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Got up early this morning and headed to Mount Van Cott to see what the fire had done to it from last weekend. Review Image: Overview map Mount Van Cott is the ridge just east and above the hill with the "U" on it. I'm walking along 11th Ave. to get to the trail. This is new, some bike lockups and restrooms at Popperton A deer looking at me through the fence wondering, "What is he doing up so early in the morning?' The burn line of the Bonneville Fire Dropping down to the...

A little late to posting... but had a great trip to Cedar Mesa area May 20-25. We planned to do another loop but because of a water concern, we decided to do Fish and Owl canyons, where we knew there had been recent reports of decent water. We had a great time and are really excited to explore again! Day 0 My partner and I drove down from Jackson, Wyoming where we live. We picked up friends from Seattle who flew into Salt Lake. On the way through Moab, we had to take a quick stop to show...

After 40 years of remote backcountry trips (mostly in Southern Utah), I've finally joined this site and am writing a post. I'm starting with my most recent trip, hiking the SE rim of Neon Canyon in the Escalante. It was supposed to be a loop... up Neon, crossing a pass at the head, and descending the SE rim of Choprock. Along the way I was wanting to rap into the canyons to explore and reascend with a 100' rope. Alas, the canyon was at least twice as deep in the lower and central sections...

Yesterday, the Scat family found itself in the beautiful Cache Valley to attempt a summit of Logan Peak. I went to college in Logan (Utah State University) back in 1982 through 87 and I never hiked to the top of Logan Peak while I was there, so essentially this is making up for a wrong when I was young and stupid. Now I am just old and stupid. :D We drove up to Logan Friday night and stayed overnight so that we could get to the trailhead early enough so that I could get up and back down...

Wasn't sure we were going to make our usual 'end of school' trip up to Yellowstone this year, but glad we did. Grabbed a last second site at the Mammoth CG - I must say, it's a much more pleasant spot with the new north entrance road largely avoiding it. I spent some leisurely time around the park with the family, but took one day to hike up and over Mount Everts. For the last few years, I've enjoyed taking a day on our frontcountry trips to hike from our campsite - no cars, no shuttles -...

In September 2014, Chris, Peter and I did a 47 mile traverse of the Sawtooth Range in Idaho. We had a shuttle drop us off at Grandjean, and from there spent 7 days crossing the range to Pettit Lake. The weather was perfect, and since then this trek has been the benchmark for excellence for all that followed. I recently re-edited my photos from that week. Below is the route. Hopefully some of you can follow our footsteps across this land of jagged peaks and brilliant lakes. PS: According...

I was on my own last weekend so I decided to try a hike that Mrs. TractorDoc would be less than thrilled to join me on. We had a good amount of rain days prior, and I decided to find my way to Contour Falls in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This was not that long of a hike at about four miles; half of it follows the canal towpath trail so that portion is quite easy. The other half involves making your way up the walls of a steep ravine (or walking up the creek bed) to reach the waterfall...

Intro After reading the post from @Kullaberg63 on his Stevens East Benches route, I immediately put it on my to-do list. Allen's Stevens/Fold route ranks high among my all-time favorite routes, and I was anxious to try the variation. In March I did a spring warm-up trip to scout the Stevens Arch descent into Stevens Canyon and do the normal Stevens/Fold route. Thanks to @Jammer for the helpful Stevens Arch descent beta (to the extent it's possible to describe that). Fast forward a few...

Took advantage of a sunny morning to hike up the Mastodon Trail (off the Chena Hot Springs road outside of Fairbanks) with my son and grandson. Saw sign of moose but saw no moose. Did see a porcupine as we were near the end of our adventure. Trailhead signage Trail starts out winding through tall spruce Trial starts to open up a bit Fuzzy somethings along the trail Lots of new growth along the trail. This area burnt several years ago. Moose sign Some water and old corduroy...

I put on my big boy shoes yesterday and headed to Mount Olympus to see if I could still make it to the top and back down again. I used to do Olympus two to four times a year, but as I've gotten older and my knees, feet and hips have begun to wear down, it has become more difficult for me. Even for the young of mind, body and soul Olympus is a tough hike. It was forecast to reach 85 in the valley yesterday, so I got up early and took advantage of the shade of the mountain so that I...

