Despite wishing I was elsewhere doing something outdoorsy, I've hardly left home in the last week and a half. I spent Saturday at home watching some movies that were on television. Dawn of the Dead was much better than I expected. It started out fast and hard, and didn't let up much. I was hoping for a happy ending, but, well, it is a zombie movie. Brokeback Mountain wasn't as good as I'd been led to believe. It was worth watching, but it just didn't live up to the hype.

My sister invited us to drive up onto Wood Hill with her family and watch the ISS fly overhead. What should have been a five minute drive turned into 15 minutes as we detoured around a newly-paved section of 900 North. Still, it's nice to be able to drive such a short distance and be out of town and away from others. We started a campfire, then sat in our camp chairs and bull-shitted while waiting for 8:55 p.m. The sky was still relatively light since the sun had set not long before then, but the space station was very bright and easy to spot. After watching it for about two minutes before it disappeared into the Earth's shadow, we stuck around until after full dark and roasted some marshmallows and ate s'mores.

I think I'll step outside this evening to watch the ISS again. It won't be as bright as it was yesterday, but it will appear 20 minutes later so the sky will be darker. This is the last time it will be so easily visible for the remainder of the month. I'll be keeping an eye on the satellite flyby tracker for other interesting night sky objects in the future.

Last Wednesday when I got home from dropping Traci off at her family reunion, I noticed some small, thin pieces of tire rubber in the driveway. They were in the spots where I'd cranked the front wheels on the truck in order to get lined up with the camp trailer when I was hitching on. I had left the truck with Traci and drove the car home, so I made a mental note to check the truck's tires when I went to pick her up on Sunday. I had actually forgotten all about it by yesterday when I went back to get her, but just before I was about to pull out of the campground with the trailer in tow, Traci noticed a chunk of rubber about 3/4" in diameter missing from the tread of the right-front tire. Inside the small crater was a crack that extended deeper into the tire, and it scared the shit out of me that I'd towed the trailer doing 70 MPH with a tire in that condition last week. I decided that instead of using the spare tire, I'd just take it really slow on the 30-mile drive home--I'm sure I pissed off more than a few drivers who got stuck behind me on the highway.

I bought those tires right after I bought the truck, and paid about $100 each brand-new. I replaced the two rear tires a couple of years ago, but the front tires are the original ones I put on in 2005. They were cheapest tires I could find, and the sticker that came affixed to them said, "Not for off-road use." Hah, yeah right. Those tires probably had more time off the pavement than on it. I think the reason they're failing so badly now is because of the drive up Alrad Canyon a few weeks ago. The road was very rocky, and I didn't take it easy at all.

I'm just going to replace all four tires, and I'm dreading it. I'd like to get some BFG All-Terrains, but those will probably be in the neighborhood of $800. I've got Touring T/As on my car and I've been very happy with them--in fact, those perform better off-road than what I've got on my truck now (just don't tell my wife that). :D

I really didn't think I would be motivated enough to go camping this weekend, but I surprised myself Thursday evening by gathering up my camping gear and getting everything ready for an overnighter. As soon as I got off work on Friday, I loaded all the last-minute items into the car and set off for Buckhorn Wash. I'd already used Google Earth to pick out my camping spot, and during the drive I kept hoping that nobody had taken it yet. After turning off of the pavement near Castle Dale and hitting the gravel road, I only saw three other vehicles the entire night, and they appeared to just be passing through--I had the whole place to myself.

The place where I wanted to camp had a lot of red ants right where I would have pitched my tent, so I went to the next spot just 400 feet down the road. It was smaller, but there was still plenty of room for my car, tent, and a campfire, and the ground was much softer. The first thing I did there was prepare a fire pit and throw some wood in it. As I was doing that, I just happened to look up and noticed a desert bighorn sheep staring down from a cliff 300' above me. I got out my binoculars and stared back for a few minutes, then got back to work on the fire pit. When it was finished, I set out on a short hike along the ledges above camp. Shortly after I started, I found an Indian granary that was built into a small alcove 20' up a cliff. I tried climbing up to the granary, but the cliff was nearly vertical and the hand- and footholds were too few, so I pressed on and scrambled higher up some more ledges. After about an hour of hiking, I returned to camp, lit the fire, and set up my tent. By the time I had camp all set up, the coals in the fire were ready for cooking. I had prepared some potatoes and fish in separate foil pouches, and I just set them on the coals and then started in on a six pack of beer while dinner cooked. The sun set just as I was beginning to eat, so by the time I was finished it was starting to get dark. I got a little bored after that, but I just relaxed in my chair and finished off the six pack while I enjoyed the evening. I went to bed at 11:30 p.m. and slept fitfully most of the night.

