a lone voice in the wilderness

Grateful for the Mystery and Christmas Trees

2010-11-24T08:18:00.000-08:00

Our friends out in Castle Valley let us buy one of their turkeys they raised this year and we went out the Saturday before Thanksgiving to "prepare" the birds for consumption. Two of the Toms below were prepared. It is never fun to kill an animal, but very satisfying to be part of the process, to know where the food on the table comes from, to know it was treated humanely and was put to good use. The turkey tasted great, thanks Brother Turkey.

I really like the idea behind Thanksgiving, so I thought I would write down of few of the things I am most thankful for.

I am a pretty ungrateful person. I am not very good at expressing thanks for all I have and all I have been given.

I recently read something the affect that all of the great spiritual traditions/religions have focused on relationships; relationship with God (or whatever you choose to call the Divine Mystery), relationship with family, and relationship with the "other" (always the hardest one). I would also add relationship with the creation, the natural world. These are the relationships I strive to focus my life on.

Above all I am thankful for relationships with my family. Alina and my four boys are my world. I truly don't deserve them.

I have some pretty amazing parents and siblings. I rarely tell them how much I love and appreciate them. I do. Any of you that know my family know that they are amazing people.

I am grateful for the mystery (that I am coming more and more to accept) that is this life. Just to live here on this amazing planet for a short time surrounded by people that love me and people that I love is enough. I am content.

I am thankful for the ability and freedom to question my existence and my place in this great infinite space.

I am grateful for wild places (big and small). For places that are quiet, places where I can interact with natural processes. Places that overwhelm me and make me feel small, but yet still a part of it all.

After Thanksgiving we went up on the mountain with Reno and Star and got a tree for them and then went the following weekend to harvest our Christmas Tree with Todd and Ash.

Tree down

Uncle Todd demonstrating the art of getting pulled behind a truck

Special moment, if we ever make a Christmas Album this will be the cover

This year was Ridges turn with the saw

Wild Tomatillos and 5 Faces

2010-11-15T21:20:00.001-08:00

Todd and I took advantage of the long weekend and explored a couple of areas we had not been into yet.

Spring Canyon that drains down in Labrinth Canyon on the Green and Davis Canyon down in the Needles District of Canyonlands. Davis Canyon canyon is a remote section of the Park that has some interesting Pictographs and Ruins that I wanted to get into.

After exploring around for while we found the 5 Faces Pictograph Panel and several nearby ruins. One of the ruins had an interesting green plant growing out of it. After looking at it, it appeared to be a tomatillo plant.

I was not aware of it but wild tomatillo is native to the Colorado Plateau and apparently it was also cultivated by the Anasazi. Which made me wonder if those plants had actually been on that ledge for the last 800 years growing and dying and sprouting again each year. I wonder what Anasazi salsa tasted like?

Walking the ledge to the 5 Faces

Todd walking on water

Metates and faint pictographs

The 5 Faces

Looking for a route into the Log Cabin Ruin

1st weekend in November

2010-11-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

The first weekend in November is always the Folkfest here in Moab and we usually make it out to a few shows but this year we ended not going to any and just hiking and hanging out with all the family that came down.

We took every one up to the Fisher Towers and walked beneath the big towers

The kids climbing around below Ancient Art tower. A couple of climbers are actually on the route above.

Murdocks with the Titan behind

Pumpkin Chuckin

2010-11-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

We stayed in Moab this year for Halloween and took the girls out to the annual Pumpkin Chuckin festival. Good times and disturbing costumes.

The girls checking out the chuckin contraptions

Trebuchet launhcing a gourd

New this year was the air cannons destroying a van with pumpkins, pretty impressive

Gender bending Murdocks, not so pretty

Spirit leaping from shape to shape- Return to life as a Predator

2010-10-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a hunting family. The biggest days of the year for me were the opening of the deer hunt, elk hunt, pheasant hunt, dove hunt and goose hunt. They were rites of passage. Growing up in Utah you just grew up shooting things and eating them, it is what we did.

As I got older and started spending more of my time enjoying other outdoor pursuits like climbing, backcountry skiing and running rivers, I began to lose interest in hunting.

I also started to define myself as someone who did not hunt. I was someone who wore Patagonia fleece and climbed mountains, not some redneck who shot things for fun. I made sure I fit the labels I had created for myself.

I was never anti-hunting, I always understood the brutal truth that to live we must kill other beings (whether plant or animal). I was never against ethical hunting, I just became a non-hunter (but I still fished, still ate meat) for the last 18 years. But I have slowly come round full circle, and I have thought a lot about food, killing, animals and hunting. I read several great books a while back written by hunters (Heartsblood by Dave Peterson, Heart of Home and Bloodties by Ted Kerasote) which really explored the motives and ethics behind hunting. Good reads if you get a chance.

I never gave up fishing and have occasionally kept a fish to eat. In Nevada I actually went out hunting Chukars a few times. But this year I decided, for many reasons, to get back into hunting big animals, elk in particular. I bought a spike elk tag and literally dusted off my 30.06 rifle and pulled out a 20 year old box of shells.

Aside from the primary purposes of harvesting local meat from the mountain I work on and becoming part of the food chain in a more local and authentic way, I also wanted to go through the effort it takes to pack out a large animal in wild country without the crutch of an Off Highway Vehicle (OHV). A large part of my job has become responding to people complaining about roads that have been closed and a very common reason they provide for needing roads everywhere is that there is no way to retrieve elk and deer without an OHV. Not true, and I wanted to be able to prove it.

I spent four different days out looking for elk, all of the days were spent away from roads hiking in the backcountry and I got into elk everyday (just not the kind of elk that I had a permit to take). As I watched all of these elk, out doing what wild elk do in wild country, I wondered if I would really be able to take the life of one.

On the fourth day out, two days before the hunt closed, Myself, Todd and River hiked into a drainage on the backside of the La Sals and found two spikes.

I was surprised how much adrenaline started pumping just knowing there was a chance of taking an elk. Without boring you with the details I ended up stalking one from above on the canyon rim and taking one of the spikes. In the end the experience was one of satisfaction more than anything, but I would be lying if I did not say that it was also one of the most intense and exciting experiences I have had in a while.

We quartered the elk under a full moon, surrounded by bear tracks and bear scat. We did not want to leave any meat over night because of all the bear sign, so we divided his warm body into pieces a human could pack out and divided him up between the three of us and packed him out (without an OHV) in one back breaking trip. The coyotes found what we had left in the canyon about 30 minutes after we had left. Packing large chunks of meat out on my back, with my son, under a full moon with a pack of coyotes gladly howling about the large carcass they had found in the canyon bottom, made me feel more apart of the earth than anything else I have done.

Thanks Brother Elk

"After the carcass is dressed
and hung from the branches of a cottonwood tree,
I go inside and try and wash my hands-
but the blood won't come off.

There's no mistake.
I am marked for life.
I wear the elks tattoo
as its meat become my meat, and it's blood stains my blood.

Spirit
leaping from shape
to shape"

Part of the Poem "Skinning the Elk" by Art Goodtimes

"Not a single one of us has to catch a trout to eat. Nor, for that matter, do those of us who hunt big animals like moose or elk and feed our families for a year have to kill them to survive. We're making choices-more spiritual than economic- about grounding our souls in a landscape through participation, about becoming participatory citizens of a home place through the eating of what that landscape produces. The wading, the casting, the stalking, the picking, the plowing, are ceremonial means to procure nature's Eucharist."

-Excerpt from "Heart of Home" by Ted Kerasote

River looking for wapiti up high

Spirit leaping from shape to shape, in this case elk becoming four boys

La Sal Elk Country

Elk Country before the snow

More Fall Break

2010-10-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

We also made it out to Castle Valleys annual Gourd Fest while everybody was here and we got to see some great local talent at the 1st annual Seekhaven Talent Show.