Yesterday was my 29th wedding anniversary, and to celebrate Sheila and I managed an anniversary hike to the top of Grandeur Peak. At 8299 feet in elevation, Grandeur would be the highest that I have hiked since my knee surgery last October and I was interested to see how the knee would hold up on this one. Wildflowers haven't been that spectacular this year, due to the record warm winter we had here in Salt Lake, but there were some along the trail that kept me busy taking pictures all the...

On May 2 through 7, @futurafree and I canoed from Mineral Bottom to Spanish Bottom on the Green River (and a little of the Colorado). We came up with the plan maybe 2 months before the trip was to begin and were surprised to be able to snag some spots with Tex's to rent a canoe and get a jet boat shuttle. We scheduled for 5 nights, which is a night longer than most people take for this trip. It was perhaps a bit too long, but it made for a very relaxed trip. We only had to canoe at...

It's been six years since I was last on Perkin's Peak, so this past weekend it was time to step up a level beyond the foothills and try something a little more challenging to see how my surgically repaired knee would hold up. I approached Perkin's from Jack's Mountain for the first time. Normally I take in the peak while doing a traverse of Parley's Ridge, or just hike up the west side of the ridge. Also, for the first time, I hiked up the Straight Jack's Mountain Trail instead of my...

This picture has a bit of everything from our breathtaking week in the Grand Canyon - flowers, water, rocks, and sky. Living for a week in the canyon was magical. Day 0 We flew to Phoenix, got fuel in Flagstaff, and stayed at Cameron Trading Post. We were glad that we would approach the park from the east entrance rather than the more crowded and built-up main entrance. Day 1 We checked out the beautiful Navajo art at Cameron Trading Post. We didn't buy the $465,000 rug but had a lot...

Headed up to Limekiln Gulch here in the foothills to check out the historic limekilns that were built by pioneers that settled the Salt Lake Valley. After visiting the kilns, we continued up the gulch to the Shoreline Trail, then followed it down into Dry Canyon. Once we reached the bottom of Dry Canyon, we took a trail up the North Fork of Dry Canyon to see where it went. We hiked maybe 1.3 miles up the north fork of the canyon before turning around and heading back to Dry Canyon, then...

Canyonlands Needles District 4/20/26-4/25/26 Day Zero Horse Canyon is dry so my group made the decision to utilize the 4x4 road into Horse Canyon to cache 70 liters of water at the junction of Trail Fork in Horse Canyon. We rented a jeep from Jenn's Jeep Rentals in Moab and completed the cache in under 3 hours (with written permission from the NPS of course). Day 1 We parked at the Salt Creek Gate near Cave Spring and hiked about 10 miles to our cache. We then lugged our water (10L per...

EDIT: Alright, despite accidently hitting the post button when I didn't mean to, this is finally at a semi-acceptable state. I've been meaning to discuss this trip report for awhile, but never really gotten around to it. But inspired by @Gretchen Millward 's post here, I have decided to push past that and actually talk about what happened. 2023 was a wild year for Southern Utah. That year, a ranger at the Pariah station told me it was like monsoon season had never ended, and I believed...

My family headed out to Antelope Island this past weekend for a short backpacking trip to Split Rock Bay. Split Rock Bay is located on the western side of the island and a bit north of center. It's roughly 4.6 miles from the White Rock Bay Trailhead to the primitive campsites at Split Rock and there is one 600 foot climb to get over the saddle on Elephant Head and the foothills of Frary Peak before dropping down to Split Rock Bay. We had originally planned on going out in March, but rain...

I left the Front Range of Colorado last weekend with the intention of hiking Lower Grand Gulch from the Government Trailhead to the San Juan, then over to Slickhorn and out Slickhorn 1 for an approximately 55 mile loop. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas and the night before I was to drop in Cedar Mesa got snow and a forecast for an unstable pattern. The thought of negotiating snow covered slickrock alone on an unknown trail seemed unwise, so I shifted plans to fit in several...

Trip report for the Beehive Traverse in Capitol Reef National Park from earlier this month. For those interested, I have even more pictures on my blog than what I posted here. Day 1 Since this would be a thru hike, the three of us met at the trailhead with two cars. We left one car at the trailhead we would finish the trip at and all hopped in the other car to drive to the starting trailhead together. We didn’t start hiking the first day until 3pm, which led to a shorter mileage day. We...