At 7:30 a.m. I gave up trying to sleep in. I toasted a bagel over the camp stove, then heated up some coffee that I'd made the day before and brought in a thermos. I quickly ate breakfast, then began another hike that lasted two hours. I covered some of the same ground that I'd hiked the evening before, but this time I was attempting to get to the top of the cliff where the bighorn sheep had been. From below it appeared that I could scramble all the way up, but there was one questionable section near the very top that I wasn't certain about. I took my time getting up, keeping an eye out for rock art (however unlikely it would be in this location) and other ruins, and trying not to break an ankle on the steep and rocky hillside. Upon reaching the questionable section near the top of the cliff, it was apparent that I couldn't make it all the way. The last 10' was purely vertical, and though I think I may have been able to climb up it, getting back down would have been very difficult.

The hike back down went very quickly, and by the time I reached camp the sun had cleared the east canyon rim and was already heating things up quickly. It took me 30 minutes to take down the tent and stow all my gear in the trunk of the car, and by that time I was sweating profusely. The A/C felt good. :) I drove very slowly back through the canyon, stopping many times to look through binoculars at interesting features and possible future hiking locations. Twice I stopped and hiked around areas that I found interesting, including one place right across the canyon from where we had spent an evening early last week. There I saw a small rock wall built in front of a small alcove, with a shallow cave nearby. Even through binoculars it was unclear whether the rock wall was genuinely Injun, or whether it had been built by kids playing around. After a short hike and upon closer inspection, the wall looked poorly built and probably wasn't legit. The cave was interesting, but the bottom was full of rodent droppings and nest material, and the smell alone was enough to dissuade me from entering.

I stopped to look at two other caves on the way home, one of which could easily be climbed to, but the heat was getting to me so I'll leave it for another day. The other cave was up above a cliff and probably can't be reached from the bottom, but after studying a topo map and Google Earth I'm pretty sure I can hike in from the road to the Wedge and reach the cave from the top. That'll be at least a two mile round-trip hike, so it'll have to wait until fall/winter.

Up until now my idea of camping has pretty much always involved a camp trailer with all the comforts of home. Even as a kid, when my family went camping it was always in a trailer (at least as far as I remember). This weekend's trip was at least as fun as trailer camping, but it was considerably less work. The only thing that would have made it better is some company around the fire in the evening, so perhaps next time I'll recruit a friend or two to come along. One thing's for certain--there will be a next time.

Today I dropped off Traci, the kids, and our camp trailer at a campground in Huntington Canyon for Traci's family reunion. I'm now pondering what I should do this weekend while I'm on my own with no family obligations. I'd considered going on a couple of ATV rides to find the two oldest unfound geocaches in Utah, but not only would that be a little pricey, it would also be a lot of work. Now I'm thinking about throwing my camping gear into the car and spending Friday night in Buckhorn Wash, and either doing several short hikes in the area or one long hike. It's entirely likely that I'll stay at home all weekend while doing nothing productive, but I'd like to keep my options open. I may not even decide what I'm doing for the weekend until I get off work on Friday, in which case it's even more likely that I'll do nothing.

Yesterday, we said "Screw it!" to all this heat, and decided to drive down into the San Rafael Swell to do some geocaching. It was over 90° when we left home, but a thunderstorm was brewing and it cooled things off considerably during the drive. It didn't rain much where we were, but apparently it rained quite a bit in Price while we were out of town because everything was wet when we got home. Despite it being a weekday, I saw a fair number of cars in the Swell--maybe eight in all, including one truck that I'm pretty sure was being driven by DesertWoodrat's dad. We went first to Buckhorn Wash and found a few geocaches along the way, then stopped at one of my favorite places in the canyon to eat dinner. I also placed a new geocache there on top of some cliffs above the campsites, while Traci and the kids stayed near the truck and climbed around on some boulders.

