I braved the freezing temperatures and went for a short jaunt to Buckhorn Wash today. The gravel roads were a combination of dry and snow/ice-packed, but thankfully no mud. My worry that I could get my car stuck was unfounded--it handled the roads just fine. There was a new geocache to be found near the head of the canyon--it was in a place that always looked like it would be nice to hike around, but I had never stopped there before. I spent about 30 minutes there, then headed farther down the canyon to check out a place that Scott posted a picture of a few days ago. I made a lot of stops along the way to take pictures of places that looked interesting (mostly on the canyon's rim) in the hopes of returning another day to hike to them. I normally don't do much rubbernecking when I'm driving through that area, but I did today because I had the road almost to myself--I saw two vehicles the entire time I was in the canyon. I realized just how much there is to explore in Buckhorn Wash, and I'm already scheming a few things to do there this spring.

Traci and I thought it would be a good idea to get the kids some gift cards to Toys-R-Us for Christmas this year, but we apparently didn't think it through very well. The nearest Toys-R-Us is in Orem, so we drove up there yesterday and listened to the kids ask, "Are we there yet?" for most of the drive. Taking the kids (especially Bradley) into any store can be difficult, but taking them into a toy store is torturous. Bradley was indecisive and whiny, and I think we spent about two hours trying to pick out toys for the kids to buy. Next year I think we'll just stick to buying them normal gifts.

I had several gift cards that I received from work over the past two years, but most of them were only good for businesses in Utah County, so I wanted to use them all while we were up there. There were nine places that we planned on stopping at, but we skipped two of them because we didn't want to get home too late. I will probably be going back up there within the next two weeks to work in the office, so I will hit those stores by myself and have a much more enjoyable time doing it.

We went sledding yesterday, and three-fourths of my family came out with slight injuries. I hurt my wrist trying to slow my descent going down a steep hill on a crappy plastic disc. Traci hurt her arm and Michael got his face jacked up going off a jump at the bottom of our favorite hill near Farnham Dome. Hopefully we get everything taken care of before my medical insurance changes at the beginning of the new year. :D

I remember thinking a few weeks ago how stupid the concept of "dog booties" was, but now I find myself in the market for some for Torrey. Mark and I went hiking Saturday on Prickly Pear Flat, and the snow proved to be too much for my poor puppy. After about a mile and a half of hiking through the snow, Torrey started getting large balls of ice built up on her back paws, and it took me awhile to melt them off her fur with the warmth from my hands. After that, I had to stop every so often to clear her feet of snow and ice, and I even started carrying her at one point to let her paws warm up. Luckily we took a different route for our return trip that had much less snow.

I had wanted to hike to the edge of a 1,500' cliff overlooking the big flat southeast of Buckhorn Wash, but the roads were too slick for my truck to get us within hiking range. Instead, we hiked about six miles (round-trip) to the pictograph panel on Prickly Pear Flat, which was within half a mile from where I wanted to park, but ended up being 1.5 miles from where I had to park. We followed the "road" to the pictographs, but it was rougher than most 4x4 vehicles would be able to handle even without the snow. The pictographs were pretty awesome--I didn't have any previous knowledge of them, but I saw a road in Google Earth that split off from the main road (again using that term very loosely) and led to the base of a south-facing cliff, then abruptly turned a different direction and met up with the main road again. I had seen roads like that at the base of Cedar Mountain, and they all led to rock art, so it was a pretty safe assumption that this one did as well. It's a good thing my hunch was right, or it would have been a wasted day.

After seeing the pictographs, we decided to take a more direct route back to the truck. I already knew that returning by our original route would just be more trudging through the snow on the road, but I was hoping that by cutting directly cross-country that we'd encounter less snow and it would be easier on Torrey. We had to work our way up some steep cliffs, and I just about got ledged out. Mark had made it past one point, but I was less sure of my footing and couldn't easily move up or down the cliff. I ended up making it back down without killing myself, and Mark spotted another way up that worked better for me. After reaching the top of the cliffs, we worked our way into the bottom of a wash that we followed for about a third of the remaining distance back to the truck. I took some time to place a geocache at the base of a cliff that had some very interesting orange bands in the sandstone. We also found some petroglyphs that kind of look fake to me. If they're authentic, then they're in extremely pristine condition. If they were made more recently, then at least somebody did a good job faking them. :)

It seems like no matter what time of year it is, I find myself wishing for the next season to come. I've had some good fun hiking this winter, but I keep thinking how much easier things would be if there wasn't so much snow on the ground.

I went for a hike yesterday on the Wedge, in the snow. I almost didn't go because I was worried that the snow would be too wet for hiking, but it was just right. I parked just off one of the main roads and hiked 2.5 miles to an overlook of the Little Grand Canyon and Good Water Canyon. The hike was great--in fact, it was probably through the most scenic area of the Wedge, not including the overlooks into the Little Grand Canyon. Most of the Wedge is flat and covered in juniper and pinyon pine, but this place had a lot of Navajo sandstone cliffs and a little ponderosa pine forest that was unlike most places in the San Rafael Swell. The view from the overlook was the usual--i.e., spectacular.

I didn't really notice it until yesterday, but every winter since '05/'06 I've hiked to some remote overlook on or near the Wedge to place a geocache. Yesterday's was number three, and though I hadn't done it on purpose, I might have to make this a yearly tradition. I just did some quick measuring in my mapping software, and there are 30+ miles of sheer cliffs surrounding the Wedge, so there's no shortage of places for me to go in the future.

The 30% chance of weekend snow that was forecast on Thursday turned into 100% chance on Friday (gotta love those weather forecasters), so my plans for hiking today were shot down. It snowed all night Friday and all day Saturday, but we at least didn't let that ruin our plans for a shopping trip to Provo/Orem yesterday. Mark, Samantha, Traci, and I headed out early yesterday morning, and UDOT hadn't yet plowed most of US-6, so the drive up there was nerve wracking. I don't normally mind driving on that highway, but when there's snow on the road, I feel like I'm risking my life. We came up on a semi wreck in Price Canyon right after it happened, saw several cars that had slid off the road (even witnessed one of those), and saw a really nasty wreck that required two ambulances to cart off the victims.

Traci and I got most of our Christmas shopping finished, so the trip was worthwhile. It was also nice having a break from the kids. When we got home, I checked to see what kind of weather Green River and Hanksville were having, and it was pretty much the same as in Price. I don't think it would be fun (maybe not even possible) to hike on the steep sandstone of the San Rafael Reef when there's snow (or runoff) on the ground, so we're gonna have to postpone that trip, maybe even for a couple of months. :( I found two websites that mention the existence of celestite geodes and jasper in that area, so this will have to be a fair-weather trip.