For my birthday last year, Jason gave me a weekend on the slopes via a cabin rental close to the lifts at Brighton Resort. We had to make the cabin reservation six months in advance and just hope that snow would be there. When our allotted time arrived, fresh powder there was not. With cloudless skies and temperatures in the 30s, Jason and I wasted no energy lamenting that lack of new precipitate but got right to enjoying the surplus of sunshine. The weekend did crush others’ expectations though. Below is the story about how high hopes can sometimes lead to falling on your face unexpectedly and repeatedly.
Before we get into this trip’s elations and disgruntlements though, let me quickly address the virus in the room… aah, COVID. That pointy adversary continues to heighten vacation stress, and it did so on this occasion. I felt like I was getting a sore throat just as we were traveling up the canyon. Luckily, it was only another case of CRVIP (COVID-Related Vacation-Induced Panic). It’s a bizarre world where relief follows when an issue turns out to just be mental illness.
Hopes were high after lessons and before a real run.
As I did not have COVID, and nothing else could impede our rush to the slopes, we flocked unblocked. Jason and I spent the first day boarding by ourselves. My boarding post will soon give you more than enough details on the particulars of those refreshing mountain loops.
That evening, some of my sister’s family joined us. Of the three kids, two would be attempting snowboarding for the first time the following day. They excitedly asked questions about carving that clearly denoted they had unrealistic expectations on how their riding was going to go. I tried to change those expectations to predominantly involve pain, falling, flailing, embarrassment, tipping, and crashing. Yet, they remained unswayed, continuing to envision shredding like Shaun White after a two-hour lesson.
Just a regular first day of boarding.
Not surprisingly, things did not proceed as Whitish as they anticipated the next day, and their enthusiasm waned. Out of the two new boarders, the youngest was willing to entertain the idea of boarding again after her first experience. However, the oldest was overwhelmingly frustrated by his difficulties and lack of progress. He was also cold and soggy. The gloves we loaned him became threadbare and even spawned a hole during the course of the day. How? They’d only been worn a few times. Whatever the cause, leaky gloves aren’t classically considered morale boosters. After his span on the slopes, he was noncommittal about his readiness to try boarding a second time.
There are advantages to being small; this is one of them.
That evening, everyone was fairly lethargic, and some were downright demoralized, but we managed to muster the energy to go out for pizza, get through a game of Mysterium, hold a ping pong tournament, and undertake some spontaneous storytelling. Not too shabby a turnaround for a group that had only just given up its aspirations of buttering the slopes like instant Rice.
How does this happen to gloves in one day?
Although fresh pow was absent from our slope-side weekend, Jason and I altered our hopes to meet reality without significant angst. Some of the others in our party were more reluctant to let go of their overestimations of the outing and their abilities. Still, even those who didn’t achieve powder prowess reached great heights… which they fell from of course. On a closing note, I’m happy to report that the reluctant noob didn’t give up on snowboarding after this excursion and even purchased a season pass for next season.
Jason and I thought the weirdest Christmas we’d ever experience was behind us with 2020’s isolated holidays. We were incorrect. While we knew 2020’s festivities were going to be odd with COVID’s interference and planned accordingly, in 2021 the oddness just hit out of the blue. Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant to trend, was keen on bringing the unusual back. We coped by incorporating less people and more powder into our holiday schemes. This escape plan worked… with one exception.
This turned out to be our last normal Christmas gathering because family members tested positive for COVID the next day.
Just two days before Christmas, we learned my brother had COVID, a nephew on our other side had COVID, and a couple nephews from a different family were exposed and had symptoms that might be COVID. My dad also came down with a cold but tested negative for COVID. As a result of all the above, my family postponed our Christmas gathering, and Jason’s family’s merriments were reduced. Frankly, it was a bit of a mess. However, the outdoors were not down with COVID, so that is where we found our entertainment and our serenity.
Jason and I went snowshoeing on Christmas Eve near Tibble Fork Reservoir in American Fork Canyon with fresh layers of snow underfoot and more falling on our heads. Although the snow was quite heavy and already melting in place, the experience was magical. The families enjoying the reservoir and its nearby sledding hill virtually disappeared as the time for their Christmas Eve plans approached. The mountains silenced and became all ours.
As the mountains emptied on Christmas Eve, our hearts filled.I guess Jason wasn’t quite the only man on the mountain.
Our last-minute Christmas Eve snowshoeing diversion had one downside, it meant we had to finish wrapping presents and straightening our house after returning that evening. We packaged and cleaned speedily and still made our intended dinner of citrus salad right in time to eat at 1:00 AM.