Gourds and more gourds, can't get enough gourds

Smokey was very happy to be part of the Gourd Fest. I don' t think he was all that worried about the fire danger

Creepy dudes sitting at the back of the talent show

The first public appearance of the MoaB itch. They rocked "Sweet Child of Mine"

Fall Break- A Visit from the Northern Clan

2010-10-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

The Murdocks from the north came to visit us for a few days last weekend over the Fall Break. It was good to have almost everybody down to enjoy the glorious fall weather.

Saturday we woke up early and climbed into a part of Arches away from the masses and did some canyoneering in a new canyon. Photo above is Creed and Tyler on the last rappel.

Creed checking out an old aid route on a very large rock along the canyoneering route

Thursday myself, River, Ty and Bre hiked into a remote unnamed side canyon to Harts Draw that I hiked 17 years ago and have always wanted to get back to. This canyon is not far from Moab but gets almost no use. There is very little sign of other people traveling through the the canyon at all, which means a lot of bushwacking. The cottonwoods were amazing.

Me an Mom under one of the branches of the Moonflower Cottonwood, one of my favorite trees on the planet

River heading down the unnamed canyon

A Long Ride with the Old Guys

2010-10-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

My Dad, Carl and Uncle Rick came down last month for what is becoming an annual Fallpack trip into Dark Canyon. I had to pack some equipment in for a tamarisk removal project we are starting, so it worked out perfect to have them come down and help out.

Dad and Carl at Trail Canyon. I have never seen this much water in this part of the canyon, but due to all the August rains it was still running.

Horse Pasture Canyon

Camp in Horse Pasture

Three old dudes (and Abbey) sleeping after a long day. They must be old because I am not that young anymore.

Short lived waterfalls and old houses, and the Fourth Annual Meat (Harvest?) Fest

2010-09-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

Summer is slowly winding down into another glorious fall on the Plateau.

We got another Westwater trip in before the kids went back to school. It was the Fourth Annual Meat fest and many species were upon the grill. We are thinking that we may have to rename it the Annual Westwater Harvest fest to be more inclusive and less gluttonous, maybe not. We did have eggs from Todd/Ashlis chickens, salsa verde made by Mom, Pepper, Tomatoes and other produce from the garden, cheese from Erics goats (Castle Valley Creamery) and live music (Ashli on guitar,Colin on ukelele, and Jeff on flute). Good Trip.

A few photos of other recent excursions

I took the boys and some of the scouts down to some remote ruins on Elk Ridge. I was a little hesitant to take the scouts to such a pristine and remote site, but they did great and were very respectful. It may have been that I told them I would throw them off the cliff and that they would forever be haunted by the spirits if they broke anything, but it worked. Camped on Elk Ride the night before we hiked into the canyon and elk are in full swing. The bulls were bugling all night.

Ridge looking into the main room

Great front porch view

Row and Ridge in the land of Pines and Pinnacles

The last big monsoon storm that came through just happened to center right on Mill Creek where we were hiking. Lots of waterfalls.

On Labor Day we went an floated a stretch of river I had not been on before. We put in at Dewey Bridge and floated down to Hittle Bottom. We hiked up Bull Canyon and played in the potholes.

Long Walk in the Big Mountains

2010-08-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

Last week we took a long walk through the Weminuche Wilderness. 54 miles through and over and around the Grenadier and Needles Ranges in the San Juan Mountains. Todd, Ty and I had been planning the trip for quite some time. Like most hikers who do this loop we were planning on using the Durango/Silverton Train to get to the trailheads, but a week before leaving we decided to make the whole trip via human power the way God intended. This added 15 miles to the hike, but in the end we were glad we did it and we still beat the train out.

The Weminuche is an amazing and big place on the scale of the Central Idaho Wilderness areas. The hike included some of the the most rugged alpine terrain I have ever seen. The wild berries (raspberries, strawberries, thimbleberries and grouse whorttleberries) were at their peak so we stopped and ate a lot of them and scared a bear off of one berry patch. Saw more kinds of mushrooms than I have seen anywhere. Caught brookies, cutthroats and rainbows in Vallecito Creek and chased herds of overly friendly mountain goats out of camp in Chicago Basin.

It was so nice to be away from the news and politics of our world for more than a few days. I am realizing that I often times allow myself to get to wrapped up in the trivial and frivolous political squabbling (are we really still arguing over whether Muslims can build a place of worship near Ground Zero?). I have tried to refocus my energies into understanding the world, my motivations, my beliefs and what makes people think and believe the things they do.

I have been reading/studying more Buddhist/Eastern philosophical traditions lately and really drawn to the goal/process of becoming more mindful. One of the processes for becoming more mindful that really appeals to me is that of "walking meditation", learning to be aware of each and every step and breath and of the world around you. I used the long walk to practice walking meditation, not sure I became any more enlightened but I did learn many things like it is much easier to meditate when walking on flat ground, and that going up long uphill climbs with a heavy pack is not conducive to quiet introspection due to the sweating and cursing.

River also came along and did great, I was pretty proud of him for not complaining.

River walking out of Chicago Basin in the rain

On top of Columbine Pass (elev. 12,800) between Johnson and Needle Creeks

High camp at 12,000 feet looking out to Mount Oso and the Guardian

River before the long off trail descent to the gem colored Vallecito Lake

Me and the boy pondering existence (aka catching our breath) in Chicago Basin. The big peaks of Sunlight and Windom behind

Westwater B-Day Partay

2010-08-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Toads 3oth on Westwater yesterday, which he celebrated by successfully taking an open canoe down the canyon, with no swims.

My mom watched the kids, so Alina could come, which was great she had not been down Westwater for a long time.

Rare photo of Alina and I on the river with no kids in the picture

Todd and the Rampage in Big Hummer?

Gneiss shist and Alina and River

3 Generations

Front flip off the bow, which ended in a backslap on sunburnt flesh

Headwaters of the San Juan

2010-07-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

Last week we headed east to the San Juans and camped for a few days. It was cold enough that Alina and the boys were wearing their winter coats at night, which is just what we wanted this time of year.

We camped up South Mineral Fork near Silverton and hiked around the area on the Rico-Silverton Trail and into Lower Ice Lake Basin. The wildlfowers were unbelievable in variety and color.

The area is the very headwaters of the San Juan River that we floated in May. I like following rivers to their sources and seeing where all the water comes from that forms the rivers that cut the great canyons.

After hiking for a few days we stopped in Ouray for a soak in the hotsprings until lightning forced everybody out of the pool and we headed back to the desert.

Lower Ice Lake Basin Paradise

Waterfalls draining down into Lower Ice Lake Basin

More water falling down and joining other small streams and then bigger streams until finally they all come together and form the mighty San Juan

Where all the water from the mountains ends up (at least the part that does not get used to irrigate crops upstream)

Descending in the rain from Ice Lake Basin

Headwaters of the San Juan

2010-07-27T20:36:00.001-07:00

River bouldering on the trail to Ice Lake Basin

Boys in the wildflowers

Boys at Camp

Rolling Mountain at the head of South Fork Mineral

Hiking the Rico-Silverton Trail at the very head of the South Fork Mineral

Escaping the heat

2010-07-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

Once the temps head over 100 in the Moab valley everybody heads to the river or the mountains. We did the latter and headed to La Sal Pass with friends who have a kid that shares a birthday with Ryder.

Quite a few people ended up coming to the camp which kind of reminded me of the old neighborhood campouts we used to have back in the day.

Row and Tuk (the mountain not the dog)

River and Ridge with South Mountain

Boys, sticks, fire, no worries

Boats full of dogs and kids, make for good fishing. I think the people in the back are cursing us

The alpine meadows at La Sal Pass

Summer Mayhem

2010-07-09T19:34:00.001-07:00

Summer seems to be the season of perpetual crisis at work and it is beginning to make it my least favorite season.

