Up the canyon... Bear Grylls style... Sort of

So last weekend my friend Debbie and I got invited to snowshoe up Mill Creek canyon to the yurt the US Forest Service maintains for backcountry hikers in the winter. I thought it would be a blast since the only other time I went winter camping was in at Boy Scout Klondike where I almost froze to death (Apparently my open air snow pit doesn't stay as warm as a snow cave. Who would of thought?). This time it was sure to be a bit better. I figured it would be cold still but at least there wouldn't be any wind or weather involved. Also, since growing up, I've also invested in some higher quality gear. I even brought extra clothes just in case.

Well we got on the trail at about 8pm. It was a beautiful night and because of the glow of the SLC lights on the clouds to the west, we were able to use our night vision the whole way. Due to the recent warm spell it had been raining in the canyon earlier and all the snow was packed down so we didn't even need our snowshoes. But we did bring them just in case so we could go hiking in the morning off trail. It was a beautiful hike and we had just enough light to see the trees, stars and canyon walls. Not to mention I had some excellent company which made it even better.
4.5 miles up from the parking lot we arrived at the yurt. Half of the people were asleep by 9:45pm when we arrived but the few who were still awake played some games with us till about midnight. I was shocked at the accomodations. This place was stocked with propane tanks for lanterns and cooking, as well as a wood burning stove the kept the place plenty warm through the night. For half the night I just slept on top of my sleeping bag with just a light fleece blanket on top of me. There were 6 wide bunks in there and so Debbie and her friend Lindsey double up on one and I took a place on the floor. It was a pretty awesome little setup. If I'd of known about yurts before, I'd have been doing a lot more winter backpacking trips.The next morning, everybody woke up at like 7:30am and was gone by 8:15am. Debbie and I just layed in our sleeping bags till like 9:00 just relaxing and talking. Since we arrived at the yurt so late the night before, we were in no hurry to get out of there. I always thought that was bizarre about Colorado Father's and Sons outings, gone before the sun even comes up.

Eventually I rolled out of bed and got the fire going again so I could start making breakfast. We were set to have one of the best camping breakfasts ever. We had whole wheat pancakes with apple sauce acting as syrup (since we forgot actual syrup), scrambled eggs, bacon, and french vanilla hot chocolate. It was awesome. So while I was on cooking detail, Debbie spearheaded wood chopping (Which I honestly felt a little bad about, where's my chivalry gone?).

Most of the morning it had still been raining, even at the higher elevation. Pretty bizarre for a January day. We decided it probably wouldn't be too great snowshoeing around in the rain. So we just decided we'd head down the canyon after we finished cleaning the place for the next campers.Luckily by the time we got out of there the rain had turned to snow. But not for long. As we descended to the car, the snow turned into sleet, to freezing rain, and eventually rain. We were a bit wet but nothing that a Korean BBQ and a hot tub couldn't fix. It was a great time and luckily there was only one casualty, Debbie's cell phone. It was in the top of her backpack in the rain.

Ah... the mountains

So since I work in the underground laboratory, I rarely surface to see the sun. To tell the truth it burns my eyes at this point. Since we've passed the Winter Solstice the days are getting longer and I catch a glimpse of daylight at the end of my shift. I thought this was too awesome to pass up taking a picture of. Unfortunately I had to make do with my phone's camera since my real camera kicked the proverbial bucket.

Wow, my first ever blog entry. I decided this would be more for me than anyone else. I thought I'd use it as sort of a journal-ish type of thing. So here goes.

Christmas was kindof a drag cause my parents ended up getting sick and were unable to drive to Utah on Christmas day. I did get to talk to them for about an hour and a half but that just didn't cut it. However, my brother was in town so I was invited to spend Christmas eve with Bryce, Sara, Adeline and Blake at my sister-in-law's parents' house. So I did have some fun. Also we took my niece up to Alta for ski free after three. She did awesome despite it being a really cold and snowy day. Bryce borrowed a some wedgie clips and some reindeer reigns to keep her under control and I was maning the camera. She was so cute. She looked like Ralphie all bundled up and couldn't quite put her arms down.
After Christmas I drove to Colorado to have my real Christmas. It was fun to be home since I hadn't been there in over a year. We opened each others presents and had fun talking. Then on Monday I met Adam Hall in Morrison and we drove up to Arapahoe Basin and although it wasn't a powder day by any means, the snow was still decent and we even got threatened by ski patrol for going out of bounds. Unfortunately, we caught word that the back bowls were set to open for the season the following day. We were pissed cause the snow back there would've been awesome. You win some you lose some. We are just too spoiled having season passes at the Bird.


The the next two days were sort of the real reason I went to Colorado at all. The Widespread Panic new year's eve run at the Pepsi Center. Two nights of face-melting rock and roll and a tich of Psychadelic Bluegrass (Yonder Mountain was the opener). My friend Michelle was nice enough to sell me her floor ticket since she had a connection and was able to score a VIP club booth. I tried to peddle my tickets away in the parking lot but unfortunately the supply was greater than the demand so I lost a little money on them just so I could get into the show and enjoy the music. It was good but I think was a little too close to the stage. The sound was a little to loud so the lyrics were kinda hard to hear clearly. But it was still fun to be down in front of center stage with all the other Spreadheads. The energy was super fun.


The second night was much better and my friend was able to get me into the VIP booth as well. It was so awesome. The sound was perfect and you could see everything. We danced from 8:30 till 2:15am. And I wasn't even that tired.

After the concerts were over I drove up to Vail to get a few hours of sleep before meeting Adam's family at Copper Mountain. I didn't get to Vail till 6am cause I was so exhausted. I had to pull over and sleep for an hour in Officer's Gulch before making it to the Vail house. When we woke up my mom was still feeling a bit under the weather so we decided not to go skiing with Adam's family and we just went out to lunch at Fiesta Jalisco in Avon instead. Then I headed back to Utah, expecting to work on Friday.

This was not the case. I showed up at work and the parking lot was a ghost town. So turned right around and went home and slept for another three hours. When I woke up I saw Taylor and Cami were playing their new PS3 so I played LittleBigPlanet with them online for a little bit and then met up with Alison to go do a little night boarding at Brighton. It was puking so hard that they closed the canyon. It was a little sketchy getting down and we barely got out in time. We met Steve at Red Robin for dinner and watched the end of the Utah Alabama game. Then Adam came and spent the night at my house so we could get up early and try and catch the first tram in the morning.

We didn't get up to the Bird quite in time so we only made it on the third tram. It was inspiring. The morning sun was just cresting Mt Baldy, casting an orange glow on the freshly fallen snow. Adam dropped in first, I second. The plumes of fluff sent up after every turn sent us into the white room, which was actually orange from the early sun. Line after line we found powder. The mountain was ravaged pretty quickly due to the perfect skier storm (bluebird + powder + Saturday + Christmas vacation = hoards of people). Since we are seasoned veterans of Snowbird we know where the goods are and she was more than willing to accomodate.

Later that night I invited a bunch of people over to help me devour my free Christmas ham from BD. Johnny (my roommate) made home-made mac & cheese and potatoes and I made the ham and brownies. It turned out awesome I thought. We played the Great Dalmuti, a little guitar, and Guitar Hero till about 1:30 am. So all in all it was a pretty good way to finish out the vacation.