So, I have one more backpedaling blog post that I wanted to write.  This is what happens when you are out of touch with technology for a week.  It felt pretty good to do that, but then when you come back and realize that you are behind on things, well, it never really balances out.  At least I can try.

So, upon my return from Ithaca I met my brother in the Salt Lake City airport as he just flew in for the week.  The idea for the week was to do some backpacking in the wilderness around here.  the original plan was to head up to Grand Teton National Park but the weather outlook up there was not so great.  This was a little unfortunate as we had made some pretty good plans for heading up to GTNP, but in the name of safety and such we decided to make a change.

We spent the better part of a day over at REI looking at books and maps and trying to plan a new location and route to hike.  We decided to head up to the High Uintas in the northeast part of Utah.  The weather was supposed to be better there and it is a lot closer to home, so less driving.  We picked up some additional gear and food, and rented some warmer sleeping bags and then went back home to pack for the adventure.

With our packs loaded into the car we headed off into the mountains.  We got off the highway in a small town in Wyoming whose name I don’t remember.  Then we drove out into the middle of nowhere.  We followed a dirt road for quite a while, back across the state line into Utah finally ending up in a snow covered campground.  We passed maybe one car on the way in, probably hunters.  The campground was totally empty, though there were some old tire tracks in the snow.

We set up camp for the first night in the campground.  For both my brother and I, this was our first winter camping experience.  Pitching camp in the snow and cold takes a little more effort than sumer camping.  We packed out an area for the tent with our snowshoes and then pitched the tent.  Cooking in the cold is not much different than other backpacking cooking, it is just cold sitting out in the snow.

Even in long underwear, ski pants, and the zero degree sleeping bag it still got pretty cold cold at night.  We even had two of us in a pretty small tent.  It wasn’t unbearable, but it was cold.  It also snowed for the better part of the night which was a very interesting sound on the tent.  Amazingly, I slept pretty well and the morning brought a fresh blanket of snow and a beautiful sunrise.  It was truly a spectacular morning.

Sunrise over the China Meadows Campground

After making breakfast we broke camp, packed our bags and started our trek off into the wilderness.  Hiking in snowshoes is significantly more difficult and slower than a normal hike.  It certainly was beautiful out.  Right sun, and white snow, and no one else in in sight, not even tracks.  Over the day we hiked  about four miles and towards the end of the day I think that pulled a muscle or something in my leg.  So we found a suitable location to make camp and set up for the night.

The location we found was in a beautiful field broken up by a frozen river.  We decided to play it safe and bear-camp, so we cooked dinner away from the tent and hung all our food out off a tree.  We didn’t really know if it was bear territory or not, but we figured better safe than sorry.  The night was colder than the last, probably due to the fact that there was no cloud cover.

While it might have been cold, I still slept well, the real problem was that I woke up still very achy.  It was very strange, because I do a good bit of hiking and I am pretty active, I suppose it just happens sometimes.  So we decided that the best course of action was to hike back out instead of continuing the trek because we didn’t want to get in any serious trouble.  So we spent the day hiking back to the car.  Overall, aside from my going gimpy, we had a great hike and a lot of fun.

After we got back to the car we decided to call my uncle to see if we could stay at his place in Park City.  With his OK we made our way to the condo.  It was nice to be there, but after taking showers, making dinner and running some laundry, one of the hot water heaters decided to burst.  We were sitting watching a movie and I thought I heard water running and when i went into the utility room I had to wade through an inch or so of water and get under a geyser of water to find the shut off valve.

So, the rest of the night was spent on the phone with my uncle and then trying to get maintenance in to take care of things.  There was a lot of water, it had made it ways down through the floor into the crawl space where the furnace is and even seeped out into the common hallway of the condo complex.  Luckily there was no water in the house, it was pretty confined.  So the late night maintenance people came in and did a lot of vacuuming and cleaning.  The next day they got the plumber in to look at things and figure out what to do.  A real adventure.  All thins considered, according to the plumber, the disaster was inevitable, so it was a good thing we were there.

While the flood was not part of the plan for my brother’s vacation, it didn’t dampen spirits too much.  He went out and hiked on Saturday while I dealt with the plumber and such and then the next day we headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon for one last hike before he had to leave on Sunday.  So, we did get in a bunch of what we had planned, the hiking and camping, interspersed with other adventures.  It was a fun bit of time off.

So that is why I was so out of touch with the nets last week.  It was worth it, an adventure!

So, my blog has been a little quiet for the past couple days and that is because I was on a camping trip with some of the kids from camp.  I love camping and I love getting out in the outdoors even more than we do on the campus, so when they asked me to go on the trip I was happy to get out of here for a couple days.  This particular trip happened to be with a great group of campers, but I am sure that any of the trips that we run would be fun to go on.

This trip was to Boothbay Harbor and the surrounding area.  Now, when I say that we were camping, this is pretty posh camping in that we stay at a nice campground with most of the amenities you could ask for.  There was a lake where they had all kinds of water toys and craft for rental, showers, bathrooms, pool, hot-tubs, store, snack-bar, laundromat, the works.  This is car-camping at it’s finest, which is fine with me, but I think that it is important to mention that we were not doing any hiking and real hardcore camping.  We did sleep in tents though and cook meals over the fire and eat outside.

For some of us (namely those of us over the age of 15), there were many points of interest on this excursion.  We got to do things like go fishing on the Miss Boothbay, a small fishing boat that leaves from Pier 8 every couple hours to take people mackerel fishing.  Unfortunately, my shift on the boat didn’t catch any fish, but we had fun, and it was a lot cooler out on the water than it was walking around town.  Fortunately for the second group that went fishing they actually caught something, so we ended up with nine fish to have for dinner.  This did make my personal fish tally on these trips a big fat zero.

