Camp Atoka

2008 Fathers and Sons took us to Camp Atoka, five miles east of Huntsville, Utah along the South Fork of the Ogden River. Camp Atoka is owned by the Church and is big--there were other wards and groups up there as well. In fact, when I was 16 or 17, we had youth conference at Atoka and this was the infamous locale where Rob Tripp punched Adam Palmer in the eye after Rob complained about Adam's ability to throw a football, resulting in Adam shoving the ball in Rob's face. If I recall, President Curtis sent both of them home early for the fiasco.

Anyhow, we got up there at about 5pm Friday (the 13th!) and set up camp and then had hotdogs and chips. Everyone mingled (while Allen and all the other youngsters burned sticks, paper plates, or anything else flammable in the campfire) until dark at which time we had a devotional and then watched "Meet the Robinsons" on a screen they set up in the trees. It got pretty cold and Allen has seen that one about fifty times, so we headed back to our tent for a best-of-seven round of Uno and then we turned out the flashlight.

As always, we slept fitfully, but at least we were warm. Allen woke up at one point claiming he was scared the river was "going to get us." Only after allowing him to unzip the tent door and view that the river was still contained within its banks thirty feet away was he satisfied. The Elder's Quorum presidency cooked up pancakes, bacon, and eggs and by that time we basically broke camp and got out of there. On our way out, Allen and I tossed a football for a while and we stopped for Bear Lake Raspberry milkshakes as we passed through Huntsville.

It was short, but fun to hang with Allen on his first Fathers and Sons.

Great Western Trail

For several years I have been eyeing the completion of the Great Western Trail, a literal trail that will run from Canada to Mexico through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Arizona. Once completed, it will rival the Appalachian Trail in length and destroy it in grandeur.

The Utah portion of the trail follows mainly existing trails and is more than 90% complete. My goal is to hike the whole thing (in short sections, of course) over the next ten to fifteen years. The trail runs from Bear Lake, to the Wasatch near Logan, to the Uintah's southeast of Utah County, through the Manti-LaSal National Forest, and down to the Dixie National Forest. As you can see, even the Boy Scouts are jumping on board with a badge.

The hikes will be awesome. This year I hope to hike 40 to 50 miles worth of the trail, all of them along the Wasatch Front. I'd love some company on various segments of the trail if any one is interested. If any of you are also interested in the goal of hiking the Utah portion of the GWT, let's talk. And if you are not, like I said, I'd love some hiking buddies for individual sections of the trail.

I am planning on hiking the Peterson segment of the GWT sometime over the 4th of July weekend. It will be about 14 miles long, from the Layton/Kaysville area to the Centerville/Bountiful area. This section runs mostly along the crest of the Wasatch mountains in Davis County and includes a stop at Thurston Peak, the highest point in both Davis and Morgan counties. I am predicting that it would take about 12 hours to do.

If any of you want to hike it with me, let me know. I will include more details in the coming days--I am currently studying the topographic maps of the area. Many of these trails are less-known and it takes some work to figure them out.

If you want to learn more about the Great Western Trail, check out a few of my links on this blog.

What the...Pelicans?

On June 1, JanaLynn, Allen, and I took a Sunday stroll around the ponds at the Utah Botanical Gardens in West Kaysville. To our delight, pelicans (presumably from the Great Salt Lake?) were swimming and fishing on the pond. In all, we saw eight or nine pelicans. My camera sucks, but I pointed it through my binoculars and got semi-good pictures of the birds. I don't think of Utah as being a pelican refuge.

Other than pelicans, there were plenty of geese and ducks. The Utah Botanical Gardens are right next to I-15 in Kaysville and about two miles due east of the Great Salt Lake. It is a project that is under development--it appears that Utah State University is the project manager. They have a beautiful wildflower garden there too.

Adams Canyon (Davis Co., Utah)

On May 31, 2008, JanaLynn, Allen, and I hiked up Adams Canyon to the waterfall (6,200 ft). The trailhead is about a half mile from our house in Layton. We started up at about 6:45 p.m. and probably should have begun a bit earlier since the last half mile on our return leg was in the dark. Perfect temperatures (70's) and the air was very fragrant. The parts of the trail near Adams Creek were cooler by about ten degrees, I'd guess. I tried to identify some of the vegetation--the first few hundred feet in the foothills had lots of scrub oak and sage brush along with a bit of prickly pear cactus, stinging nettle, harebell, and broom snakeweed. Once we got into the canyon, things quickly morphed into a pine forest--much like Big Cottonwood Canyon in type. We did see some beautiful rabbit brush flowering in the cooler shade.

It is a moderate hike--I'd guess about two miles one way with an 1,100 ft. elevation gain from the trailhead. Fairly steep in places, very rocky during the second mile (Allen fell and took a chunk out of his knee, resulting in a few tears, a band-aid, and a lot of drama), and up near the falls, wet and slippery and hence, potentially dangerous. A bit of rock scrambling near the falls with a few points of exposure that require care. With the high spring runoff this year, we had to twice cross the creek and our feet were soaked. We got back to the trailhead at 9:30 p.m. Not a bad hike.