After Buckhorn Wash, we drove west then took the road south that follows Red Seep Wash. We found another geocache at the end of the road, and we collected some rocks along the roadside during the drive back to the main road. We made one more stop for a cache in Castle Dale on the way home, and we didn't get back to our house until almost 11:00 pm. It was a nearly perfect evening--the weather couldn't have been better--but getting to bed late sure made it difficult to get up in time for work this morning.

Our ride along Ford Creek and up to Ford Ridge yesterday was well worth taking the day off work. In fact, I would really like to go back there another time or two to check out all the trails that we didn't get to ride. We parked on the side of US-6 near the Ford Creek waterfall, then rode along the creek for the first two miles. After that, the trail crossed the creek and we began a long, steep ascent to the top of the ridge on the east side of the canyon. From there, the trail stays on top of the ridge all the way to Ford Ridge.

About six years ago I tried finding a USGS benchmark on the second-highest peak on Ford Ridge, but it was buried under hundreds of rocks and I didn't have the patience to dig through them all. When we reached Ford Ridge yesterday that peak was the first place we went, and the benchmark had been uncovered and was plainly visible when we got to the top. I placed a geocache on the south end of the summit, where the views down into the valleys were awesome.

After leaving the peak and continuing south on the trail, we came to an intersection and followed another trail that went southeast along Ford Ridge. It was past lunchtime already, so we began looking for a shaded and level spot to eat lunch. We passed up a few mediocre spots at first, but soon we came to an area that was more heavily wooded and looked more promising. However, there was some bear crap in the middle of the trail near a place where I wanted to stop to eat, so we turned around and went back to a more wide-open place to eat our lunch. After eating, we rode farther southeast to the end of Ford Ridge. The trail actually went farther beyond that, but it was getting late and we knew that we still had a long ride back to the truck.

On our way back, we stopped at a place that I'd seen on the way up and had made a mental note to check it out. There were some birch trees that looked really out of place on an otherwise bare ridge, and it turned out that there was a natural spring there. The water was visibly gushing up out of the ground in a few places, and it ran through a wide marshy area down the hill into what used to be a cow pond. The downhill wall of the cow pond had been breached, so the water just flowed right through the bottom of it, then dropped in a rivulet down the steep mountainside below. I don't think I've ever seen naturally-occurring birch trees in Utah, so I'm fairly certain that somebody planted them there. It was a nice peaceful spot, so I placed another geocache there since it was right next to the trail and a nice place to take a break from riding.

There are about five more trails in the area that I would like to ride, but next time we go there I'll park farther up Price Canyon and take the main road into Ford Ridge. That road leads to several radio towers on the highest peak of the ridge, and it'll be much faster for us to get to the area trails. Ford Creek is definitely worth riding at least once, but it's not ideal as a primary means of accessing the other trails.

After what was a hectic and long Friday evening, I was hoping for a relaxing weekend. I didn't get to relax as much as I'd hoped, but I did have a bit of fun. On Saturday we drove the truck up Alrad Canyon to find a geocache that somebody had placed last week. I'd been up that canyon once before in my Subaru, and when I couldn't drive it any farther, I pulled my mountain bike off the bike rack and rode/pushed (mostly just pushed) it to the top of the Book Cliffs. When I was there this weekend I didn't expect to get much farther in the truck than I did in the Subaru, but the road has been somewhat improved in the last five years--apparently it has "benefited" from all the gas exploration in that area. We drove to within 0.22 miles of the cache, then Mark and I hiked the rest of the way while the ladies and the little ones whimped out and stayed behind. There was a trickle of water flowing over the cliffs and boulders near the cache, and it made the long drive and steep hike worth it.

Sam and Mark's kids and my kids have been wanting to have a sleep-over lately, so we ended up having everyone over and we camped out in the back yard Saturday night. The next morning we ate a breakfast of pancakes and sausage, then everyone went home and I spent some time tidying up some unfinished work in the front and back yards.

That afternoon, Mark and I again set off to find another geocache, this time just above the Ford Creek waterfall in Price Canyon. I had a vague notion that there was an ATV trail that led to the top of the falls because I'd seen trucks with empty flatbed trailers parked there, but I'd never given much thought to where the trail went. It turns out that it follows Ford Creek all the way to Ford Ridge, and from the short portion of the trail that I saw yesterday, it looks like a great one. So great, in fact, that I took Friday off work and we're planning on riding up the trail and spending the day in the higher elevations around Ford Ridge. I hope there's still some snow up there. It seems like summer just arrived, but I'm already looking forward to October.