We also spent our first afternoon out there at the lake in the campground.  We rented a bunch of water toys like kayaks and water-tricycles.  I think the kids enjoyed this, I know that I certainly did.  Beating the heat of the day on the lake was a lot of fun.  This was followed, of course, by the obligatory lobster dinner at the lobster pier.  While I am not a lobster person, fresh fish is always good and most of the kids seem to really enjoy the lobster.

The real highlight for the boys though, was crusing for girls at the campground.  This was one of those big campgrounds where people stay for the whole summer or for extended periods of time, so there are a lot of people there.  I was actually very impressed at the success rate that our boys had.  Within the first evening we were there they managed to make some strong connections with a number of young ladies.  I don’t think that we went on any trips like this when I was a camper, and besides, I went to a co-ed camp so all of our trips were co-ed anyway.  To tell the truth, I don’t think that I ever really went cruising for girls like these boys did.  Probably because I thought that I was the awkward, dorky, geeky kid that wasn’t “hot” or something like that.  The strange thing is that part of me, I think, was a little jealous of these boys that they could do this and be successful.  Not that I am looking for girls, I have a wonderful girlfriend, more that it is something that I never really did for whatever the reason.

Needless to say, with hormones running rampant, I managed to stumble over at least two of our campers “making out” with girls from the campground.  Personally, I don’t care and I left them to their own business, most of the time not even acknowledging them.  Boys should be boys, and it isn’t like they are not doing the same thing at camp!  In fact I bet some of them are worse at camp.

The boys managed to invite and receive a fair number of young ladies at our campfire on our second night of camping.  While I tended the fire the boys made and shared s’mores with the girls and everyone sat around and chatted (and probably sucked some face).  I don’t think that any of our boys actually snuck out at night to go visit any of the girls, which is something that I totally would have done when I was a camper (actually, I did…).  I mean, at least at the campground it wasn’t a two mile walk like it is at camp!  Though I have to say, if any of our boys actually walked the four mile round trip from IA to FA and back to visit a girl at night, I would let them because you have to be determined if you are going to spend an hour walking in the middle of the night!

It is just so interesting to watch these kids, especially the ones that I have developed rapports with over the past couple years.  It is funny when kids ask me for advice because I never knew what to do, and it is also interesting to just watch what they do.  It seems to work, and then they get embarrassed and don’t want you to talk about it, but when you get back to camp, everyone knows what was going on during the trip before you even get back to your cabin.  It is great to be young!

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And by-the-by, my postcard offer still stands.  I picked up some new postcards on the trip, so if you write to me, you will get one!

Having spent a lot of energy thinking, blogging and posting on forums about politics and health care, it seemed like a departure to something less civilized might be nice.  The inspiration hit me while having a late night chat with another 20SB member as the conversation turned to some of the more beautiful aspects of this country.  What?  I hear you asking, the land!

One of the things that has never ceased to amaze me after moving out here to Utah is the vast amounts of nothing!  It really is amazing that there is so much land that is undeveloped, protected, and public.  I mean when you think about the way this country consumes resources, the fact that some of our nation’s leaders had the forethought to start setting aside land and protecting it through programs like the National Parks Service (NPS) or the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  Then of course there is the ranch land and farm land that also account for a lot of undeveloped land.

One of my favorite things about living out here in Utah (besides the fact that there is awesome skiing within 30 minutes of my apartment) is how accessible the wilderness of this country is, and how easy it is to get there.  Over the last four years i have managed to visit all of the National Parks in Utah, some more than once.  I have hiked and camped on state land and national land and the experiences are amazing.  We live in a beautiful country and going out and taking part in it is so wonderful.

I live a very wired life.  I have a laptop, an iPhone, a netbook, and a computer on my desk in my office.  I have this blog and my personal website and my photography website.  I have a twitter account and you can find me on facebook and a handful of other social networks.  When you actually stop to think about it, it is really kinda crazy.  I don’t actually think about it that often, it is just the way that life is.  However, I still look for and look forward to any and all opportunities to get out and experience the natural beauty around us.

I love the high desert out here in the Mountain West regions of the country.  Hiking through the slickrock around Arches and Canyonlands or through the Hoo-doos of Bryce is just spectacular.  This is why I jumped on the opportunity to do a photography workshop in May down in Moab.

I also love the east coast, specifically the northeast.  There will always be a place in my heart for the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the town of Franconia.  The northeast holds a very different beauty and appeal than the mountains and deserts out west, but I don’t think that it is any less grand or spectacular.  I don’t think that it would be possible to forget the view when you look at Mount Lafayette or hike through Crawford Notch.  It is a different world when it is covered with green trees and not red rock.  The mountains in the east seem to roll more than the do in the west.

I cherish the fact that I have the opportunity at this point in my life to be able to spend my summers in Maine working at camp.  Being about to get outside and spend the majority of the summer outside is wonderful.  Going hiking and camping is great.  I am happy to give up my ties to the digital world to play in nature’s playground.  I don’t think that enough of us actually stop to really enjoy the things that truly are free in this world.

So stop sometime, take in the world.  Disconnect from the computer and get out of the city.  Spend a night looking up at the stars and count the satellites as they streak by overhead.  Climb a mountain or hike up a little hill.  This is our land and we should enjoy it!  So with that, I shall leave you with the immortal words of Woody Guthrie:

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Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

I’ve roamed and rambled and I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

As I was walkin’ – I saw a sign there
And that sign said – no tress passin’
But on the other side …. it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me.