Signal Peak

Rising over 10000 feet in the Pine Valley Mountains, I see Signal Peak every time I drive the road from Zion down the hill. Eric Lassance and I had attempted it a couple of years back, but did not leave enough time to complete it. This time, I was bound and determined to get an early enough start to accomplish it. I was lucky enough to have a couple of friends visiting that were willing to come with me on a trip up a somewhat obscure peak in Southern Utah. Brad, who worked at Zion all the years that I was there, now was living in Alaska and working there. He was down to Zion for some rest and relaxation after the summer season was over for his job. Amber is a friend I met while working trail crew at Rocky Mountain National Park. She and her sister Sarah were visiting on their way out to Yosemite where Amber works during the school year. We drove out to the trailhead at the Oak Grove Campground arriving at 8am and got an early enough start. I prepared everyone telling them it was a big climb and to bring lots of water. Still they were not exactly prepared for the 4000 vertical feet we were going to have to climb. It was switchback after switchback in exposed high desert environment. We kept a fairly good pace as we went up the hill, but were not moving entirely quickly. We were definitely drinking a bunch of our water as the sunshine was warming it up to 90+ in the hot sun. These were some of the hottest days we had during the summer coming right near the end. Eventually we got into some bigger trees until we hit the saddle and topped out. After the saddle it was smooth sailing. We actually went downhill for a bit before crossing into a couple of meadows, one which was referred to as Further Water. There was water, so we would have the chance to refill the coffers, but kept on hiking to the top of the peak. It was a rather undramatic peak in general, but hiking through the forest to the top which ended up just being a pile of rocks with a walk to a viewpoint where we could see Veyo and Snow Canyon. I was pleased to be here though as this was on my list of peaks and places that I wanted to visit. We enjoyed a bite to eat and then decided to go down. Going down we were taking it slowly. It was nice to have some time chatting with my friends as both Amber and Brad were people I was lucky to get to see once a year. It is funny how when people are your friends, you can just pick up where you left off. Both of these two, I had spent enough time with to know their personalities and enjoy their company almost immediately. The hike down was taking nearly as long as the hike up, which was a bit frustrating. We passed Further Water without obtaining further water for our supply. This caused us a slight problem as we went down slower than expected. 

There was a point that I got a little snippy because of it, but felt it was necessary to keep the group focused enough when we were hiking in the desert. It all worked out fine as we drank the last of our bottles rather close to the Xterra and were able to stop at the Maverick to fill our gullets with a cold beverage. Leaving the Maverick, we were planning an evening of hanging out. What I ended up doing was getting a call from Jacqueline and finding out that her car broke. I had to go pick her up from work and got to check out the ugly sight. Somehow the control arm of her front left tire had rusted and broke, which helped to bend her axle. This required a tow truck that was coming by the time I got there. A couple of hundred bucks later and it was fixed, but definitely an inconvenience during the summer busy season. Not the way you want to end a fun hiking day, but I still was in a good mood from a great hike up Signal Peak.

Full Left Fork

There is the Left Fork of North Creek which is referred to by most people as the Subway. Then there is Das Boot which has some story behind it of someone losing a boot in February in the canyon, thus the name which means the boat in German. And then there is the relatively unknown section of the canyon above Das Boot, which is only referred to as the Full Left Fork. I had wanted to get into this canyon for years and never had the opportunity. Annette wanted to do a canyon with Seth and I since we were her new term employees this year. I figured with so many qualified personnel, we should do something big. 

Why not go through a canyon that truly should have some wilderness to it? So we chose the Full Left Fork. Will from Plateau District LE was going with us. We were happy to have him along as he had quite a large amount of skills to contribute. We took along the Michael Kelsey description which had us starting at the Wildcat Trailhead. There were at least two choices to this route and we chose the more adventurous of the hiking routes. This lead us on the typical Das Boot route where we just continued on the slickrock ramp. 