Earlier today, Traci and I were certain that we would finish preparing the front yard and laying down sod today. Technically we were right, but just barely. We removed about eight wheelbarrows full of dirt, then added fertilizer and 12 cubic feet of soil conditioner and raked it all in. We leveled the ground the best we could, and by the time we were done we had been working for two hours. We took an hour-long break to pick up the sod and grab some dinner at Subway. By the time we were done eating dinner, it was 7:00 pm, and I was pretty sure we'd be finished laying the sod before dark. Traci started in on the north side of the yard while I started putting new sprinkler heads on the south side. After I replaced a few sprinkler heads, I decided I ought to turn on the water and test the system before I got too far. When I turned on the valve, the pressure was extremely low, but I assumed it was because the pipes had gotten some dirt in them from not being used for four years. That assumption turned out to be wrong, which I realized when I turned the water off. Some water should have remained in the pipes, but the water level went down so quickly that I could hear air hissing as it was sucked into the sprinkler heads. I knew immediately that that was bad.

After fumbling around for a few minutes trying to think of how to proceed, I finally just started digging holes trying to find the problem. I knew there had to be a big leak underground, but I couldn't imagine where it would be. After digging nine holes, I found a pipe that shouldn't have been there. I dug a trench to follow the pipe, but it disappeared under the sidewalk. I started digging on the other side of the sidewalk to find the pipe there, and with the first shovelful I ran into mud. The pipe apparently used to run into the box that the water meter is in, and was used for draining the sprinkler system before winter. The sewer line construction must have torn that pipe out too, and at its end I found a sinkhole forming underground.

It took me quite some time to remove the pipe and plug the hole. Luckily a plumber used to live in my house a long time ago and left a lot of old pipe fittings in the garage. I managed to find a 1/2" plug--if I hadn't, we would have had to wait until tomorrow to fix the sprinkler system and lay down the sod.

That one little problem cost us about three hours, including having to level the soil again after filling in all the holes I'd dug. We worked into the night laying sod, watched the sun set and the full moon rise, and we finally got finished and turned on the sprinklers at exactly midnight. The only reason I'm still awake is that I need to turn the water off soon. I think my next project will be to install automatic sprinkler valves, but that can probably wait another year--or four.

I finished repairing the sprinkler system in the front yard, and surprisingly it went well. My yard is split in two by a sidewalk leading to the front door, and the sprinkler system is comprised of two separate systems, one for each side. It took almost an entire evening to fix the north side of the system. That side was completely torn out by a backhoe up to the shutoff valve near the foundation of the house, so I had to start from scratch. I was able to find pre-cut and threaded lengths of pipe that just happened to be the right length for that side. When I got done, two of the sprinkler heads extended about an inch too high, so I had to wait until the next day to buy shorter pipe nipples and replace them.

The south side only took me an hour and a half to repair. Its only problem was that a street elbow had been broken off where it was threaded into a tee, but the threads remained inside the tee. In order to remove the tee I had to dig up 10' of pipe to find the nearest union. Then I removed the union, replaced the tee and installed a new street elbow, and installed a new union to replace the old rusted one. I lucked out that none of the existing pipes were too rusted to reuse. Having to replace them would have been much more difficult.

I think there's too much dirt in the yard to lay sod, so this evening Traci and I are going to remove about an inch of the existing clay soil, then rake in some soil conditioner and fertilizer and lay the sod. The yard is tiny--only 540 square feet--so the sod will be cheap and the job shouldn't take too long. The cost is definitely worth avoiding the hassle of planting grass from seed.

It's been more than four years since I had a lawn in my front yard, but that should be remedied within the next week. I had the sewer line replaced in 2004, which destroyed the yard and the sprinkler system. Since then all I've done is try to cut the weeds a couple of times a year. I'm not a big fan of hard physical labor (as evidenced by the four freakin' years it's taken me to get to this point), but today I spent about five hours tilling, digging, and leveling the dirt in the yard. The hardest part is yet to come. Last year I bought all the pipes and fittings that I need to fix the sprinkler system, but plumbing and I just don't get along and I've been dreading this part for a long time. After I get the sprinklers fixed and tested (hopefully tomorrow), I'll be raking in some fertilizer and mulch and laying down sod. I'm sure my neighbors, especially old man Arno from across the street, will be happy to see it done.

