Lake Huron

Jacqueline and I spent Christmas in Michigan and Wisconsin once again. After a lot of presents, travelling, eating, and visiting, we set aside one day to get out on the trails. The problem was that there is not much for trails in the middle of Michigan where Jacqueline grew up. I searched around and finally found us some options. Since I wanted to see the Great Lakes, we headed for the closest one which was Lake Huron. We finally found Bay City State Park, which is not far from where Jacqueline grew up and a place that she had been before; the realization coming when we arrived. We headed out to check out the beach and the lake. It did not give us much land to use as a place to hike. I did not feel like I was in the pristine zone at all as we could see smoke stacks down the lake shore. So we headed back into the car after taking the trail for a short mile long loop. We headed north from there to Tawas Point State Park. It was about an hour's drive from where we were, but the lake looked much different. There was a little point that we wanted to walk out to. We finally arrived and we took off toward the water. The wind was picking up a bit and it was definitely below freezing. We did get a decent hike out of this place. We started out hiking the beach, but we saw the trail above us, so we took that. Soon the trail turned into an old road, which headed straight out to the end of the point. Near the point, though, the trail took off back toward the parking lot. So we headed out to the point. When we got there, the end of the point was hard to tell as there were varying areas of water and beach. Jacqueline did not feel like walking across the ice, but I assured her it was safe, by even sliding across it. She had enough and we headed back through the screaming cold wind along the beach this time. We made it back to the car and it was a nice day. It made me appreciate where I live because I could get a good hike in from so many different places near where I live instead of having to search hard. We drove back in a snow storm and Jacqueline handled that with grace. She also handled the ski hills of Boyne Mountain with grace a couple days later as I struggled to stay upright. Jacqueline started skiing at five and she does not realize how much better that makes her than someone who is 22 until her dad and her were skiing like champs and I was trying not to run over eight year olds on the slopes.

Toquerville Peak

It was a dark and stormy morning in Toquerville. The temperature was in the low 40s and it was misty outside. I was going through my email inbox trying to go through my old emails because hotmail is randomly deleting them on its own. I came across one from Brian Hays from years ago that said, "Climbing mountains is so awesome. I wish I was on a snowy, windy ridge right now." So I thought, yeah, me too. So I got my things together and I was out the door. I drove out to the closest thing I could find to a snowy, windy ridge, Toquerville Peak. I drove down a dirt road until the road looked too muddy and then just started walking. I was feeling pretty good on this day as I was just hauling. I studied my route on Google Earth the day before so I knew that I had to be patient. Southern Utah does not have much for well made trails, but they seem to have quite a few well made roads that no one drives on. This was one of those as I knew that it would go most of the way to the top considering there was a cell tower up there. So I stayed patient as lots of roads split off, until finally I hit the one I thought that I wanted. It switched back a bit, but soon I was entering the mist. I could not tell how far I went, how long it was to go, or what could be around the next bend. I just kept following my road. Soon there was snow, which made it a bit more interesting. Then I saw the towers faintly through the fog and I knew I was close. From here I knew that the route to the summit was not too far away. (For a good pic of the summit, check my October blog for the highest point in the background.) Unfortunately, the road kept going except it was going straight up. The angle was rather steep and someone with an ATV decided that they were going to get to the top the easy way. That road went all the way to the summit ridge. All I had to do was traverse over a ways until I was at the true summit to chill out. The view was incredible. Actually it should have been, but there was nothing but mist. Toquerville peak is one of those peaks where if you were to climb its West Face, it would be highly technical. I should have been able to look down and see much of Southern Utah. Instead, all I saw was the fog. I snapped a couple pics and headed down, losing the trail/road in the fog for a while before finally
rediscovering it. When I got off the steep climb to the summit, the fog lifted for thirty seconds and I got a semi-decent view of the land below through the cell towers. Then I just wandered on back to my truck with nothing interesting happening except for the sighting of three deer. All and all, the trip took me a total of 3 hr 45 min round trip. It was a good hike, one that I would do again to maybe catch the views from the summit.