It was interesting to notice that no one except me really knew the Das Boot route well or at least how to approach it. I convinced the team of the right route and we headed up to the slickrock bench. From high above, we were able to get some amazing views of the North and South Guardian Angel from above, which is a view most people don't get. The slickrock ramp continued until it didn't and we were left with a dilemma. The hot sun was blazing at 100 degrees and with us carrying wetsuits, we did not want to spend too much time.

 It was either find a way down or hike back. Luckily, we had Will with us who was courageous and found a steep slickrock ramp. We went down this slowly as it would be easy to somersault and roll away. When we got to the bottom, we were on yet another slickrock ramp. We crossed a few canyons and fought some manzanita, which took us to steep sandy hill. We caused a slight bit of erosion as we went down the sandy slope that led into the canyon. We found a dry canyon which was about 30 degrees cooler than the air temperature above. We decided this was a good spot for some lunch. After lunch I wandered upstream for less than five minutes to confirm our location. There I found the famous seeps and determined that we were indeed in the Upper Left Fork. We wetsuited up and were into the canyon. The canyon started with an ominous yet fun beginning with what Will called a bathtub slide. He was ahead of us as we heard him splash in. When we got there, we realize the safest and most fun way of getting into this was to slide it like a water slide. Splash! and the canyon had begun. The only spot we found an anchor was an orange piece of webbing at the first rap. After that, it was completely clean except for some old slings laying on the ground. There were log jams galor, beautiful narrows with green algae growing all over the rocks, and about a half dozen rappels with the longest being only about 40 feet. There were definitely some downclimbing skills to be used including cramming ourselves in between logs and over perilous drops. The wetsuits were coming in handy as even when most other places in the canyon were dealing with drier than typical conditions, we had some swimming to do in the Upper Left Fork. We even had an arch, though small in a place where we could escape the canyon if needed. The rappels ended but the canyon was not done. We walked for quite a long time through a more open and typical Zion canyon, similar to the canyons we would see on the east side. I always wondered if you could walk upstream from Das Boot and check out the Upper Left Fork and the answer is no! Because there was the last rappel, though short, of the Upper Left Fork right before the walk-in entrance to Das Boot. We continued down Das Boot which unsurprisingly was very similar to the Upper Left Fork. Lots of log jams, water, and short drops to rap. If you do not like to downclimb, do not attempt this canyon. There was a lot less water than typical for Das Boot having only wading sections rather than swimming sections. I used a farmer john with a jacket, but for most of the time the jacket was off. This was a bad idea as in one section I got extreme rock rash from trying to slow down on my downclimb. Will and I were surprised to find a large elk skull complete with antlers in the canyon. Annette and Seth told us the story of the trapped elk in the canyon which had to be put down last year. This was the remnants. With the last rappel of the worst anchor in the park into the pool above the walk-in entrance of the Subway complete, we had a conference and determined that hiking out would be the best choice at this point. I honestly think that it is the same amount of time either way, but no one in the group except me wanted to give it a go. So we went up out of the Subway. 

It took quite some time, but we made it back to the car right before dark. The canyon took about 11 hours and 13 hours if you include the driving. That is quite a commitment for a day of canyoneering. Seeing the narrows above in pristine shape was well worth the experience and I would love to do the Full Left Fork again sometime soon.

