San Rafael Swell Backpack

I went on a backpack with friends in the San Rafael Swell in south-central Utah. "The Swell" is an area of uplifted, eroded sandstone, with steep-walled canyons, slots, mesas and buttes. It's less than 4 hours from SLC and a fun place to explore. Ayla had a lot of work to catch up on and chose to stay home.

The start of the hike into Spring Canyon along Mexican Mountain Road.

Harvey, Susanne, Beth and Rich, the other campers taking a break on the Mexican Mtn. airstrip. It was built for oil exploration and now used by local pilots comfortable landing on a gravel runway.

Windsock sponsored by Chevron.

Ancient petroglyph can be found on a rock near the airstrip.


Our campsite was near the junction of the North and South forks of Spring Canyon. This was the rock formation above our tents.


An arch formed by a piece of the cliff that had fallen and gotten stuck.


Another shot of the arch from halfway up a "trail" that went from the canyon floor to the top of the mesa.


Harvey triumphantly summiting the mesa.


Enjoying the views from the top of the mesa.


We scrambled down through the boulder-strewn Horsethief Canyon. Yes, it was named for the route that stolen horses were taken on.


Harvey and Susanne back at camp.


A last look up Spring Canyon as we hiked out on Sunday.


The plane boss, the plane!


Beth by the San Rafael River.

The following are more petroglyphs along Buckhorn wash. They have been painstaking restored to remove traces of grafitti, bullet holes and other vandalism.

Backpacking in Nevada

We spent Labour Day weekend backpacking with friends in Humboldt National Forest near Jarbidge, Nevada.

We hiked in on Saturday. Here's a view from the trail up to Emerald Lake:



Emerald Lake, close to our campsite:




There was some stormy weather on Sunday, but we were well sheltered near the lake.

















Some people spent Sunday on the ridgeline, hiking to various peaks. Others (like me) only did a little hiking.
Colin's self-portrait at the summit of an unnamed peak. You can see the Matterhorn in the background. He also scrambled to the summit of Cougar.



We hiked out on the Monday. The trip back was somewhat eventful: there were a number of grass fires in Nevada and Idaho on our way back to Salt Lake City.

Camping at Amethyst Lake

We finally got to try out some new backpacking gear in the high Uintas near the Wyoming border. We actually tried to do this hike last weekend, except that there were thunderstorms and hail (we're really not thrilled about hail). We went to the art festival in Park City on Sunday instead (no pictures, but we did get a metal art crab).

	This is the Amethyst Lake meadows in the afternoon. We camped at the edge of the meadow.
Here we are the next morning, awake and vertical without the aid of caffeine.

After breakfast, we continued along the trail to the lake. The name is not an indication of it's colour - maybe it got it's name from the mining in the area? It's a fairly large, clear lake with nice views of the Ostler-LaMotte range.

Wasatch mountain club Idaho trip

Mountain biking in Idaho:

Moab 2004

There was camping, there was cycling.