Snow Canyon

Neither Jacqueline or I had ever hiked in Snow Canyon before, so we thought that we would give it a shot. We were up bright and early before the Mormons were out of church, so we originally felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. We stopped first at the Lava Caves/White Rock Trailhead. We did not have a map so we just headed out on the trail. The first one ran right into some lava caves. We did not have a headlamp with us, so we did not make our attempt to go in. We continued on the trail, but it did not seem to go anywhere except down to a road. So we climbed up on some slickrock to hang out for a bit before continuing on another trail called the butterfly trail. We figured, that since it was December, we would not be seeing any butterflies on this trail, but we were mistaken. Jacqueline spotted one, probably near its last day of life since butterflies usually should not be out in December. Other than that, the butterfly trail did not have much to it until we ran into the road. So we decided to just head back to the truck leaving the White Rock trail to be done on another day. When I got back to my truck, I had a warning for me to pay my entrance fee. So I headed back up to the station and donated my $5 to Snow Canyon State Park. Next, we stopped at the Petrified Sand Dunes trail. I am not sure where it went, but since petrified sand dunes really just means rock, I figured we should just hike on the rock. Eventually, with some mediocre scrambling and bushwhacking, we ran into the Three Ponds trail. We took that one out to the Three Ponds. The trail was nothing more than an extremely sandy wash and the ponds were nothing more than potholes with seasonal run off stored within them. We snuck our way around the ponds to where we had the most scenic and interesting part of the day. There was some great slickrock walking with some excellent views. We ended our day about as far back as we felt like going. We probably could have kept scrambling from there, but since there was not much hidden, we called it a day right there. We headed back down to have our fun throwing rocks into the ponds. I snapped pictures of the ponds, but the pictures just looked like I took a picture of the rock. After giving Jacqueline a rock throwing lesson, we walked our way back until we ran into the Whiptail Trail, which we used to get back to our vehicle. The Whiptail is a paved trail which was not exciting but would be a nice short bike ride. We got back to our vehicle with about 3.5 hours of hiking under our belt. I would go back to Snow Canyon again, I would just gather some more info to see what are good off trail routes and how far those lava caves go.

What is this, Miami Beach? Not Hardly!

