Reposting this because Facebook won't

I don't know what it is. Does Facebook have a filter for the word "God" now?  I tried posting this article several times and it kept saying "try again later", but then when I liked a couple of things it worked just fine. Anyway this is an interesting article I found in the Deseret News this morning called, "How Some Christians Find God in Bryce Canyon and Other National Parks".

Rarin' to go

I sit here at my computer, wanting desperately to be doing something active. I'm dreaming of future hikes, backpacking trips, road trips, visits to places I've never been, and just doing things. My heart longs for the places of openness, for feel of the wind in my face and the rain trickling down my neck, my sodden clothes clinging to my body--for the smell of evergreens and the sound of sprue needles catching the breeze.
I long to be skiing, driving on dirt roads, taking pictures of mountains.
I want to be out in the garden feeling the warmth of the soil in my fingers, and the sun on my back. The call to adventure and life is ever strong. And now I face such adventure in the need to care for another. It isn't as thrilling as scaling a peak, or watching a river cascade down through the rocks, and my dream has never been to be stuck at home caring for someone. But right now, it is the thing I must do. And I have decided that I may as well be happy about it rather than sad.
I am happy and grateful that I still have a wife. She could have died a few times already. I am happy and grateful that God has blessed me with good health and a strong body, so I can be up to the task. I am happy and grateful that I was born with an optimistic spirit, that I always believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and that my will to survive and win is as strong as ever.
This won't be the last adventure I face. I'm hoping that most of them are a bit more exciting and thrilling. I'm hoping that this one ends happily. Most of all, I'm hoping that through all of life's adventures that I always remember God is the one in control.

Hiking "The Notch" in the Uintas was a blast!

I got up early not really sure where I was going, only knowing that it would be from the Crystal Lake trailhead in the Uintas. I left home at around 5:37, having wanted to leave at 5:30. A problem ocurred in that my daughter's van had a light on inside, so I went back inside to find her keys, and then had to figure out how to turn off the lights--thus a few extra minutes.
As I headed down 47th South toward the freeway entrance, I got in the right lane. They have been doing road construction, building new on ramps for the past several months and they had actually placed the I-215 entrance sign in the road after the entrance, so I passed it. I was a bit ticked, because I was either going to do some elaborate turning around (I would have to do two U-turns because  the northbound ramp on the east side of the freeway was still totally closed), or I was going to have to drive all the way down to get on the freeway at I-15. Then I thought of a third alternative. I could drive down to 35th and get on there.
I was behind, but on the road, so all was good. About half way up Parley's Canyon I felt an urgent need to empty my bladder. I was hungry too, and so I thought I could wait until I got to the McDonald's at Kimball Junction (the Park City exit), then go in and get a couple of burritos and use their restroom. I got out at McDonald's, desperate by then, only to find their doors locked. I have no idea when they open their indoor seating, but it wasn't at six. I went through the drive through, ordered my burritos, and spied a gas station across the street. Taking another few minutes to use the restroom at the gas station, I finally got back on the road.
Between the exit from the freeway to Kamas I watched as the guy in front of me slammed on his brakes, and saw several shadows pass in front of him. Deer! It brought back memories of the times I had nearly hit one, and the time when my friend Dave Zobell did hit one over by Strawberry when we left on our after high school graduation trip. The guy ahead of me slowed up after that, and I didn't blame him. For years after that high school trip ended abruptly, I drove overly cautious in the dark when I was in deer crossing territory.
I finally made it to Kamas, and made sure that my camera was available. Numerous times I had been caught empty-handed when a huge deer or moose was crossing the road. I wanted to be prepared. There were a lot of cattle along the road and signs warning about them. I kept the speed lower than the speed limit and avoided the large blotches of manure--which reminded me of another trip to Colorado years previously when we had ended up following a large group of cows down the road on which they'd been herded. You've seen four-wheel drive vehicles that have been out having fun, coated in mud, right? Yeah, that's what happened with the manure.

Despite the cows, the views were spectacular

In a little over two hours from my starting time, I was up at the trailhead.

The Trial Lake turnoff road, that goes to the campground and Crystal Lake trailhead

There are several trails that begin in that parking lot. I had decided on the drive up that I would hike up to Wall Lake, which is only a mile from the parking lot, and then see what time I had left to do anything else. I had told Ann prior to leaving that my main goal was to have an outing and the hike was secondary, and that I wanted to take a lot of pictures.
The weather was partly cloudy and cold. I started out with my down coat on, and that worked just great for the first hour. All the small ponds were frozen over and several of the lakes I passed had a bit of ice in places around the edges. I didn't see any flowing streams, they were frozen too, but had thawed by the time I got back down.

In my case the best pics are taken when being ready, and getting lucky.

I took several pictures of the morning sky and then got lucky with a really good one. My last outing I had the settings wrong on my camera and couldn't tell because the sun was too bright too see the screen and be able to tell just what I was getting. This time, I got several really good shots, at least, I think I did.

Wall Lake. In '76 or '77 we camped just to the right of the cliffs you see on the far side.

When I got to Wall Lake, I remembered the time that I had camped there, just after Christimas in '76 or '77. I really can't remember. I was with Steve Jones, Joe Coombs, and a couple of Steve's friends, Scott Olsen and John Deford. It had been extremely cold and we had needed water and had tried blasting holes in the ice-covered lake with our shotguns that we had brought to hunt rabbits, but found out that shotguns don't work real well on ice that's a foot thick. Thankfully we had an axe. Joe ended up getting pneumonia on that trip and was coughing up blood on the trail down. He spent a bit of time in the hospital as I recall.