Summer at work starts with bringing all the seasonal employees on and training them. Hoping they have enough common sense to not get themselves injured or killed in the backcountry, or driving, or running a chainsaw or clearing a trail or any of the other tasks we require of them.

June flew by with seasonal employee orientation, chain saw school, fire school, packing the trail crew into Woodenshoe Canyon, fixing water systems destroyed by avalanches, clearing trails, finishing Environmental Analysis for projects, working with the County and local OHV groups to mark some new OHV trails, working with local environmental groups to close illegal OHV routes, heading north for the Nackos reunion, driving the kids north for the Murdock cousin camp, taking the scouts to Scout Camp and administering the permit for Scout Camp, dealing with angry people who think their favorite trails should be the first ones we clear, meeting with Senator Bennets staff on the potential wilderness bill for San Juan County (now dead thanks to Utah's crazy primary elections which seem to be simply about who can be further to the right), working with the contractor building the new Buckeye Campground, explaining to the locals why Buckeye Reservoir is closed for the summer, inventorying hazard trees at the campgrounds, working on our new Motor Vehicle Use map, going to the weekly Farmer Market for goat cheese and getting our for some kayaking, hiking and canyoneering on the weekends and after work.

Summer in Moab generally consists of going to where the water is or heading as high as possible to escape the heat. The Europeans seem to not realize that summers are hot here as the town is full of them which makes every trip to the grocery store a multi-cultural experience

Escaping the heat at the Cowboy Jacuzzi

Ridge heading down his first technical canyon

Columbine in the high country

Red Snow Cirque, the same place we were skiing a couple of months ago, now green and lush

Escaping the heat in the high country. The snow melt lake up Gold Basin

Canyoneering somwhere

2010-05-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-22T22:11:00.001-07:00

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

2010-03-15T22:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

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

South Mountain and the South Fork

2010-02-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

We got out to South Mountain last week to ski what are long talus slopes in the summer but when they get covered with sufficient snow in the winter they become the best runs in the range. A surface hoar layer buried by the last storm stopped us from venturing all the way to the top of the mountain, but the part we skiied was perfect snow.

Perfect La Sal Powder

Sunny days and North Faces. Todd and the bottom part of the runs.

The blur of white and red in the middle of the photo is a local skiier that is twice my age. He beat me up and down the mountain twice that day. I hope I am doing that at his age.

We went back up north last weekend to celebrate Rowans and Grandma Murdocks Birthdays and we got one day of skiing in on Presidents Day. We had a nice little tour up the South Fork of the Provo on the backside of Cascade Mountain. I had never been there before. It is a bit longer approach than other Wasatch locations, but there is some wild terrain up in the high bowls . Photo is of Todd and Tuk breaking trail in the sticky spring like snow. It was Tuks first ski tour and he learned the hard way to not jump in front of someone on skis heading downhill.

Elk Ridge Winter

2010-02-02T18:17:00.001-08:00

With the massive amount of snow that the southern mountains have received we decided to try and make it out to our cabins on Elk Ridge and clean the roofs off to avoid the roofs caving in. I thought we would be able to drive a ways up the South Cottonwood road but we had to start snowmobiling from Highway 95, which made for a very long day.

I broke the clutch on one snowmobile in the first mile and had to tow it back to the highway. We saw 8 good sized bull elk that were having a hard time getting around in the snow, hope they make it through the winter. We finally made it to the cabins and removed the snow and got back to Moab at about 9:30

Slickrock avalanche. We actually got enough snow down low that we saw good sized avalanches on the slickrock. I believe this one is on Ute lands and it actually took out a fair number of trees.

Removing snow from the Gooseberry Cabins

Winter at Sego Flats. Nobody had been up there yet this winter

Elk Ridge Winter

Skiing and Shovelling and Roofalanches

2010-01-29T14:22:00.000-08:00

Last weeks series of storms centered right on the town of Monticello, where the other half of our office is located. Our weather station in the Abajo Mountains recorded close to 60" of snow and an incredible 6" of water, it a was a storm of biblical proportions.

We went down on Wednesday hoping to see if any of the big slide paths had slid, but it was still snowing with little visibility. We dug some pits did some tests and skiied the old Blue Mountain Ski resort.

After coming off the mountain we went down and started digging our Forest Service buildings out so they did not collapse like several buildings did on main street.

Todd and Miles in the abandoned lift shack at the top of the old resort, which makes a nice little warming hut now.

Buried Forest Service truck

The horse barn. I hope the snow on top does not come off and kill one of the horses

Photo from the San Juan Record looking out somebodies door after the storm

Gold Basin

2010-01-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

With no snow for the last 15 days, the avalanche danger has receded somewhat in the La Sals so we headed into terrain that is usually reserved for the spring. We made it into the large cirques of Gold Basin and found unexpected good turning conditions. The temperatures were much warmer than down in the Moab valley.

Skiing Tele Gold

Talking Mountain Cirque at the very end of Gold Basin

Todd (in the lower left) making turns in Red Snow Cirque

Nate in Red Snow Cirque

Skinning up into Red Snow Cirque

Little Cottonwood

2010-01-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

We had to make the trip back up north this weekend so Alina could take a test for her teacher recertification. It was a quick weekend trip and we will probably not be back up that way for awhile. I met up with Creed and Nate Saturday morning and we skiied into some country I had not been to for a long time. Started at Alta went up to Catherines Pass, climbed the ridgeline to Tuscarora Peak, summited Mount Wolverine, traversed Wolverine Cirque and skiied down Patsy Marley Peak back to the cars. We actually found some decent snow off Catherines Pass and made a few runs, but everything up high was windblown and crusted. It is a little depressing to see how little snow there is in the Wasatch right now. There are stilll a lot logs and rocks lurking under the thin snowpack and unfortunatley my skis found a few of them.

Nate and I bootpacking up Mount Wolverine

Creed skiing off Catherines Pass

Breath deep the gathering gloom. The view down Little Cottonwood into the toxic soup of the Salt Lake Valley.

Old Tilly

2010-01-05T17:39:00.001-08:00

I took the boys out to ride on Tilly while we were up in Utah County. This is the same horse that my good friend Regan used to ride when we were in Jr. High and High School. We put a lot of miles on that horse ans she is still getting around. My dad rode her into Dark Canyon this fall.

New Years, Skiing and Burnt Flesh

2010-01-05T17:15:00.000-08:00

We headed north after Christmas to visit friends and family, celebrate the New Year and alos got some sledding and skiing in the Wasatch in before heading back to the frigid cold of Moab. We have been the coldest point in the state for several days.

Sun coming through the trees in upper Mill D North

Bringing in the New Year with fire and hot metal.

TThe after math of the fire and hot metal. Ridge got a piece of sparkler down his shirt and a cool scar to remember 2009

"Sun Dog" we saw in the clouds while skiing up Big Cottonwood

Todd skiing the avalanche paths in Days Canyon

Christmas/Solstice

2010-01-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

After getting back from Ouray we stayed in Moab for Christmas and played in the snow. Alinas parents spent Christmas with us and it was nice to have them down.

Ridge on the skis at Geyser Pass

Rivers first time on tele skis

Solstice Fire

We usually try to get out and spend some time under the stars on the longest night of the year. I like celebrate the old Pagan holidays and see how they have been morphed into the modern Christian ones.

Skiing the old Blue Mountain Ski runs in the Abajos in good conditions

This is the first year that the kids have woken up early on Christmas morning, they usually sleep in which is nice, but not this year. Thye drug us out of bed at 6:00 AM. So I walked outside in the dark and took a picture looking through our front window.

Christmas with four boys is mayhem and things get crazy, but I hope we were able get the boys to at least think a little about giving and not just getting and about gratitude and not just commercialism.