My dad and I set out to backpack the whole Olympic National Park coast, 60-some miles. We had a three-tiered plan that included a three night backpack, then a one night backpack, and finishing with a day trip. We ignored all advice to not attempt this in the winter from various sources. It all started according to plan on Wednesday, when we drove up to Shi Shi Beach. It was pouring down rain. Shi Shi (pronounced shy-shy) is the northwest corner of Olympic National Park on the coast. There was a sign at the trailhead to not leave your car overnight, because it was near the res and there were a lot of break-ins. The sign on the storage building at the trailhead that said Gangsters Only was a good indicator also. So Laura dropped us off and we set out in the pouring rain. It was a two-mile or so hike through the forest and since the tides were going to be high on this day, we left in the late afternoon on purpose. We got to the ocean at around four o'clock and quickly had to find a place to camp. Our options were limited as darkness was rolling in, but we found a nice spot near a stream to camp. We spent the rest of the night trying to dry out in the foggy tent. Some cribbage and some book reading were good enough for the night's entertainment and we were able to get plenty of sleep in the soggy tent. We awoke the next day to clear skies. We did not have a long hike on this day, but we had to get going rather early in order to hit the tide when we wanted to. Our first obstacle to get around was Point of Arches. The picture is us approaching it (make sure to click on pictures to see them larger), but the point was rather long and rocky. I was learning, again, what a backpack on the ocean was all about. The beaches in the Northwest are not exactly sandy. They are for short period of time, but more often they are pebble size rocks to baseball size rocks, leading to a headwall with slippery bedrock that often is full of water, especially at high tide. That is why we were trying to move at low tide. Often there were bypass trails where you could climb up and around these headwalls, but those were journeys in themselves using old rope that most likely washed up on the beach to pull yourself up a slippery slope, especially a day after it had rained. That is what we had to do to make it around Point of Arches, which you possibly could see one of the many arches, if I was not blocking it by standing in the middle of the arch. There were a large series of headwalls on this day that we had to get around in a very short time period. I was enjoying my learning experience of figuring out which rocks to walk upon and which ones would make me fall over. Thus I was a bit slow and felt the pressure of the rising tide pushing me to go faster. Luckily, we had no major problems and were able to make it to the large long stretch of open beach before having to stop where the Ozette River dumped into the ocean. We knew it was going to be a problem, because my dad has been backpacking on the Pacific Ocean for 40 years. Thus, we had no choice but to chill out and wait for low tide. The problem with that was that it did not happen until 10pm and heck this was Northwest Washington in the winter. We tried our best to make a fire, but with no wind and some very wet wood, we seemed to get a lot of steam and smoke, but not much flame. So we chilled out in the tent and really were starting to chill. The temperature was dropping fast on this clear cold night. The thermometer in the tent read in the mid 30s when my dad came back from the beach at 9:20pm saying, there is a lot of beach, let's go for it. So we packed our stuff, grabbed our headlamps and sticks, and headed down the beach toward the river. We got a ways down and said, well this is as good of a place as any as we linked arms and attempted the river crossing. It went well, with the water only reaching up to around knee level. The river was so wide now and it took maybe four to five minutes to cross the entire stretch. Neither of us fell, which made us happy because we still had an hour walk to a campsite in the near freezing temperatures with soaking wet boots. It was not until 11:30pm when we were able to get to sleep at our campsite at Cape Alava. We still had to wake early as there were many places on this day where high tide could get us. Although it was very cold outside, it was also rather beautiful and sunny. We checked out some old petroglyphs near Cape Alava, which I was surprised that we could actually last in this wet climate. They were just on beach rocks instead of being on a beach wall. We did not spend too much time as we had to move in order to get through some of the points we would cross. There was some time to enjoy the world around us as we saw some seals or sea lions checking us out and we were also finding dead sea lions on the beach decomposing. Bald eagles were abundant, so we got to see them also. We passed Sand Point and Yellow Banks on this very wonderful day for backpacking at the ocean. Our stopping point on this day was Norwegian Memorial. We found a nice spot for the tent and spent the rest of the daylight on the beach. My dad tried to do some whale watching, but we were not lucky enough to see any whales on this trip. Instead we spent most of the evening on the beach and on this night, we were even able to have a successful fire to keep us warm and occupied. The night was so cold and I was glad to have my warm sleeping bag. When I awoke in the morning, I thought it felt a bit warmer which was strange. My dad, always the first one up, was able to let me know that it was starting to snow. That was going to be exciting. So we got an early start, where we were moving by seven-thirty. It was a good thing, because the weather was getting much worse. We had quite a few points to get across with a lot of slippery rocks, too. Where we went around, it was not much fun as I basically had to pull myself up a nearly vertical slope, hand over hand, with a rope. Then on the way back down, we had to use a ladder in order to descend the bank. This all would have been fun and games without a 40 pound pack on my back which makes everything more difficult. We made it fine and moved well past Cape Johnson and Chilean Memorial until we hit Hole-in-the-Wall where we knew we would be safe. All the while, the snow was increasing to where it was wet and cold. We also had the joy of having a California Sea Lion barking at us as we went along. We moved as fast we could, crossing Ellen Creek along the way until we popped out at Rialto Beach. Laura was supposed to meet us at 2pm, so we chilled out in the bathrooms, the only dry place, and there she was right at 2pm. after having some delays on the snowy highway. So we rode back to Forks, where we were able to check the weather. The next couple days looked brutal. We danced around it and finally decided to change plans. We headed out to Kalaloch the next day instead of La Push. We were trying to walk the whole coast, so our first trip was up north from Ruby Beach to boundary of the Hoh Reservation. That went well and the weather was not too bad yet. It was a bit windy and rainy, but nothing to be too concerned about. When we crossed the high flowing creek at Ruby Beach again, everything changed. The wind was just pounding in our faces now, making it hard to go forward at times. At the same time, the rain was driving very hard and just pounding against all the clothing meant to keep us dry. When we had to cross a point, the breaking waves were much higher than expected and we had to wade up above our knees. Soon everything was wet as each creek crossing kept our feet soaked and the driving rain kept everything cold and wet. After a while, I yelled to my dad that this is ridiculous. It was fun, but my fingers were throbbing they were so cold. So we decided to bail and go back to the road. That was not an easy process either, as we had to cross a flooding stream and fight through the salmonberry bushes before climbing a steep, muddy hill. It took about a half hour for someone to pick us up when we made it to the road in order to drop us off at Kalaloch. That was where we spent the rest of the weekend, because we had no choice. The wind whipped so hard that it took out trees and power lines in the process. Gusts were estimated up to 100 mph and sustained winds were in the forties and fifties easily. For us this meant that the waves were incredible. We were able to stand on the bank above and just watch the water pound against the beach. Washington beaches usually have quite a bit of driftwood, which is usually full large trees, sitting motionless above the high tide line. Well, on Monday, that driftwood became part of the active landscape. It was amazing to see whole trees just moved like small sticks by these huge waves. We did a couple of exploring missions, including a short beach walk at low tide. Mainly we just spent the time enjoying the storm, which was one of historic proportions. We also played quite a bit of cribbage and pinonchle, where I was much more successful at the former rather than the latter. On the following day, once the storm cleared, we went back to Ruby Beach and another beach to do some beach combing. While there was not much in the way of interesting beach finds, it was amazing to see the driftwood shoved back into where the live trees are, where driftwood would not usually be. We spent the rest of Tuesday making the long drive around, since roads were not open the other way. The trip did not turn out the way that we wanted to and it was disappointing to not get to hike the whole coast as we wanted, but it was definitely a trip to remember.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Jacqueline and I left for Washington on Wednesday night after she got off from work. I, still feeling sick, possibly from my tick bite, left the driving to her. On the way, we saw this crazy cloud that looked even cooler in the sunset. We stayed the night at the Circus Circus, which was not very exciting because we had an early plane flight the next day. We were up at 3:55am and on the plane for a smooth flight into Seattle. We got to hang out with my nephews Wade and Ladd, then eat a big Thanksgiving meal. It became a weekend mainly for visiting as we only went on to short hikes. One included a visit to Pack Forest to see the old living map built near the entrance. Then we went to walk down to the Alder Dam on a dirt road. It was short and sweet, but with Carl as a guide, he really entertained us with all his knowledge from growing up in the area. We checked out an old tunnel and enjoyed the fresh air in the Pacific Northwest with extremely tall trees and all the lush greenery. The weekend was more dedicated to hanging out with family and friends as I got to catch up with a lot of people that I have not seen in a while. Next up, though, would be our backpack on the Olympic Coast.