Since family plans were canceled, Jason and I elected to do a hike near Blackridge Reservoir on Christmas afternoon instead. It was windy, muddy, and icy in sections, but we still loved it. I’ll never complain about a Christmas hike. Afterward, we met up with my parents and sisters at a park. With the warmth provided by three portable space heaters, we tolerated the chill and chatted for a couple hours.
The weather wasn’t ideal during our Christmas hike, but it was acceptable.
That evening, Jason and I made Yorkshire pudding and citrus salad for dinner and then played games on Jackbox with some of our family members stuck isolating. This left the tradition of opening our presents to each other very late intact. We started opening around 11:00 PM and finished after midnight. Yes, even with the pandemic irregularities, everything was right in the world.
Soldier Hollow boasts 1,200-foot sliding lanes and is always a good time.
We spent the next afternoon tubing with Jason’s parents and brother at Soldier Hollow. The snow was slippery and fast, and we got unexpected air a couple times. After spending three days outside, we saw no reason to start moderating our habits. We went snowboarding at Solitude the following day, our first time of the season. More on that will come in my dedicated snowboarding post.
While not quite typical, this gathering was at least a gathering.
By New Year’s Eve, some of my extended family had reemerged from their virus-induced separation. We applauded the arrival of 2022 alongside a few of them in our garage with games and good air flow after another day of snowboarding. Confetti cannons and a 1:00 AM silent snowball fight heralded in the New Year.
The Mill Canyon Trail is popular for winter hikes and snowshoeing.
On New Year’s Day, we went snowshoeing with my sister and her husband on the Mill Canyon Trail in American Fork Canyon. Then, the next day, we went snowshoeing again with a brother-in-law and some nieces and nephews up the Pine Hollow Trail.
The Pine Hollow Trail starts at the highest point accessible in the canyon during the winter without a snowmobile.Climb a little over a mile and the Pine Hollow Trail rewards you with a prime meadow for a snowball fight.
When everyone was well again, we let the nieces and nephews choose between a few activities as their Christmas present. After debating, negotiating, and bribing each other, they finally decided on an escape room at Enigma Escape. No one got out. That sounds pitiful, but let me explain… okay, it’s a bit pitiful. As we were too large a group for just one, we had two escape rooms reserved. We split into unbalanced subsets based off the kids’ preferences. This led to an uneven distribution of adult and adolescent brainpower. Jason and I were in the group that did Hexed, a room with a 60% success rate. We almost escaped. If only we had been more observant of one tiny thing… The other group did Hyde, a room with only a 15% success rate. Lots of kids and a 15% chance of success? Doesn’t sound promising, does it? It wasn’t.
Those masks covered the defeat on our faces.
That is the summation of our strange-again holidays. Between the snowshoeing, tubing, hiking, and snowboarding, we spent four days outside, took a three-day break, and then spent three more days outdoors. We escaped people and COVID, but we didn’t manage to escape from an escape room.
Last fall, we traveled down to our usual haunt, Moab. This time, instead of whizzing past everything along the way, we explored the glorious regions in-between. Scrumptious sandy cream fillings should not be skipped.
Southern Utah is spectacular in the fall, but its daylight is short lived. Since Jason and I knew we would have limited sun by the time we neared Moab, we opted to stop on our way into town at Black Dragon Canyon in the San Rafael Swell. Never heard of the San Rafael Swell? Before this outing, I was familiar with the name but not the experience. Now I know it is a dome of shale, limestone, and sandstone that was thrust up 40-60 million years ago and later eroded into countless gulches, gullies, hoodoos, badlands, and buttes. As implied, we had never been to the Swell in all its 60 million years until that autumn afternoon.
Some of the anthropomorphic pictographs in Black Dragon Canyon are more than six feet tall.
Now that we’ve established what the San Rafael Swell is, let’s confront the Black Dragon. Yes, there’s a place called Black Dragon Canyon. As we are nerds, I’m going to assume you don’t need an explanation as to why this particular spot held greater appeal for us, and I’ll just move on. A 4×4 trail runs through the canyon. Along it, some rather remarkable scarlet pictographs can be accessed half a mile up via vehicle or foot. In the 1940s, someone chalked a group of them to transform them into a dragon (a damaging practice), hence the canyon’s moniker. These pictographs were created in Barrier Canyon Style, a category of rock art found primarily in eastern Utah mostly originating 1,500 to 7,000 years ago. Near these bright and larger-than-life figures, a wall of Freemont petroglyphs can also be seen dating back 1,000-1,500 years.
This pictograph panel was chalked in the 1940s in the outline of a dragon, but it is in fact a group of two humans and three animals.