Red Mountain Pass Backcountry

2009-12-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

We made a trip over to Ouray last weekend to soak in the hot water and be surrounded by big mountains. The San Juans are amazing and not really all that far from Moab. Toad and myself got an early morning ski tour in around Red Mountain Pass. I had never skiied in the San Juans so I was expecting to just do a short tour and scout the area out. We ended almost summiting MacMillan Peak at 12,800 feet and finding amazing snow conditions up high, even though it has been a week since the last storm. Once we were above treeline we were surrounded by high peaks and alpine terrain.

Good sized avalanche in US Basin that we could see from Macmillan

Todd skiing excellent recrystallized powder above 12,000 ft

Looking over towards the high country between Red Mountain Pass and Telluride

Skiing back to the Pass

Slickrock Sledding

2009-12-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

Rime encrusted trees at the Geyser Pass Trailhead on Monday. The lighting was pretty amazing with the dark clouds behind them.

Last Friday we went out and hiked up some of the slickrock domes to see if we could sled on them. There was still plenty of snow and the slickrock made for a perfect luge run. A friend of mine actuallu went up and skiied on the slickrock trail. The warm temps Sat and Sun pretty much melted everything but it was fun while it lasted.

Ridge jumping slickrock ledges

Slickrock sledding

Moab Dump

2009-12-10T19:39:00.001-08:00

The first "Snow Day" in Moab in over twenty years happened on Monday. It was the biggest storm we have seen in town since we have been here. 8 inches in out backyard, 18 in the La Sals and almost 30 inches at Camp Jackson in the Abajos. Hope it keeps up.

Smokey showing the snow totals in the backyard

Sledding down the driveway. Rowan was yelling "it's the best day ever!"

Sand Flats and South Mesa covered in white stuff

Climbing Courthoue Rock with the Taliban

2009-12-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

We went out Sunday to a place Todd found while working. It is a route to the top of Courthouse Rock via some ledges and then a crack with a fixed line. It was too late to make it all the way up but we did find the crack and rope, so we will be back.

River and Ridge watching Toad climb the crack in the setting sunlight on top of Courthouse Rock

Uncle Todd forgot his coat so he grabbed part of his Fidel Castro costume from Halloween out of his car trunk to hike in, which made him look even more like a Taliban. Shadows in the setting sun

Tree thinning in the La Sals

2009-12-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, before the big storm we went up on the mountain to kill some living trees to put in our house as a symbol of eternal life, kind of ironic but I like the tradition nontheless. We send most people up to Geyser Pass to get thier christmas trees because the aspen groves there are dieing off and conifers are encroaching on them. So it is actually a good thing to remove the small firs and spruces moving into the aspens.

I think my favorite thing about Christmas is the tree.

Hot Springs, Guns, Big Cliffs, Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T22:08:00.000-08:00

We headed north for Thanksgiving again this year and carried on a few family traditions.

I took the boys back up to the hot springs for a nice long soak. Nothing like soaking in hot water when it is cold outside.

On Thanksgiving the boys went out (girls were invited but none of them wanted to join us) to celebrate our 2nd Amendment Rights and shoot things with a wide variety of weapons. I am pretty sure that some of the firearms had not been shot in decades, so we were happy when they did not blow up in our faces. Not sure what it is about guns but it is satisfying being able to hit something from a long distance with a high powered rifle. I want the boys to have a healthy respect for guns and to learn to handle them safely. I gave them alot of saftey talks but watching Uncle Creed and Todd hip shoot the shotguns may have undone some of that.

After Thanksgiving we shortened the annual Turkey Freeze Out into a day hike and drove out into the West Desert and climbed Notch Peak in the House Range, and looked over one of the highest cliffs in North America.

I truly have much to be thankful for

Ridge and Rowan partaking in the hot water

The boys hiking out

Me feeling sick looking over the 2000 foot vertical limestone cliff of Notch Peaks north face. It is hard to tell from the photo but that is a long ways down.

Ty Ty feeling tingly staring into the abyss

Toad and Ty reading the summit register and trying to stay warm

Not so Firey Furnace

2009-11-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

We went back into the Firey Furnace on Saturday. This small area has to be some of the most convoluted topography in the world. It is very easy to get turned around in there. I have hiked through the whole area several times since moving here, but I still missed the entrance in to the Furnace and ended up wandering around for awhile looking for the way in.

Dead end in Lomatium Canyon

Sitting on an arch in a side canyon

Porcupine Rim Singletrack

2009-11-12T22:57:00.000-08:00

Toad and myself celebrated Veterans Day by riding the Porcupine Rim trail to the river. It may be awhile before I do that section of trail again. Biking is a great way to get in shape and riding smooth singletrack or oceans of slickrock is very fun, but Porcupine Rim is neither of those. It is 12 miles of loose rocks and ledges, but the views are worth it.

The smooth singletrack of LPS before the ledgey hell of the Porcupine Rim Jeep Trail

Above the River in Jackass Canyon

Folk Fest Weekend

2009-11-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

The entire Murdock Clan came down this past weekend for the annual Moab Folk Festival. We took advantage of the continuing fall weather biked, hiked, climbed and listened to Pete Rowan and his Bluegrass Band.

The entire Clan at that rock on everybodies licence plate, with Tuk framed perfectly in the arch

Rowan climbing the shadow of the aspens up Brumley Creek

Riding the geology of Bartlett Wash

Heading towards the end of the mesa

Halloween

2009-11-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

If you can get the obscure cultural reference that Creed is dressed as you are super hip (notice his pants are on backwards)
Scary Pirates, Rowan was pretty excited to have a goatee and did not want to take it off

Nobody (including Tyler) knew what Ty was dressed up as, maybe K-Fed?

Extra credit if you can guess all of the characters in the Communist Party

2009-10-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

We tried to make it back into Hammond Canyon agian last week but got snowed out so we ended up going further south to escape the storm.

Above is the satellite photo of where we rode, the color and form are pretty amazing so I thought I would post it.

Any guesses on where this is?

Life on a Ledge

2009-10-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

This sky city is the most amazing setting of any Ancestral Puebloan structure I have ever visited. It was rarely visited but is becoming more popular with people publishing its location on websites, which I will not be doing. If you do find it treat it with respect, do not walk on the roof of the kiva, I am afraid it will not take many more people standing on it.

This is an ideal spot, it has only one way in and a fairly permanent water source on the ledge. The site is so exposed that it makes you a little uncomfortable even being there, but people lived thier lives out there in this little village on the edge of the great abyss.

Beautiful intact kiva, all pilasters and roof in place and much of the stucco still sticking to the walls. One wall has fallen into the canyon.I hope the Ancients don't mind me taking a picture of their sacred places, or maybe we just project our ideas of sacred onto these places and they were much more utilitarian to those that spent cold winters on this ledge.

The view out the kiva, which is perched right on the edge of an amazing cliff

Ty walking the sidewalk

Hanging out on the front porch

The kiva site

Cottonwoods and Kivas

2009-10-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

We made it back down to Cedar Mesa for a fall trip. We went down Shieks Canyon and hiked up Grand Gulch to the Kane Gulch Ranger Station. This part of the Colorado Plateau continues to amaze me.

Toad hanging out on the front porch of the Lion Track House, so named for its pair of mountain lion track petroglyphs

Kiva and Cottonwoods at Junction House

Junction House, an original ladder is hanging out on the far left. I cannot imagine how they were able to haul tons of rock, mortar and timber up these faces to make thier homes.

4 hour old Bear tracks

Seems a bear wandered about 20 feet from our camp Sunday night

800 hundred year old bear track at Turkey Pen House. Seems that the Corn Eaters had bear on their minds as well.