Cornville

Jacqueline and I went to visit some folks this weekend. We stayed at Jacqueline's Aunt Kris' house near Cornville, Arizona, which is near Sedona. My best friend from the GC days, Steve Klunk, came up to visit also. Steve and I are really looking a bit older then the days when we used to hang out in high school. So here is how the weekend went. Jacqueline and I left Toquerville at 9:00 am for a drive through the famed polygamous town of Colorado City. It was not that exciting, but some Navajo flag man did tell us that there was gold in them hills above Toquerville. Good information that we would not use, instead we went to go look at some of his possible ancient ancestors houses in Wupatki National Monument outside of Flagstaff. It was rather neat. If you've seen one ruin, you've seen 'em all, but in no way does that mean that there is not a reason to go see 'em all. We skipped the actual Wupatki house considering it was right next to the visitor center where they would make us pay. Forget that. We went to all the other ones which were just short hikes. Then we continued the loop on the road, which lead us to Sunset Crater. There we did a trail called the Long Trail. If you consider one mile long than it was your lucky day. For us, it was about all that we had time for. It was nice to walk around the ancient volcano, but I was mad to see that they had barred the entrance to a natural lava tube cave. Oh well, we did not have time for it anyway, but what kind of National Park site does that? Our next stop was to go through Flag and then another hour put us at Jacqueline's aunt's house. We had an excellent dinner at the Tavern Grille and then slept on the floor. The next day we headed up to Sedona to do a hike. We intended to do a different hike, but I was not in the mood for dirt road driving, so we choose the Long Canyon Trail. It was nice, reminded me of Taylor Creek. We were on the trail for 'bout an hour and a half each way. Sedona is not much when you compare it to Zion, but it does have a lot of trails to explore at some point in time. Jacqueline enjoyed the area and I was even able to talk her into possibly moving down to this part of Arizona some day. It really still feels like home to me. Then we were back at the house for a visit from Steven. It was great to see him. I have not seen Steve since last April, but boy we just picked up where we left off. At dinner, we were all laughing and having a good time. It makes me really appreciate my good friends that are out there and family also, as having a fiance doubles my family size as staying with Kris was wonderful. We played three handed Euchre and the evening. Having won the last game makes me reigning champion until the next visit. The following day we watched some football and went our separate directions back to our homes. I definitely look forward to one of my home states, good ol' AZ.