I was hoping to get this job finished before Friday, but with Bradley's birthday party on Thursday, I don't think I'll have time to get it all done. I had hoped to go for a drive up in the mountains on Saturday, but I probably won't have time to plan it out and get everything ready. It's just too hot to spend a day in the desert unless you plan on being inside the car/truck the entire time, so the mountains have sounded quite appealing to me the past couple of weeks. I want to drive up to Ferron Reservoir, then over the crest of the Wasatch Plateau and down into the Twelvemile area. I read in the DWR's fishing report that Ferron Reservoir is open, but Skyline Drive over the top of the mountains is another 1,100' higher in elevation, topping out at around 10,600', and there may still be snow drifts blocking the road. Utah's oldest unfound geocache is about 11 miles beyond Ferron Reservoir, and though it's probably accessible right now from the west, it would be much more fun and worthwhile to access it from the east side of the mountains. If I don't make it there this weekend (which is looking very unlikely), I'll shoot for next weekend.

After our last attempt at riding the Curse Canyon trail, Traci and I have wanted to go back to try it again. We had hoped to do it without the kids because there are a lot of off-camber sections along the trail, and we didn't want either of them falling off an ATV or, worse yet, to roll over. I hate imposing on relatives to babysit though, so we just decided to take the kids with us, but luckily they actually enjoyed walking for the worst parts of the trail.

We parked the truck at the ball fields on the north side of town, and as soon as I got both ATVs unloaded I realized that I'd left the GPS at home. I wish I'd have gone back for it, but we were already running a bit late and I didn't want to take the time. The first part of the trail seemed easier than the last time we tried it. It was obvious that the trail had a lot of use during the rainy weather we've had over the past couple of months, and I think all that traffic on the soft ground helped smooth out some of the bad spots. As soon as we got past our turnaround point from last time, Traci ran into a little trouble. There was a short hill that required a sharp right then left turn near the top to avoid a boulder in the trail, and she started tipping over to the right before she could make the left turn. She caught it in time, and I applied my weight to the left side of her ATV so she could make it the rest of the way up the hill. She had another scare going down a very steep hill, where she almost tipped over forward. Luckily she didn't panic, and she let off the brake just barely enough to gain some forward momentum and avoid the rollover. After that, I was just scared. I wasn't having too many problems, but the trail was a little beyond Traci's ability. We pressed on very cautiously, but eventually came to a steep hill that even I didn't think I could make it up. Instead of turning around, we rode in the bottom of a wash for a short distance before coming to yet another impassible spot. We had nowhere else to go but back to the truck after that, so we turned around and took our time going over all the obstacles that we'd already passed.

It was still a fun time, although a little short--we were riding for perhaps just over two hours. I'm glad that I now know what I missed the last time around, but I also know that I never need to go back down that trail again. Here are a bunch of video clips that I put together from today's trail ride:

I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I did get a chuckle out of it. I went to a portrait studio today to get some passport-quality pictures taken for my CFP renewal, and the woman working there was chit-chatting and asked me whether the pictures were for an actual passport or for a concealed firearm permit. She looked disappointed when I told her it was for the latter, and said she always expects to hear about the wonderful places people are planning on traveling to, but apparently the overwhelming majority of passport-picture customers go there for the same purpose as me. :D

I took the family out for another outing yesterday after work, and it turned out being a fun little adventure. Last week when I was poring over satellite photos of the Kenilworth area I saw a long shadow stretching across the ground, presumably from a tall pillar of rock sticking up from the ground. It was in a short canyon situated directly between Kenilworth and Helper. Judging by the length of the shadow it had to be a fairly tall and thin feature, so I marked it in Google Earth to remind myself to check it out someday.

Someday came sooner than I expected, and we set out yesterday in the truck driving toward Kenilworth. I had originally planned on driving the car and parking at the nearest gas well to our destination, but after some more thought I decided to drive the truck, which would get us 0.8 miles closer. The road beyond the gas well was merely rocky for the first 0.4 miles, but for the remaining 0.4 miles it was rocky, steep, and washed out and required 4-low to get us to where I wanted to park.