Communing with the Basketmakers and Corn Eaters

2009-10-13T18:03:00.000-07:00

First view of the inaccesible portion of Turkey Pen Ruin
Two anthropomorphs hanging out in an overhang

Tyler looking for a way down from the Thumb Ruins

Sunset in the canyons

The famous Green Mask. This site is significant for a number of reasons. The first being that a full face scalp painted exactly like this pictograph was found in northeast Arizona, second Wetherill found the "Princess" here beneath this mask. The Princess was a female Basketmaker burial, her body was painted red and her face yellow, hair intact, buried with two turkey feather blankets (one containing bluebird feathers the other yellow feathers) and several large baskets on her head. Evidence of cannibalism was also found at this site. It is details of everyday life and the rituals of these people that intrigue me. I really want to know what life was like living in these alcoves.

Ghosts of Horses

2009-10-03T20:20:00.001-07:00

On Prarie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor was describing his memories of fall and what things he associated with the season. As usual he was right on.

He said something to the effect that "Fall smells like wet grass, woodsmoke, apples and horses. Even when horses aren't around you can smell them in the Fall. The ghosts of horses from your youth"

Me and Padre smelling like horses in the Fall

Fall Light

2009-10-03T20:14:00.001-07:00

It is not only the leaves that change this time of year, the lighting changes pretty dramatically as well. It is not so harsh and direct, much more slanted and richer.

Today as I was driving off the mountain through Castle Valley I timed it perfectly and was able to experience some incredible fall light on Castleton Tower and the Preist and the Nuns. The light was coming in underneath an approaching storm and just over the Porcupine Rim. It took me awhile to get home as I had to keep stopping and taking pictures.

5/8 Moon

2009-09-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I took horses back into Dark Canyon to meet up with our District Archeologists and volunteers who are continuing the inventory of the Wilderness. My Dad and Carl came in with me this time and it was great to have them along. The weather was perfect warm days and cold nights. We went up several side canyons I had not been into before and visted some new ruins.

The vehicle driving the supplies to the trailhead got stuck and ended up being four hours late, which meant we did not get back to our camp (after packing thier supplies in) until about midnight. It was nice to see the canyon in the moonlight. It always amazes me how well horses do in the night, picking the trail up even when it is pitch dark.

I was glad my Dad got to see some of the places where I work. He is a pretty resiliant guy, it is hard for him to get around sometimes but he never complains and is always up for any adventure, even a midnight ride through rough country. As we rode through the night he said he was glad we had a 5/8 moon to ride under. Only my Dad who has spent his life with a tape measure would measure the moon in 1/8ths.

Dad and Carl getting ready to leave camp

Last light in Horse Pasture Canyon

Exposed ruins, watch your step when you go fetch the corn

Heading up Horse Pasture Canyon

Fall and Big Fish

2009-09-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

For some reason Fall aways seems to be the season that appears so abruptly. One day it is over a hundred degrees and the next the aspens are golden and the elk are bugling. Fall seems to slowly meld into full fledged winter and then winter slowly gives way to Spring which gradually warms into Summer, but Fall pounces out of nowhere. It surprises me every year.

I took the boys up to Oowah tonight to revel in the Fall and fish. I ended up only catching one little brookie, but I thought I caught a monster for a minute. I had just gotten the canoe into optimum casting postion and my line started being ripped out of my reel faster than I had ever seen, it was so strong it pulled my canoe out into the middle of the lake, it actually scaird me to imagine the size of the fish that had to be on the end of my line and then the great beast surfaced and instead of the silver finned rainbow I was expecting the dark hairy body of Castor Canadenis (Beaver) rose up out of the depths all tangled up in my fly line. Luckliy he was not hooked just tangled in my line. When I lived in Montana I actually caught a bat with my fly rod, but this is the first beaver I have caught.

solo River

Trying to land some beaver

Chokecherries

2009-09-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

The beggining of Fall always brings out the hunter/gatherer in me (more gatherer than hunter these days). So a couple of weeks ago we went up on the mountain to pick chokecherries for jelly. It takes a lot of chokecherries to make jelly, so we ended up making syrup instead. The boys love it.

Chokecherries in your face

Alina the wood elf

Canyoneering Bears

2009-09-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

This was on the front page of the paper here today. Apparently this black bear got herself stuck in a keeper pothole over the weekend, with no way out until some hikers found her and threw some logs down in for a ladder.

2009-09-10T20:25:00.000-07:00

Last Chance Rapid stolen from the Newtons

I had to steal a meat photo from Newtys blog. The more species the merrier.

3rd Annual Meat Fest and Dirt Burgers

2009-09-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

The 3rd Annual Westwater Meat Fest occured this past weekend. At leat four species made it on to the grill this year including wapiti. My camera battery died about an hour into the trip so no photos of the meat made it on the blog this year. After the Westwater float we woke up early Sunday morning and drove to the Loop Road and rode the Kokopelli Trail, UPS, LPS and the Sand Flats Road. Todd was the only one to eat a dirt burger on the way down. We also made it in to the Cowboy Jacuzzi for some swimming, a couple of short hikes into Arches and the last hour of the Classical Music Concert at Old City Park. I am looking forward to going to work so I can rest for a minute.

Ty, Tiff, and Ashley floating down to Upper Cougar Camp

Creed and the interesting texture of the Precambrian schist that makes up the inner gorge of Westwater Canyon

River and the black and red canyon

Some Euro dude named Bruno, we ran into wearing womens clothing under his drytop

Todd riding the steep stuff prior to eating some dirt

Green Table

2009-08-23T20:40:00.001-07:00

We have been trying to get over to Mesa Verde for awhile now and it has never worked out, but we finally made it over this weekend. I like visting remote backcountry ruins much more than the heavily visited stabilized ones in the National Parks, but if you are interested in the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) you have to make the trek to Mesa Verde. With some of the biggest and densest sites in the Anaszi world it is a pretty amazing and sacred place.

Climbing out of Balcony House

The orignal route in and out of Balcony House that you still crawl through to exit. It is a pretty defensible entrance. Your enemies are fairly vulnerable to getting thier heads smashed in when they crawl through if you don't want them around.

Balcony House

Ridge hanging out on the balcony with the entrance ladder down below

Starting up the big entrance ladder to Balcony House

Green Table II

2009-08-23T20:31:00.001-07:00

River waiting to go into Cliff Palace
Pondering the hole between the 3rd and 4th Worlds

The main tower at Cliff Palace. Four stories tall, the corner had fallen out when it was first viewed by Wetherill in the 1890s. Pretty amazing structure

Mesa top ruins. I am always telling my boys to stay off the walls when we visit backcountry ruins, so it was nice to visit some stabilized ones that they could go into and explore

Mesa Verde residents coming out to feed in the evening

Looking for a Peaceful Sunday Drive

2009-08-16T22:44:00.001-07:00

After the requisite 3 hour church meetings (we really need to work on cutting that back to an hour, tops). We headed up to find some peace and quiet in my other place of worship. We drove up to Medicine Lake with the idea of walking through some of the alpine meadows and throwing a few flies at trout. La Sal Pass is one of my favorite places in the La Sals, high alpine peaks all around and views clear over to the San Juans and Ute Mountain in Colorado.

Then I remembered why it can be so frustrating trying to recreate on the mountain I work on as well. On the way up we saw two women on OHV's, one carrying a small child with no helmet (both dangerous and illegal) but I thought to myself "today I am not going to worry about it I am not working and they are on a legal road". So we drove up to the lake, as I was putting my fly rod together and untangling the kids poles I noticed a new OHV track cutting right through the middle of the large meadow at the pass. Once again, I am not opposed to responsible motorized recreation, but some days it seems that I see less and less of the responsible variety and more and more of the "It is my right to drive where ever and when ever I want" variety. The new track really irritated me, so I took a mental note that I would send someone back up on Monday to sign and try to rehab the illegal trail, so much for relaxing.

As I went to make my first cast, here comes the OHVs driving right into and across the meadow. Now I am beyond mad and all thoughts of fish rising to a caddis are gone. I handed my rod to my nearest son and took off on foot to "bust some perps". I finally caught the OHV riders and flagged them over. Two teenage girls and the same little kid. I asked them if they thought they were on a road? They both answered no. I asked them if they thought what they were doing was acceptable? They both said no. Then I explained that they could both receive tickets for driving off road and not wearing helmets, gave them Travel Maps and a list of rules for motorized use and told them to drive over to their parents and explain what I had just told them and if they had questions I would be down at the lake trying to catch some fish.