I Got Bit

So my buddy Austin bailed on me for this week, thus I had to come up with an alternative plan. So I set out for the Pine Valley Wilderness on Monday. I hiked up a seldom used ATV track along Wet Sandy Creek. It was mostly uphill and took me about three hours to get to my campsite. I set up camp right near the creek so that I would have a water source. With a couple hours of daylight left, I took off in search of one of the three trails that left from this area. I did not find them. Instead, I ended up walking up the creek for a couple hours. It was kind of cool as it narrowed out into a canyon. It was just that the walls were made of alluvial deposits rather than hard rock walls. There were some small waterfalls, but nothing much more exciting than a ten foot drop or so. So I headed back to camp to make dinner and spend the rest of the evening chilling in my tent. I forget how much time is spent in darkness during late fall/winter backpacking. I got a lot of good reading in and sleeping, but I was happy to see the sun come out the next day at seven. I started out on the pseudo trail I found the previous day coming back to camp. All it was for a trail were some rock cairns with not much visible sign of boot treads beating down upon the trail. The Wet Sandy Trail was supposed to access the peaks above, but when I went for it, all I got was frustration. The common scene was a fallen over rock cairn leading into a bunch of flesh tearing scrub oak. I dealt with this for some time, thinking that the trail should open up at some point. After a while, I bagged the idea thinking that maybe a dozen people have hiked here in the past dozen years meaning that this trail is not much of a trail anymore. Across the creek, I could see another trail heading up the side of the hill, so I decided to take that one as my alternative. That one turned out better, although I never seemed to get away from all the bushed ripping at my flesh. Unfortunately, it was too hot to wear pants even in the middle of November. So I just had to take the blows and go with them. I made it to the junction of the loop and thought that I might as well undertake it. The first trail I hit was the highline trail, which went at the very base of the peaks. It was okay, very overgrown with not too many good views. About the coolest thing I saw were the spires rising up. I hustled through this trail getting to the road from Leeds at 12:40pm. I then went down the road and met up with the continuation of the Cottonwood-Harmon Trail. This one was rather similar and it looped back a little bit lower providing for some excellent view of the peaks and Zion beyond. I even found one of those balloons that kids release to litter the wild places, so I carried that out. Right after that was when I found the tick burrowing into the area right near my armpit. (I found another one once I got home) I continued to pick my way through these "trails", although I thought about it during and was happy with all the wilderness experience that I had because this is not an area for inexperienced people to spend time in. I finished the loop and finally finished making it back to camp at 3:50pm. My original plan was to stay the night and do another hike the next day. After my brutal day of tearing flesh and difficult route finding, I decided not to give the Pine Valley Wilderness any more of my time. So I quickly shoved some food down my face and packed my tent and gear up as quick as possible. I was on the ATV trail by 4:30pm and I really put the hustle on. I was able to make it to my truck by 6:15pm, which showed me that I am really not putting my best foot forward on the uphill when I can do it in only about 60% of the time on the downhill. Oh well, I was happy to be out of there, so I could spend the evening with my beautiful fiance instead.

Five Canyons in a Day

Yes, I was able to go into five canyons in one day in Zion. Here is how I did it: First, I picked non-technical routes, so all you canyoneering folks can stop reading now. Then I went up from the bottom rather than going down from the top. I also decided to try not to put myself in a position of possible death. I also decided to stay away from all possible scenarios to get out of the canyons including crazy slickrock scrambles and just let myself end up either getting cliffed out or running out of canyon. The first canyon I picked was upper Clear Creek. This one was as basic as possible. I did the lower part of Clear Creek, which is actually rather neat even though it hangs near the road, last summer. This was finishing it out and there was absolutely nothing to it except for a drainage.I took the East Rim trail and jumped off where I felt like to just follow the drainage up. I turned around when I started running into the housing area. Upon turning around, I ran into Cave Canyon. This one was at least a bit more entertaining with some narrows and features to it that I had to scramble around. There was one cave that I found which was within the canyon created by some flash flood debris that went back only about five feet. There is probably some better cave in there than that. I also found the hide of a dead deer. I originally thought possibly a mountain lion, but after checking it out, it definitely looked like a human kill, outside the park of course. Reading Ron Kay's book, I knew that there were some ruins of a sawmill up at the head of the canyon. I had to do a really loose dirt scramble to get to it, but it was neat to check out. After that there was not much to see as just around the corner, a house appeared. So I wandered back down the canyon to the East Rim Trail and then to my truck. Still with much time left before Jacqueline got off work, for which I was needed to pick her up, I headed down the road to Petroglyph Canyon. I ran into the only people that I saw on the day. They were entering Petroglyph Canyon when I was. I helped them find the petroglyphs after they wandered up canyon running into me. In not too much time, the route cliffed out. There was a nice slickrock slope up to the upper part that I was able to take though, which went for a ways until it cliffed out again. Finding an easy way to the right around that, I was able to access the narrowest part of the canyon. It was very neat, but did not last for long. I had to scramble up some slightly tricky stuff until I came to a spot that I did not like doing by myself, so I forced myself to turn around from there. I looked at the thing at least five times and each time I thought, I should just go for it, but I wanted to make it back safely. If anyone has been farther, let me know what I missed by wussing out. I headed back down with still plenty of time. I took a short break to check out the petroglyphs. My definite feeling on why these things ended up here is the boredom of waiting out a storm. If you saw where the petroglyphs are with snow coming down or rain, you would realize that it is the only dry place around. Prehistoric vandalism. Well, next stop was going to be at the tunnel to check out the canyon that Jacqueline, David, and I were above last east side hike. The only problem was that SAR training was going on which kept me from parking there. Feeling a little bit shunned because the SAR team did not think of me, I had to turn around and park a ways up the road. I walked down Clear Creek until it met up with my fourth canyon. I call this canyon Small Tunnel Canyon. It was really neat. It started out narrow and stayed that way. I also saw this enormous nest in there, which if anyone could tell me what it is, I would be glad to know. The narrowness was cut short by a rockfall that jammed up the canyon. There looked to be a good scrambling route to the right, but not having a companion, I decided against trying it. I was also getting hungry, so I sat down and had some lunch and enjoyed my book. I am reading On the Wild Edge by David Petersen. It is a very good book about breaking away from civilization and living a natural life. He lives in a cabin in the woods outside of Durango, Colorado and all his stories are about the things he does in the backcountry. His writing style is very entertaining. Well, I did that for a while and I reckoned that I still had a couple hours before it was time to pick Jacqueline up from work, so I tried the canyon across from Small Tunnel Canyon. It was great in an entirely different way. It was nearly all slickrock. There were numerous potholes filled with water. The slickrock was all easy walking too, not any death defying scrambles. I went back a good half hour in the canyon until I ended up somehow on this rock island. The canyon split into two and I was in between the two canyons high above. That is why I am naming this canyon Rock Island Canyon. 

I got bushed out by some class five bushwhacking, so I turned around. By the time I got back off the rock island, it was time to go pick my honey up, so I never got to explore the two side canyons. I thought on the way down about what I had accomplished. The east side of Zion is so unique because there is no real wrong way you can go. Around you on every side would be that finishing point for a hike, that so called destination of lake, river, arch, waterfall, etc... with the slickrock that abounds on every side. There is so much joy to be found by taking even an hour stroll on some slickrock. I felt good about my day not knowing how many miles I had tread or not establishing some new crazy route. Sometimes it is just good to be wandering amongst the slickrock.

I Caught a Fish and it was this Big

This week was spent in a couple places, the first of which was Yellowstone, mainly fishing. I helped my buddy from high school, John Hender, move up to Mammoth in Yellowstone. He came and crashed at my pad on Saturday night and we were off early Sunday morning. The drive took about twelve hours for us to get to Mammoth, where we stayed with his aunt, uncle, and cousins. I helped John move into their basement, which took up most of Monday. On Tuesday, we were set to spend the day fishing, but a snowstorm got in our way, so we decided instead to spend the day hiking. 

First we went out to Wraith Falls. It was a short hike, only a half mile from the road, but it was rather neat with all the snow that was coming down. We continued the drive up the road to another good hike. We took a trail that first crossed the Yellowstone River. Then it continued across until we ran into Hellroaring Creek. This was a rather short hike being only about four miles round trip. I was hoping for a bit more, but you take what you can get, ya know. It was a good choice, because we were able to drop out of the snow on the way down and by the time that we went back up, it stopped snowing.

The next day we went out on the Gardiner River to fish. John tried fly fishing and caught nothing. His girlfriend, Mindy, caught one fish, while I had the high fish count of two, including the fish above, using spinners. It was a cold day, but we had a good time just being out there on the river. 

The following day, we got to do something that I would really enjoy doing again. We hiked to a lake to fish. The lake was called Trout Lake, so we figured that would be a good bet to get some fish. I was the lucky one as I struck within the first five casts. Then I went on a dry spell where John caught six fish before I caught another one. He caught some rather large ones, too, this picture being one of the smallest ones that he caught. It took me a while to catch my next fish, as we fished all the way around the lake before I caught my second one at the same place I caught my first. Then I caught my big one for the day in a place where all I was catching earlier was algae. I was happy that I was able to catch this fish, it just seems like if you are going to put a fish through that much torture, you should at least eat the dang thing. John was into catch and release, though, so that is what we did. We fished pretty much all day long and John beat me with eight fish to four. 

The next day, I had to say goodbye to Yellowstone. John drove me down to Idaho Falls where I was supposed to catch the Greyhound bus. Instead a whole series of irritating events followed. It took us half an hour to find the unmarked door to the bus depot, where I got a ticket at 11:30am for the 12:30pm bus. We went over for lunch at Pizza Hut and I came back at 12:20 to be informed that my bus was already gone. Upset, I told the ticket agent to call the bus driver and have him wait for me at the next stop in Pocatello, fifty miles away. John drove me as fast as he could to Pocatello, where the bus driver informed me there were no seats on his bus. 

Angry, I stated, "What do you mean you have no seats, I have a ticket right here?" He basically told me to shove off, cause he did not care. I went to the Pocatello ticket agent with my outrage and she managed to get me on the next bus that took off from a gas station. I had no choice but to agree, so John dropped me off at a gas station, where I sat for an hour and a half waiting for the next bus. When that bus showed up, they informed me once again that they had no seats. I said, "Oh yes you do! You are going to have to find some way to put me on this bus!" I talked to and he talked to the manager, where I was able to ride sitting on a cooler between the driver's seat and the passenger seat on this sixteen passenger van. 

This was not particularly safe as any wreck meant that I was ground beef on the pavement. I rode the three and a half hours to Salt Lake City just like this. When I got to Salt Lake, I informed the bus company of my story and got my money back. That made me happy. Then I was off to enjoy the weekend hanging out with Jacqueline and her bro, Paul, and also some of my old buddies, Brian Hays and Jessie Dudley. Jessie hung out with Jacqueline and I, but unfortunately we were not able to do anything more than eat. She went with Jacqueline to check out wedding dresses, while I went for a short hike with Brian. I was a little disappointed by the brevity of the hike with Brian, because I always expect to do something a bit crazy with Brian. When I heard that his wedding was back on for the next Saturday, I understood. We took a short hike out to Silver Lake up in American Fork Canyon. His fiancé, Angela, was supposed to come with us, but she was tired so she slept in the woods off the trail. Her friend's dog, Kona, came with us though as we took a six mile roundtrip hike. We were able to both talk about the excitement of getting married and our future lives, while we enjoyed a pleasant November 3rd. There was some rock skipping and some Ritz eating, but mainly it was a rather dull hike as far as a Brian and Pete expedition is concerned. Oh well, I guess you need those occasionally. The rest of the weekend was spent watching some football, while Jacqueline did homework and then the long drive back to Toquerville to begin planning the next adventure.