Looking up toward the Notch

I had some extra time when I got to Wall Lake so I decided to try for the Notch. I had been there once before, though never in winter. It got steeper and rockier, but it wasn't too bad and I made it easily in my time limit, took a few shots of the valley on the other side, and then got out of the cold wind and looked back the way I had come. No matter which direction I looked, it was all Beautiful!

Everywhere I looked...Beautiful!

Looking down on the other side of the Notch. Lovenia Lake in the foreground.

Looking back the way I had come.

I tried to  get a drink out of my water hose and it had frozen. I stuck the hose inside my jacket (I had abandoned the down coat to the recesses of my backpack as it got warmer) hoping it would thaw, and it did.

I took this pic of the trail sign on the way down.

When I got back to Wall, I saw another trail that I thought connected to the one I came up on (because I had seen one splitting off of the original trail on the way up), and it was heading down, toward Trial Lake which is near the trailhead. I decided to take it. I was up for an adventure. It ended up being longer and rockier than the trail I had come up on, and never joined that trail. I ended up at The dam at Trial Lake and I had a walk up the road to the Crystal Lake parking lot. I measured later and besides the extra length of the trail itself, my walk along the road was .9 miles. I would advise anyone camping at Trial or in the vicinity and wanting to hike to Wall, to drive up to the trailhead instead of taking the trail from the Trial Lake dam.

I like selfies better when it's not just "self".

Once I was back in the parking lot, I took my traditional selfie, and headed home. Just outside the Trial Lake turnoff was a group of people on cross-country skis with wheels. Those skis probably have a name. I don't know it. Then I took several pics of the fall colors on the trip down.

I couldn't resist this picture of the fall colors from Spring Canyon Road.

The fall colors had been hard to come by up near the Notch, but there was still this little patch hanging on.

Only one more incident ocurred and that was on the free way, when a woman tried to come into my lane. The only problem was, I was in the spot in that lane that she tried to get into. I had to slam on my brakes to keep from hitting her and likely, someone behind me had to do the same.
The moral of that story is you can be in just as much danger on the roads as you can hiking in the wilderness, and it's not nearly as fun of an adventure.

Wasatch colors in full swing, but you'd better get up there soon!

It was in the plans for Ann and I to take a drive today up in the mountains to see the fall colors. Somehow, mother nature didn't quite cooperate and we got a snow storm in the tops of our beloved peaks. Of course, some of the leaves died and fell off early because of the snow, but the snow on the tops of the mountains added some extra highlights to our drive.

This was the first view we had that we thought was good enough to
take pics of. Timp with just a splash of yellow in front.

The images got nicer as we drove on.

We drove up American Fork Canyon, high up on the Alpine Loop Road, then abandoned that road and headed down past Cascade Springs to eat lunch in Heber. All in all, it was a great adventure and it couldn't have been a nicer day.

I couldn't resist wandering amongst the quakies to get this shot.

The reds are still there, but 

This is why we now have one of these--a Big Tooth Maple--in our yard.

Stormy sunsets are awesome!

We sat and watched on Friday night as pockets of rain caught the light from the sunset and moved across the valley. This picture from my phone doesn't do it justice, but it was absolutely beautiful and amazing!

My advice is to take the time to watch a sunset when you have the time. It is time that cannot be deducted from anyone's life.

Mt. Raymond attempt 3

Today I went on a hike up Mt. Raymond with my brother, Mike. I made the decision to go to Mt. Raymond, since I thought it would not have as much snow on it as it has on one of my previous trips when I didn't make it to the top. And, Mike left it up to me to choose.

Here's a pic of Mike, btw, on the trail:

I should've thought that maybe a little snow had accumulated up top during the previous wet, rainy week down in the valley, but I was unprepared for the amount that had accumulated.

The trail was beautiful, however, if a tad muddy. Here's some of the scenery we saw along the way:

When we got up to the saddle between Gobblers Knob and Mt. Raymond, Mike decided that he'd had enough because of a hip injury that had been plaguing him. He volunteered to wait for me if I wanted to make it the rest of the way up. I wanted to try it and did so. The ridge going up to the top starts out wide, then narrows down, becoming knife-edged near the top. The further up I got, the more snow there was. Another guy and his two teenaged sons were ahead of me on the trail, and were the only ones who had apparently been up there since the snow had fallen. I saw no other tracks. I followed in their footsteps. There were places where my legs sunk through the soft snow all the way up to my hips. Here's one of the foot prints that went down a ways:

I passed one of the youngsters on the trail who was having a hard time as he was wearing shorts. Eventually, I caught the dad and other son. At that point I was .1 miles from the top (as the crow flies), and approximately 200 feet in elevation from the top. It had already taken me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the point I was at, and it looked like it would take at least another half hour to make those final 200 feet--if I could even make it. The angle significantly steepened, the snow looked quite a bit deeper, and the ridge narrowed a lot. I don't have an actual picture of this final approach, and down below, it didn't look that bad. Here's what it looked like from about 400 feet from the top:

This is actually the third time I've gone up Mt. Raymond and have had to stop short of the top. I will plan my next trip carefully to incorporate all possible scenarios (ha!), and will make it to the top. I'm thinking mid-summer and with someone who is wearing shoes with tread. One of the times I turned back was because my son Ben had worn some shoes that had virtually no tread on the bottom of them. There are some pretty hairy rocky ridges that you absolutely need some gripping power on your feet.

It was actually harder coming down in the mushy snow than it had been going up. Not exertion-wise, but footing-wise. When I made it back to the saddle to meet up with Mike, I snarfed down my sandwich and we prepared to go back down the trail. A guy who was with a "Meet Up" group asked us if we were enjoying ourselves. "Always," I said. "I can't come up here with having a great experience."

And it's true. The trip isn't always making it to the top, but it's the adventures that you have and the people you share them with. In that regard, I wouldn't trade my life for the world.