There are 1000 miles of open roads and motorized trails on the Moab/Monticello Ranger District alone, why can't people stay on them? I read today that there are 70,000 miles of open roads on public lands in Utah ( I have not checked the accuracy of this total, but it sounds about right). There are plenty of legal and appropriate places for motorized recreation, despite what "Take Back Utah" says. There is no excuse for driving off road across an alpine meadow. Use your legs, let your feet come in contact with the actual Earth once in a while, it will do you good.

There was an interesting opinion piece from an OHV rider in the Tribune today about the "Take Back Utah" rally from a fellow OHV user. Read it here. I love when somebody rational and thoughtful gets involved. We need more of that and less yelling and demonizing of those you don't agree with.

Meadow with new tracks

Boys on a log with Tuk in the background

Medicine Lake

End of Summer River Excursions

2009-08-08T20:16:00.000-07:00

Summer is getting ready to come to a close (at least for Alina and the kids who have to go back to school because of new school construction) and we have been making a few late summer river excursions. Last Tuesday I took my trail crew down Westwater on the "Centennial Moustache Ride", so called because it was Erin's (Max's wife) 100th trip down Westwater and all of the trail crew shaved thier facial hair into porn/pirate/burt reynolds moustaches, rather disturbing but we may have to make it a tradition. I somehow got completly thrown out of the seat in Sock and To Me and was not able to make one oar stroke to avoid the "Magnetic Wall", but we still did not even come close to hitting it. I guess that is the secret, just jump in the back of the boat and let it ride.

Today me and the boys took the canoe out on the Daily and made it down without mishap.

Rio in the River

Take-out

2009-08-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

I spent yesterday hiking into some of the more remote portions of the forest with the District Archeologist and the Lone Peak Hot Shot crew to do some fuel reduction around some of our more vulnerable cliff dwellings that contain a large of amount wood. One of the fires that is currently burning could potentially threaten the ruins if it moved in the right direction, so we went in an made a premptive strike and thinned out some of the vegetation around them to give them a better chance, just in case.

As a side note, this little excursion proves that we don't remove Anasazi ruins from within designated wilderness as inferred by the "Take Back Utah" group, we actually go to great lengths to protect them.

A full rainbow directly over the canyon and fire

Turkey track petroglyphs and some of the ruins that we were trying to protect.

My Radical Elitist Children

2009-08-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

I am here alone tonight perusing the many offerings of the internet and just came across a website called "TakeBackUtah". Which begs the question who are we taking it back from?

As a public lands manager I try and stay as objective as possible and to recommend decisions on Americas public lands that are both beneficial to those who own the land (all US citizens) and to the land itself. I try not to let my personal biases affect my job. I truly believe there is room for everyone, the West is huge. But when I see outright misinformation being used to further an agenda I can't sit by. I tried to comment on the following article on their website but could not. So I will do it here on my little read blog, but maybe it will help me feel better.

You can read the whole article mistakenly called "The Truth About Wilderness" at takebackutah.org. I will just post the parts that I find particularly erroneous. Quotes from the article are italicized.

“Wilderness” is the word radical environmentalists hide behind when they are trying to close public lands to recreation

Why is everyone that has a different opinion a "radical". I think it is an attempt to divide and create the "us versus them mentality" that all sides use. It always amazes me to see how much common ground exists if people can just get over labeling and categorizing each other. I am guilty of it too. Oh yeah, and Wilderness does not close public land to recreation.

How does the designating wilderness apply to recreation? Wilderness prohibits uses of the land including, permanent or temporary roads and structures, the use of motor vehicles, and the landing of aircraft.When applied to types of recreation, wilderness areas prohibit full-size 4x4’s, side-by-sides, quads, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, motor boats, airplanes, helicopters, motor coaches/homes, house trailers, toy haulers, mountain bikes, sometimes horses (often a diaper is placed on the horse to catch harmful fecal matter), generators, any type of motorized equipment (i.e. drills, pumps), and some camping equipment (if it is motorized or mechanical).

True, Wilderness designation generally prohibits motorized and mechanized transportation (however many airstrips exist within Wilderness where they existed prior to designation) and motorized equipment. I like how the author lists every kind of motorized transportation she can think of so I will do the same. When applied to recreation Wilderness is open to day hiking, backpacking, nature study, canoeing, kayaking, rafting, inflatable kayaking, rowboats, climbing, bouldering, mountaineering, horseback riding, horse packing, mule packing, llama packing, goat packing, dog packing, dog sledding, rifle hunting, archery hunting, muzzle loader hunting, spear hunting, fly fishing, bait fishing, backcountry skiing, cross-country skiing, snow boarding, snowshoeing, and camping. To name a few, I think my list is longer than hers. Wilderness does not prohibit horses, some areas of public lands (outside and inside of wilderness) that receive very heavy use have put restrictions on horse use. In all my backcountry travels I have never seen an area prohibit horses or require a diaper.

Analysis reveals that almost all recreation is barred (except hiking and backpack camping) and contradicts the provision in the statute that states, “to preserve the land for the purpose of recreational, scenic, scientific, educational, conservation, and historical use.”[8] The following is an analysis of each component of that provision to demonstrate the limitations wilderness designation places on public lands.

Case law that tests the provisions of the Wilderness Act have shown that recreation refers to only hikers or backpacking into the wilderness area.[9]

Again, there are numerous forms of recreation allowed within Wilderness (see list above). the only form of recreation not allowed are those types dependent on motors (or mechanized such as bikes).

The only historical use would be if there is rock art (pictographs or petroglyphs). Remember there isn’t suppose to be any permanent structures so if there is any early settler dwellings the agency might remove them, and it is unclear how Anasazi or Fremont dwellings will be addressed.

Wrong, historical and cultural resources are protected under federal law and are considered an important part of Wilderness. The subtle (or not so subtle) assertion that Anasazi ruins will be removed from Wilderness is completely misleading and I don't think the author even believes it.

Clearly, you can see why designating public lands as wilderness is not preserving it for future generations. Instead, it is taking it away from most Americans except a minority group of recreationists, the hikers. A small group of radical environmentalists have continuously manipulated the public and large contributors into thinking that creating wilderness preserves land. It is becoming more and more evident that their “wilderness campaign” is propaganda. It is now easier to see that their true agenda is claiming public lands for themselves. It is time that it is known that they are not the superior group of recreationist they think they are, they are not the elite. The majority has as much if not more right to use public lands. Hikers are only one small group of people who use public lands. Previously mentioned are all of the many groups that are being barred from wilderness areas and other federally managed lands. It’s time to make our views known!

Wow, this paragraph is all over the place hard to follow any logic here. Designating Wilderness does preserve land in as natural a state as possible, that is the point. Apparently my four boys think they are "superior and elite" when I take them into Wilderness areas and they didn't even know it. "A small minority" of people enjoy wilderness? I wish that was the case. Wilderness Areas are overrun with people who love Wilderness. I just waited 6 years to get a float permit for the Frank Church because so many people love that place and what it means to them. Todd and I counted over 100 people hiking out of the Lone Peak Wilderness a few years ago, people love wilderness.

These pseudo arguments are so old and tiresome. The amazing thing about Wilderness is that while it allows for many forms of recreation that is not the only purpose. These are areas where we as a rationale, thoughtful people have said (through a democratic process) "This place is special, it is different, here we will not bring our structures and our roads and our motors, here we will let be so that these systems will continue to be wild and not controlled, here we will bring our children to show them what the world used to be, and what it can still be."

There is room for all of us. There are hundreds of thousands of roads and trails open to motorized use and where appropriate they should remain open for those that like motorized recreation, but we need big wild places to escape these modern conveniences as well and we need to not be so selfish that we think our own recreational uses (both motorized and non-motorized) are more important that the survival of species and wild places.

My radical elitist wife and children enjoying designated Wilderness on the California coast

San Juans

2009-07-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

We left the heat of the slickrock and went to the San Juans in Colorado last weekend. The San Juans are some of my favorite mountains, amazingly big. It was one of the first places I fled to post mission. It is also the southern stronghold of the Lynx and possiblly Grizzly (a pregnant female was killed here in the 1970s). Read Ghost Grizzlies for a good description of the mountains.

Tyler telling the kids to stop playing in the fire, while he is playing in the fire.

The Hobbits and Alina heading back to the trailhead after the thunderstorm

Rio and I looking back down to the Animas and the Weminuche Wilderness

Mo Middle Fork

2009-07-14T19:46:00.001-07:00

Deep in the Canyon
Toad and Creed fishing the big pool in Big Creek

Upper Canyon at Trail Flat

River at the put-in ramp

Wild Idaho

2009-07-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

After a six year dry spell we finally drew a permit for the Middle Fork Salmon this year, actually four permits. If you boat wilderness rivers this place is Heaven on Earth. It flows 100 miles through Frank Church -River of No Return Wilderness the largest designated wilderness in the lower 48. The area is considered the heart of the largest temperate zone wilderness on the planet and it is the longest undammed river system in the US, my kind of place.

No roads access the river for 100 miles and big predators (wolves, mountain lions and bears) thrive along with herds of Elk, Deer and Bighorn. Steelhead and Salmon still run up the side streams (though their populations are much diminished due to the damn dams on the Columbia) and wild Cutthroat are abundant. The water is normally so clear you can see down 20 feet to the golden boulders on the bottom of the river and the rapids still get choked with logs and washed out again in the high water every spring. The landscape changing forces of nature still function. I have always said my two favorite places on the planet are the Colorado Plateau (Southern Utah/Four Corners area for those that recognize political boundaries) and the Central Idaho Batholith. I live in one and visit the other as much as possible.

Highlights of the trip were River catching his first fish on a dry fly, floating up on a mountain lion sipping water out of the river, big rapids, no flipped rafts, soaking in almost every hot spring along the river (playing cards until midnight in the Loon Creek hotspring) and beating a commercial group in a coin toss for the Loon Creek Camp.

Rio and I at Elk Bar looking down into the Impassable Canyon section of the river

River holding down the gear in the stern

Elk Bar camp

Fly fishing lessons from uncle Ty at the Loon/Middle Fork Confluence

Morning light in Impassable Canyon

Hike off the Recession

2009-06-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

Interesting story on NPR about people thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail after losing their jobs (might be hard with a family though). I love the idea of people turning to wild places to deal with the recession. Hopefully it makes us all appreciate simple, authentic, wild experiences.

River and Ridge smelling the flowers

Owl Man with the Old Man

2009-06-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

Today we went out to the Owl Man panel before the family left back north.

Hanging out in the shade with the Owl Man and the Old Man

I love this part of the panel because it looks like the artist put the hunter around the corner from the bighorn sheep, so he could sneak up on them.

Unnamed Canyon

2009-06-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

The family came down for Ridges baptism this weekend. We got out to a few places and ate way too much food. The weather continues to be much cooler than normal which makes for great hiking temperatures, still a little cool for swimming.

Friday we went out to a new canyon that I had been to the bottom of a couple times but never all the way through. It turned out to be a really great techincal canyon with smimming, downclimbing and a couple of rappells, and River was excited because he got to save a bat from drowning in a pothole.

River heading down the last drop

Downclimbing into the cold water

River being a little dramatic

Conan in Moab

2009-06-09T22:05:00.001-07:00

In case you missed the opening of Conan hosting his first late night, here it is. It is a little cheesy but check out where he is at 1:48 and 1:25. That's right, it's the La Sals in the background, he's running just behind our house.

Horses, Hitches and Rocky Trails

2009-06-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

Wilderness Volunteers came down this past week to volunteer for the Forest Service maintaining trails in Dark Canyon. We had originally set up the trip to work on eradicating tamarisk, but for a number of reasons we switched to a trail project. The volunteers hiked in with our trail crew last Sunday. Monday and Tuesday we packed thier food and group equipment in on horses. We came back out on Wednesday and Thursday for meetings and office work and back in on Friday and Saturday to pack the rest of thier food and gear out. They got a lot of much needed trail maintenence done down in the canyon. We packed watermelons in to them on the last trip in, it may have been the first time watermelon weas eaten in the bottom of Dark Canyon, unless the Ancient Ones were growing corn and watermelons.

We could not come down the Trail Canyon trail with stock so we ended up coming down the Horse Pasture trail which meant we had to go 12 miles one way in to get to their basecamp. We made the the trip twice last week for a total of 48 miles with the packhorses.

Two bull elk in Horse Pasture Canyon. They thought our horses were elk and ran right up to us before they realized we were'nt elk.

Scorup Cabin. The cabin was used as a line cabin by some of the big cattle operations that used to operate in the canyon.

Coming up one of the steep sections with unloaded packhorses.

Ponies watering up at a lunch break

Constantly Changing Priorities

2009-06-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

I am fortunate to be employed doing something that I am passionate about and that I love doing, however the constant shifting from one problem to the next can get frustrating. Today was one of those days where every five minutes a different "crisis" erupted that I had to deal with. I started listing all of the things that occurred today and realized why it is so difficult to stay focused and concentrate on one thing in this job. So here is the list from today.

-I just got back from two days in the wilderness packing 200 lbs. of food into a volunteer group and trail crew doing trail work. I left Monday morning at 5 AM and got back Tuesday night at 8 PM. One of the horses started having problems with a leg so we were trying to get him into a vet to take a look at him. I also found a new illegal OHV trail in the wilderness that I need to go back to and deal with.

-Started this morning trying to download GPS data on new tamarisk trees we found in the wilderness and photos of OHV damage.

- First phone call of the day was from a local game warden who said that bears had broken into out weather station and had bitten into a line containing antifreeze (which causes kidney failure in animals) and that we needed to remedy the problem. Problem is that it is not our weather station it is run by a different agency but is located on the forest, So I started trying to track down the person responsible for maintenence.

-Found out several volunteer agreements for Campground Hosts were filled out incorrectly and need to be changed before we can pay them.

-The Health Dept. calls saying some of our water samples were bad for two of our campground water systems and that we needed to shut them down and retest.

- Campers called mad that they could not get the gas stove working in cabin at Warner Lake.

- Two letters requesting a permit to conduct a non-commercial "Mountain Man Rendevouz" and a Stake Girls Camp come in.

- Public calls wanting to know the best place to backpack in the La Sals

- Tried to work on an Environmental Assesment that I have to get done to designate roads and trails in seven different areas on the La Sals.

- Campground host comes in to the office to tell me he has turned off the gas to the cabin at Warner Lake, mystery solved.

- Call wanting to know if the road over Geyser Pass is open and where is the best place to take 12 high school kids.

- One of our permitted outfitters (who leads New Age backpack trips) called wanting to add several trips to thier permit and wanting to know where they can go to avoid cattle. Apparently cattle are not conducive to New Age Vision Quests or something.

- Tourism Board calls wanting a permit to film mountain bikers on the mountain for an ad campaign.

- 4 hour Staff Meeting to discuss numerous topics including next weeks orientation/BBQ for the seasonal employees, quarters, NEPA, planning, etc..

-After meeting, try and return phone calls and work on Environmental Assesment but get stuck approving Travel Vouchers and responding to other mundane emails.

-County calls to say that several large trees are down on a trail and needs to be cut out, add it to the list.

- Scout Camp emails wanting to know if they can gravel a road into their permitted camp.