The hike was only moderately difficult, following the bottom of a wash and gaining 240 feet of elevation over the course of a half-mile. There were a few spots where huge boulders clogged the bottom of the wash, some areas where we had to bushwhack, and closer to the rock pinnacle we had to scramble up some steep and loose hillsides. The terrain is so steep near the head of the canyon that the pinnacle wasn't visible until we were within a couple hundred feet of it. The entire area looked to be untouched by humans, which is unusual for most canyons near Kenilworth and Helper. I hiked up to the base of the pinnacle while Traci and the kids stayed down low waiting for me. I took a few pictures up there, then hiked back down and placed a geocache in the hollow trunk of a dead junper tree.

The hike back to the truck was just as fun as the hike up the canyon, except a storm was rolling in and the wind was gusting pretty hard. After getting home we ate dinner pretty late (after 8:00 p.m.) and got to bed later than usual, but being a little tired today is worth the fun I had yesterday.

Today has already been more fun-filled than my entire weekend was. Traci was out of town scrapbooking with some of her family all weekend, so it was just me and the boys. I finished planting the rest of my vegetable garden on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday we didn't do much at all. We only left home once to do a little shopping, but the rest of the time we spent in the house or in the yard. I did invite my sister and her family over for some dutch oven dessert on Saturday evening, but the cold wind made it less fun than I had hoped. It was nice to have some company for part of an otherwise boring weekend though.

Traci and I took the kids to Spring Canyon today to look at some petroglyphs and we had a pretty good time. We parked at the mouth of Sowbelly Gulch and hiked around the area for about an hour and a half. There's a sealed-off coal mine shaft on the east side of Sowbelly Gulch, and a short coal-covered grade leading from the shaft to an old wooden bridge that looks like it used to hang out over the road. The road there follows an old railroad grade, so there was probably a tipple at the end of the bridge where they used to dump the coal into train cars. I found the petroglyphs that Jason told me about, but the lighting was poor and I think it caused me to miss the one petroglyph that I really wanted to see. This picture, taken by a fellow geocacher, shows the petroglyph that I had hoped to see. I was told that it was right next to the other petroglyphs that I did see, so apparently the lighting conditions (some direct sunlight and some dark shaded areas) made some of the rock art difficult to see. I'll have to go back early another day so that the sun is hitting the cliffs at a better angle.

Long story short, the "airplane" I thought I saw in the aerial photo turned out to be a big boulder. Mark and Chris and I parked below the mountain and scanned the mountainside but couldn't make anything out, even with binoculars. However, it was obvious from there that the terrain was extremely rugged and it was entirely possible that there were areas we couldn't see from the bottom, so we decided to start hiking up to where I thought the plane crash would be. It was slow going, but as long as we kept a slow pace it wasn't too difficult. As my GPS showed that we were getting closer and closer to the coordinates, the anticipation kept building. Along the way I saw several footprints that indicated other hikers had been up there, which I took to be a good sign--after all, why else would somebody hike up that mountainside? When we were about 70 feet away, we rounded a corner along the cliff face that we'd been following and Mark and I spotted a large boulder that was lighter in color than the rest of the surrounding rocks, and we immediately suspected that we'd hiked all that way for nothing. We scrambled up a couple of ledges in the cliff face and the GPS zeroed out right on top of the boulder. A quick scan of the area revealed nothing but boulders, cliffs, and trees. I was bummed, but I knew there was a chance that this would happen.

We spent some time there just enjoying the view and resting. I contemplated placing a geocache there, but I wouldn't wish that hike on anybody unless there was something rewarding at the end. I decided it would be nice to take a different route back just for a change of scenery, and that turned out to be a big mistake. The hike back to the car ended up being just as difficult as the hike up the mountain. We ended up above a line of cliffs that extended a quarter-mile around to the north side of the mountain, which, in that steep and rugged terrain, felt like two miles. We finally reached a place where the cliffs pinched out and we were able to slip and slide our way down the steep and loose mountainside until we reached the floor of the canyon below.

I don't think I'll be going on any more hikes looking for downed aircraft without more solid information. However, I was so close to summiting the top of that mountain--it would have been an easy 0.35 mile walk to the summit--that I may return just to experience the view from the top. I'm sure others have done the same on that mountain, but it would still be nice to be one of those very few.