mountains didn’t go well and it was entirely our fault. All of our problems could have been solved with a map but did we have one? Reader, we did not. We also didn’t have rain gear, cold weather gear, or extra water and I have no excuse. I know better! I can only think that a year of little jaunts in Millcreek just made me complacent. But COMPLACENCY KILLS. I’m glad we’re not dead.
So what happened? We meant to do a 3 mile loop. We missed a turn, hit a lightning storm at 11,000 feet, kept going because we needed to get off the ridge, then kept going it was 50 degrees and raining and then hailing, then still kept going because it seemed right and WE HAD NO MAP. By the time I realized our loop should have ended by now, there was no one to be seen (this is a heavily used area, even for wilderness) and I had about 15 minutes of really experiencing being lost in the middle of nowhere. Do not recommend!!
Thankfully a family came down the trail before I had a full-on panic attack and let us take a picture of their map. We were 4 hours into the hike at this point and the only way to get back to the car was…to turn around and retrace our steps. It was another 5 hours until we got out and it was a slog. But there was no way out except to keep going, and we did.
The ONE thing I did right was have the first aid kit with water purification tablets in my pack, and we used them. (Refilling the water from a tiny crystal stream was a high point in the endless march back.) We did have plenty of snacks and obviously we made it home, but wow. We were the unprepared hikers you hear about on the news. Judge not be ye lest judged, etc.
I debated even writing about this and just sharing pretty pictures instead, but writing helps me process and also LET THIS BE A WARNING TO US ALL to be more prepared than you think you need to be, especially when you’re going into the real wilderness.
Not that I want to go back into the wilderness any time soon. I might just stay home forever. But it IS pretty there:
Shady Trail
The temperatures here have been closer to early July than early June, but we found some shade on the way to the Terraces in Millcreek.
There was also a post-hike Get In The Water moment, very refreshing*
*”refreshing” = I couldn’t feel my feet after about 20 seconds. And look how deep the water is! This was right next to shore where it’s usually ankle high in full summer. That big rock behind me was blocking the current but it’s running fast, too.
Turn, Turn, Turn
One of the nice things about going back to the same trails for more than a decade is that you take the same pictures at every season. This was part of the Desolation Trail yesterday:
And this was December:
The wheel of the year keeps on turning. But now it’s green, green, green, and the only white is ninebark and false Solomon’s seal.
I have to think of my favorite Cold Mountain quote:
“Over time, watching that happen again and again might make the years seem not such an awful linear progress but instead a looping and a return.”
Green!
I’m happy to report that spring finally made it to the higher elevations: Millcreek is all leafed out (and the creek itself is running high). That bright, bright green of new leaves–there’s nothing like it.
Getting Sleepy
…the forest is, that is; it’s pretty brown up there, all the bright leaves mostly off the trees. But there are still some colors if you look closely.
A Visit To The FOX PARK
A person Doc works with asked if he’d seen the fox den in the park a few miles away. Seen the WHAT now? We had not but we had our Sunday goal.
Neither of us had ever visited the park before, because it’s surrounded by the city–my dentist’s office backs up to one end, our friend lives up the street, there’s a grocery complex on the east. But there were little wooded paths and more wild areas than lawn and a stable with horses and donkeys and, yes, FOXES.
We saw the sign…
And right on cue one sauntered up.
But then ANOTHER fox showed up and did one of those stretchy bows! I couldn’t speak when Left Fox appeared and could only hit Matt on the shoulder in my excitement!!
Right Fox wandered off…
But Left Fox just laid down at the edge of the woods to have a nap!!
The Google Maps entry for the park has a bunch of fox photos in the reviews and the other dog walkers did not act like seeing two foxes was a jaw-dropping sight, so I can only assume the foxes feel right at home in their city park and there are a lot of them. Clearly, we’ll have to go to the fox park more often.
Before The Snow
The Millcreek upper canyon is about to close for the winter and this weekend is supposed to be cold, so we did a quick trip last night to see what we could see. That included some naked trees and an epic sign:
Orange!
The aspens higher up are losing their gold leaves but the maples this year are so brilliant. We had sun and blue skies to really show off that orange:
