Snowshoeing in Great Basin

Eric won a private cave tour at Great Basin and he was kind enough to invite Jacqueline and I to go with he and Izzy. We left Springdale after Jacqueline got off work on Wednesday. Eric drove, which was nice because I did not know how the roads would be. They turned out to be fine, but it was a long 3 hour plus drive through the darkness to get to Great Basin. As we approached, we watched closely the temperature reading in Eric's car. It was dropping slowly, hovering around the twenties. As we drove into the park and up to higher elevation, we saw the thermometer continue to drop. When we got out of the car at our campsite, it was 14 degrees. We decided to put up the tent on the asphalt because there was too much snow on the rest of the site to give us a spot to sleep. We were not able to stay up long because of the cold and were forced to retreat to our bags. It took us some time to adjust to the cold, but with my sleeping bag and a bivy sack, I felt fine. Jacqueline was cold through the night, but she chose to sleep on top of her second sleeping bag instead of in it. Eric and Izzy slept in the car and they both slept fine. We started our day by driving down to the visitor center and making plans with the person who was taking us on the cave tour. We made plans to meet her after she got off work. Then we headed up to the Upper Lehman Campground where we would pick up the Lehman Creek Trail. The trail went up hill the entire hike. Someone had been on the trail just the day prior, so it made it easy to find. Izzy was struggling a little bit because her snowshoes were definitely inferior to the three of ours. We were in the forest most of the way. Eventually, the broken trail became unbroke and we were stuck trying to find the way. This became a more difficult task than we originally thought it would be. Where we thought the trail would be lead us into a river valley. The trail was obviously not there, so we decided to head up to the ridge. This was a tiring prospect, but we were helping each other out by switching off the lead. Jacqueline and Eric were doing a much better job than I was with the lead, because I lead us up to nothing. Eric lead us back down and we still did not find the trail. When I took back over, I stumbled upon the meadow we had been looking for. We got some great views of the peaks, including Wheeler. We found the trail from there and we kept going. When it was getting close to time to turn around, Eric and Izzy turned around first. Jacqueline and I continued both feeling well. When we ran out of trail, though, I was disheartened and we decided to turn around catching up with Eric and Izzy before too long. We moved much quicker on the way down, of course, and were back with plenty of time. We briefly stopped by the campsite before heading down to the visitor center for our cave tour. We were taken into Lehman Caves for our private cave tour and it was a treat. We asked if we could do it with headlamps and Marie, who was our guide, was all for it. It is incredible how much more we could see with headlamps on. The most striking advantage was that we were able to see all the inscriptions on the cave ceiling. There were many and they were rather historical. It was easy to see dates in the late 1800s and early 1900s when they used to use the candles given them to burn their name into the ceiling. The first people who ran the cave used to let people take whatever they wanted when leaving the cave when it came to cave formations, so it was just amazing how unnatural the cave remains. We were able to go to a few spots others don't go and the nice part was that we got to do the tour much faster than others. We also got to stop and enjoy the formations a bit more and take different pictures than people usually get. We left from there and went into Baker to get some dinner. We went to a local place. I got a burrito and a beer. Marie met us there and invited us to stay at her house. Eric and Izzy took her up on that because Izzy was not feeling well. Jacqueline was excited about it also. I was the only one left unhappy with it. I appreciated the gesture, but I feel much more comfortable in my own tent than I do in someone else's house. Eric and I had to drive up to the campground, take down the tent in the dark, and drive back to Marie's house. It was not until about 2am until I got to sleep. The bed was too short and there was cat hair everywhere. We enjoyed talking to Marie and hanging out, but I would have been much happier in the cold. The next day Eric, Jacqueline, and I took the road out to Lexington Arch. I was pessimistic about actually seeing the arch because I thought the road would be snowed out. As we got closer to the mountains, the snow did increase. Eric kept going, though, and got us within a mile of the trailhead before we had to park. We walked the rest of the way on the road until we ran into the trailhead. From the trailhead, it did not take long before we lost the trail. We wandered around until we picked a trail up. It lead us to an old cabin. From there we lost the trail and began to head up the ridge looking for it. It was nowhere to be found, but when I looked up, I located the arch. It was huge. I never had the urge to go see Lexington Arch, but after seeing it, it was impressive. It dominated the whole canyon area. I looked across and realized, the trail must be on the other side of the canyon. Everyone was convinced that we did not want to continue trying to find the trail, so we turned around. I was happy with the great view that we got of the arch. We left there and on the way back had our car chased by three large sheep dogs protecting a herd of hundreds of sheep. We went back to Marie's place and picked up Izzy. From there, we made the journey home, but we enjoyed our weekend in Great Basin.

Finding Winter

Another weekend, another snowshoe trip. We were back again, but this time we did not have to worry about having enough snow as in the high country, it had been snowing all weekend. Eric wanted to make the trip up to Cedar Breaks, so we left a beautiful day in Springdale for a snowy, windy mess up above 10,000 feet. I was not complaining as this was something I was definitely in the mood for. I was glad that Eric was driving because road conditions were horrible, but he made it to where the road was blocked off. We parked there and got our gear together. In the process, I realized that I forgot my lunch and actually any form of food was not in my pack. Feeling very foolish, I told my snowshoeing companions for the day, Eric and Izzy, and they were kind enough to share food with me. The conditions were brutal, but following the road was easy enough. There were snowmobiles that would occasionally come by and clear a path for us. I was amazed just how white everything was. I do not think it was whiteout conditions necessarily, but every tree and bush was covered in white. We could have been anywhere as the sight of the orange cliffs of Cedar Breaks, just was not appearing. We passed the yurt that served as the ranger station and then tried to find a trail to a lake. I believe we found the lake, but it is tough to say as it just looked like an open white area. There were some orange markers up to follow that were off the road, but with such deep snow, we eventually got wise and ended up following the road. We didn't last long before turning around. The wind and snow seemed to get stronger as the hike continued. So after eating a bit, we wandered back to Eric's car, only stopping to enjoy some of the trees along the way. The snow covering the trees was the only sight worth seeing on this white washed hike. I enjoyed it as conditions reminded me of a trip through Yosemite many years ago. Difference was, this was for only two hours, while that trip lasted for four days. Still it is what makes Southern Utah great, in that, it is only a couple hours of driving and you can go snowshoeing at 10000 feet.

Sloppy Mess

Eric and I tried real hard to get a snowshoeing trip out of Zion, but it was more like a snow hike. For most of the trip, we did not use snowshoes, but the views were still good. We went up on the East Rim Trail from the east entrance to the park. I learned in the process that Eric had never been on that trail. Thus, it turned into a rather good choice. We only made it as far as Jolley Gulch before turning back. Still in the snow, it made for about a four hour trip. I used snowshoes for longer as there were a few spots that we sunk in, but Eric barely used his the whole trip.

Stout Canyon

Eric came back from being in Colorado and Iowa on his furlough, so we went out for a snowshoe. Jacqueline told us that Highway 14 was closed due to a rockslide, but we wanted to see for ourselves. So we drove up there and found out that it was closed at Duck Creek. Luckily, I looked at a map of the area before hand, so when we saw a sign for Stout Canyon, I knew that it was a forest service road that we could snowshoe on. It turned out to be a rather flat snowshoe. The road was easy to find as snowmobiles and cross country skiers used it previously to us. It would actually be a good road to ski as I saw later that it ends back at Highway 89. With two vehicles, it would be a steady, yet gradual downhill ski. The views were nothing spectacular, but still nice as there was much of the rock around that makes up the formations around Cedar Breaks. We also got some good views after a bit out toward the east, where the Pink Cliffs rose to become the Paunsaugunt Plateau. When we were feeling like turning back, we tried to head up a steep hill to check out the view from up top. That was where we were reminded just how hard it can be to manuever through deep, fresh snow. We made it up on the ridge, where we had our fill and turned back. There were no issues finding our way back as our tracks our clearly marked for us. We stayed out 5-6 hours, which was a good day and more than the two of us thought we would do.

Huber

I have hiked Huber Wash a couple of times before and enjoyed it on both occasions. Jacqueline never had been there before, so I figured the beginning of January would be a great time to explore it since most of our other options for trails in the park were now covered in either ice, snow, or mud. Huber turned out to be a great pick as it was muddy in quite a few spots, but for the most part it allowed for a smooth, easy hike for the two of us. The mostly dry wash lead us eventually to a dry fall and we picked our way to the left until we were at a very narrow scrambling section. I thought this could be the end, but after climbing it a couple of times up and down to show Jacqueline just how easy it could be, we made it up on to the plateau around Huber. This is where we deviated from the trail, just wandering around the southwest desert, trying our best to avoid the cryptobiotic soil. We were in search for petrified wood. There is quite a bit out there, but most of it is in small, broken piles. We wandered to a the top of a point where we got awesome views of Eagle's Crags, Smithsonian Butte, Mt. Kinesava, Cougar Mountain, and Crater Hill. We scrambled down the other side of the point and finally hit the jackpot with some nice, large petrified logs. Having fulfilled our mission on this day, we found our way back down into Huber Wash and wandered on out. It turned out to be a great 3-4 hour jaunt for a mostly snow free trip.