Trail to Teewinot

Summers working for the Park Service can be rather busy, so I was lucky to get a couple of days off to travel up to Gardiner, Montana right outside Yellowstone National Park to go to our friends John & Mindy's wedding. Unfortunately, Jacqueline was not able to come and neither was Zyla. Jacqueline had been swamped the entire summer with work and it would just have been too long of a trip for Zyla. I left after work on Wednesday driving as far north as Salt Lake to stay with Jacqueline's brother Paul. I continued the next day with a drive into Yellowstone. I had to argue with the entrance lady to get it for free and then drove an hour or so out of my way toward where John and the bachelor party group were fishing. I never caught up with them and instead met them at John's house where everyone was already drinking. It was great to see a bunch of people that I had not seen in quite a while. John had a lot of fun that night and still had the energy to get up the next day and get to the rehearsal. We spent the whole next day doing wedding stuff mainly just hanging out and socializing. The morning of the wedding, we played a little b-ball and then John and Mindy tied the knot in what was one of the quickest ceremonies I have ever been a part of. We took some pictures after the ceremony and then we headed out to the reception. I got to hang with my other good friends, Brian and Angela Hays. They worked in Tetons, so they were able to bring their daughter Liesel along. Hanging out with a family makes you miss your own and I was wishing that Jacqueline and Zyla could be along while we partied at the reception. I was glad they did not have to try to follow me around as we did all the pre-wedding stuff, but post wedding I would have loved to dance and have fun with the wife. It was fun to see Liesel because it is hard sometimes to remember how quickly your kid grows up. Zyla was just a few months older than Liesel, but so much more active specifically because of the age difference. The next day, I left John and Mindy Hender to their wedded bliss and left with the Hays' family. We took a slow tour through Yellowstone visiting some of the hot spots. We could not do any major hikes or climbs because it was the Sabbath Day and Brian and Angela are LDS. We could do short strolls though, which is what we did. We took a short walk out to Tower Falls. Lots of water was pouring down there, but nothing compared to our next walk out to Yellowstone Falls in the Canyon District of Yellowstone. It was fun to revisit many of these places as my dad worked at Yellowstone for a few years, so I got a lot of visiting in during those years. Still it is quite amazing just to see how vast and incredible Yellowstone truly is. We had ourselves a picnic lunch and then went out to the mudpots. Those were always my favorite geyser feature liking them even more than the big ones like Old Faithful. We continued the drive to the southern portion of the park transitioning without warning into Tetons. We stopped and had a quick dinner by a lake with a great view of the Tetons, then headed into the park. Brian and Angela were still able to make church and I went at their suggestion to a mountain called Teewinot to hike the trail to the base of it. I started my hike at the hour when most people were getting off of the trail. It had been a couple of days without much physical activity, though, so I was chomping at the bit. I just went as fast as I could and amazingly when it is not 105 degrees, you can move pretty quick even uphill. It just shows how good of shape we are actually in at Zion because going uphill is such a challenge in the heat. Here though, I seem to be moving effortlessly barely sweating as I went. I was amazed that this trail was in such good shape because it was not on the map. The views were great as I got great looks at the Snake River and Jenny Lake down below. My goal was to try to make it to treeline and I almost got there. I had to time it all out, so I finished with a bit of daylight left. I got up very high with a good view of the peak to finish out my highest point. My body still wanted to keep going but the waning light and my long drive the next day would not allow me. I turned around reluctantly to enjoy the views on the way down. I had a good evening hanging out with the Hays' family arriving to their home about the same time they got back from church. They had a cabin that was perfect for the three of them. I wondered if they would be able to do it the next year once Liesel was getting into everything. I spent the night there and then in the morning began my 11 hour drive back arriving back to the 100 degree heat of the evening. I was glad to have a break to see some good friends and enjoy the cool of the mountains in the height of summer.

Trying Out the Big Backpack

Our last hiking trip with Zyla had not been incredibly successful. When in Great Basin, she had a difficult time sleeping in her Kelty backpack. Luckily, we had a state of the art best baby backpack money could buy Deuter Kid Comfort III. So far, Z had been too small to fit in this comfortably. Now that she was too big for the Kelty pack, we figured we had to move on to the Deuter. She looked like a little princess sitting in a chair in that thing as we parked right next to the visitor center and began a hike up the Watchman trail. The hike was one that we had done numerous times, so it would be a fair evaluation of the backpacks performance. We left just before naptime giving Zyla a much better shot to fall asleep. As we began the hike, the eyes got heavier. Soon she was zonked out as we talked to another couple with the exact same backpack. Everyone we saw made some sort of comment about how good she had it. She definitely did as the sleeping beauty missed most of this 2 mile roundtrip trail sleeping away. This was very encouraging as now we had taken Zyla successfully camping and found a backpack that she could sleep comfortably in. We finished the day with a trip to the Virgin River where Zyla played in the sand. We are lucky to live in a beautiful place that we can enjoy with all members of the family.