-Supervisors Office in Price calls with questions on a design for a new campground that we may get stimulus money for in Colorado (a small portion of District is actually in Colorado)

- Give up working on Environmental Assesment and have still not downloaded GPS data

-Go home

If I could concentrate on one thing I might actually be able to get something done, but I am not complaining and I still love my job.

Guardian

2009-05-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I hiked into a ruin in an amazing part of the forest (location undisclosed). The ruin is in a spectacular setting and aside from being an incredible ruin it also has some local history. The structures were built by Anasazi, then Utes came into the area (many years later) and created historic rock art at the site (mainly horses and riders) and lastly a local looted the sight back in the 1980's. The looting of sites, unfortunatley is not uncommon. The difference with this looting is the guy was actually caught. You can read about the case here. I love it when the bad guys get caught. He eventually died of cancer after serving a lengthy prison term.

This is a petroglyph located on the wall behind the main ruin. I had to manipulate the light but you can see that it is a snake and a human. I thought little of it, until I reached down to examine a pot shard sitting on top of one of the ruin walls and saw this (see below)

Respect the Ancient Ones or pay the price, sometimes in the form of prison time, cancer or a bite from a guardian rattlesnake.

2009-05-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

I went out to day with BLM to look at a trail that comes off of BLM lands onto the Forest. We hiked along the rim of Arch and Texas Canyon and had some pretty incredible views looking down into the depths.

2009-05-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

We hiked up Courthouse Wash the other night. When the Colorado gets high it backs way up into Courthouse and creates a big slough full of fish, frogs, beavers and herons.

Falls in Courthouse Wash
Reflection of cliff walls and flying heron in the backed up wash

Spring Fishing

2009-05-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

We just opened the road to Oowah a week or so ago so we drove up there yesterday to see if any fish were hungry after their long winter under the ice. River caught one on his first cast and I did not even get my rod together because I was undoing tangles and snags and unhooking fish the whole time. Oowah attracts an interesting crowd on the weekends. I was the only guy up there wearing a shirt, pretty classy.

North face of Mellenthin

Rowan waiting for a fish to bite with his batman pole.

The reason I did not get my rod out of it's case, four kids in a canoe with fishing poles.

Elk Ridge

2009-05-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

I was back down on Elk Ridge on Wednesday, scouting out another trail for maintenence and checking on a youth crew we had down there working on the Brushy Knoll trail. I usually try to spend the night when I do any work in the area because it is so far out, but I made it into a long day trip this time.

Elk shed on Elk Ridge

Confluence of Woodenshoe and Cherry Canyon

More bear tracks on Elk Ridge

2009-05-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

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.

A Peace to End All Peace

2009-03-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading a book called "A Peace to End All Peace" about World War I (the War to End All Wars). The first thing I realized is how little I know about world history. I thought they were supposed to teach me this stuff in college? I guess I was too busy studying Dendrology and Biology, next time I go to college I am getting a degree in History (then ethnobotany).

The book is primarily about the Ottoman Empires role in World War I and the creation of the modern Middle East. I have done research on how the Middle East was created (politically speaking) but never realy understood how much of a role Western Imperialism played in creating what the Middle East is today.

The other point I have been pondering lately is how important history actually is to a country and a people. Everyone has heard the saying that goes something along the lines of "those that don't know thier history are destined to repeat it" (can't remember who said it?). Without knowledge of history we really are just floating in time unattached and clueless of why the world is how it is, simply repeating ourselves over and over.

One line from the book I found particularly interesting was an article printed in the Times August 1920, which asks

"How much longer are valuable lives to be sacrificed in the vain endeveour to impose upon the Arab population an elaborate and expensive administration which they never asked for and do not want?"

The article was specifically referring to uprisings in Mesopotania (what Iraq used to be called) against British rule in thier country. Sound familiar.

Marketing and Hoarding

2009-03-10T21:03:00.000-07:00

One of the things on my Top 10 list of things that drive me crazy is marketing. I never really noticed how much it annoyed me until we stopped watching television two years ago and stopped listening to commercial radio. Now when I see or hear ads they all seem so pathetic and tawdry.

But my favorite two ads that I have seen lately are the "free" miracle Amish Heater and the "free" armored safes. Both ads are written to look like newspaper articles, very tricky.

The electric (yes it runs on electricty) Amish Heater is free you only have to buy the handcrafted cherry wood frame. Unfortunatley you can only buy two per household because they are so popular. Damn I really wanted one for each room of our house.

Next is the free armored safe. You get the safe for free after purchasing $1800 in coins, which the ad refers to as a "hoard". I thought only dragons and trolls had hoards, apparently I was wrong. Anybody can have a hoard, even me. Sign me up.

My favorite part is the photo of an older grandmotherly woman receiving her safe. The caption below it says "No More Worries: Carolyn Ford of Perry Town, OH thought she hit the jackpot when her free Armored Safe was delivered. "I already have some gold coins, but I wanted this whole hoard of US coins as a nice nest egg. I'll also set side some of my hoard for my Grandchildren".

Wow , thanks grandma I aways wanted some of your hoard

Long Live Commercialism and Capitolism (or did they just fail?)

Spring Weather

2009-03-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

We started out the day watching Ridges soccer games in warm sunlight, then Rowans game was cancelled because of the rain, by the time we got home it was a full on snowstorm, and by the afternoon it was back to warm and sunny.

The storm clouds were swirling around the Moab Rim as the storm was burning off so I climbed up on the roof to get a photo.

Sun and Snow

2009-03-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

Creed and Jen came down this weekend to get out of the snow in Summit Park and let the kids run around in the desert.

Creed and I woke up early hoping to ski some corn in Gold Basin, but the snowpack is in transistion from winter to spring conditions and the snow was less than perfect, but the views were incredible.

We came back in the afternoon and went to Arches with kids to lay on some warm slickrock.

Sunday we went out to Island in the Sky and looked down on the Green River

Creed and I looking into Gold Basin from the top of Pre-Laurel , last time we were here together was 12 years ago on one of our Christmas trips wearing wool German army pants.

Alaska or Moab? Creed with the north ridge of Tuk in the back

Survival skiing down Gold Miners into Gold Basin

Family photo at the Green River overlook

Alina beneath Double Arch

The beaver and the bobcat

2009-02-26T21:56:00.001-08:00

We took the sleds up the rapidly melting Warner Lake road today to the snow line and rode into the Warner Lake campground. We then skiied over Warner Lake and up into Mill Creek to look for some more loop opportunities for our nordic trail grooming program. I had never skiied in this part of the range so it was great to get up there. It rained over 9,000 feet in the La Sals last week which left a bullet proof crust on everything, but as warm as it has been the south faces are already starting to corn up. I am still in powder mode, it is too early for corn.

I skiied out onto Warner Lake where we spend a lot of the summer canoeing and fishing and found a set of bobcat tracks (see photo) he had been hanging out at several holes in the ice that I think the resident beaver has been keeping open for his use. I did not see any signs of carnage so I think so far the beaver has evaded the bobcat.

Holy Wasatch

2009-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say the incredible turns displayed above were mine, but they are not. Todd sent me this photo of his ski tracks from last week in an undisclosed location, and since he never posts anything on the blog I thought I would do it for him. These lines are just too good to not show to the world. It is like scripture in the snow showing mankind how to attain eternal happiness, just looking at them makes me feel good. Thanks Todd for sharing. (and now Alina will mock me for all of my spiritual references)

Wandering the Maze

2009-02-22T19:40:00.000-08:00

We drove out to a relatively remote portion of Arches on the weekend and hiked out to an area called the Maze, not to be confused with the larger Maze District in Canyonlands. It is a large outcropping of Entrada sandstone that is eroded into numerous canyons that are intertwined. We saw nobody else while hiking which is pretty rare for Arches. We did run into two lost Germans on the road out.

A small natural bridge we found
Walking the wave

Side canyon