As we were examining these impressive panels, a hiker wandered by and told us of a cave at the top of some nearby scree piles amassed at the base of a cliff. Pass up a cave? Not Jason. We didn’t know if we would be able to find the entrance or, if we could, what we would find inside. It took some scrambling and exploring, but we located one of its small openings. The Dragon’s Lair (the cave’s unofficial name) was formed when the mouth of a deep alcove collapsed. Its cramped entries are at odds with its contents. It’s a spacious, slanted, dust-filled cavern that angles down as a winding trail runs through it. Although I am not often a cave fan, I’d say this one is worth the clamber and search required to find it.
Here, Jason is pointing to the Dragon’s Lair’s openings. Can’t see them? Exactly.
The Dragon’s Lair proved quite engrossing, and nightfall crept up on us quickly. Hence, we turned around at a popular stopping point half a mile from the other entrance into the canyon. Since this trail is mostly flat, we were able to move speedily and only had to use headlamps for about 0.5 miles of our return. In the end, we ended up hiking 5.4 miles.
If you too would like to visit the Black Dragon and its lair, turn off 1-70 at mile marker 147 and take the gated dirt road. You’ll do a quick left, and then travel about another mile to the start of the canyon. If you have a high-clearance vehicle, you can drive through the canyon, but why bother with tires when you have perfectly adequate feet?
Our endpoint on the Lathrop Trail was an overlook that provided astonishing views and some tummy butterflies.
With the limited supply of daylight considered, we debated the best hike for our next day. We chose the first half of the Lathrop Trail in the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park. The Lathrop Trail is passed by all visitors heading into Island in the Sky shortly after the visitor center, yet it doesn’t seem to interest many of them. We saw one or two groups our entire journey. For that perfect combo of a people shortage and a scenery excess, my feet are ever at the ready! Why does this path not get more foot action? I have no idea. Its panoramas are as delicious as anywhere else in the park.
Since the weather was practically perfect, pants and an on-and-off-again jacket were all I needed to stay warm as we undertook the Lathrop Trail.
If you are ambitious, Lathrop can be taken for a 10-mile-roundtrip trek to the White Rim Road. If you’re very ambitious, it can be taken 10 miles one way to the Colorado River. It is the only path in Island in the Sky that reaches the river. However, we were not very ambitious or even ambitious. We opted to just walk five miles to a stunning and daunting viewpoint overlooking the White Rim and Canyonlands’ desolate expanse. The section we completed was relatively flat. Had we continued, we would have had to navigate a scree field that drops 900 feet in less than one mile. Yes, we picked our turnaround point prudently… due solely to the limited daylight of course.
The Lathrop Trail is not for those particularly adverse to heights. I circled the point where the path crosses this corner to illustrate that fact.
Beyond the delight of being on top of the world with a matchless, barren paradise spread out beneath me, I loved this path because of the varied terrain it wanders through. It starts in rolling grasslands called Grays Pasture and then zigzags through a city of Navajo sandstone domes. Eventually, it passes through gravelly scrub and sand on its way to sheer sandstone cliffsides textured by rock rubble. Grays Pasture is the widest part of the flat mesa top on which Island in the Sky sits, reaching a width of about two miles. Gazing around this meadow, you’d never guess you were 1,000 feet up from the canyons on both sides, but you certainly appreciate that fact when you hit the canyon’s rim.
Grand indeed!
After Lathrop, we didn’t have time for another hike, but we decided to do the two miles to the Grand View Point and back anyway. We had to navigate most of our return in the dark, which was generally easy with our headlamps and the giant cairns along the trail. We did get confounded in a couple spots but managed to not remain permanently lost or stumble off a cliff.
It wouldn’t have been a Sabin hike without some strolling in the dark.
On our way home the next day, we stopped at two spots. The first, Crystal Geyser, wasn’t far off the beaten path, but we had never bothered to take the 15-minute drive from I-70 to see it. Crystal Geyser is the strange result of natural and manmade endeavors. Unlike most geysers, it is powered by cold not hot water; steam is not involved but pressurized CO2 gas. Crystal Geyser is one of the most famous of these rare cold-water geysers and was created in 1935 when oil seekers drilling an exploratory well hit an aquifer saturated with high quantities of CO2 2,600 feet down. The geyser typically erupts every 8 to 27 hours. Sadly, we didn’t witness an eruption, but I don’t regret deviating anyway. It was uncanny to observe what seemed like a natural wonder coming from a pipe in the ground. You could hear the same whooshing activity in its vents as the geysers in Yellowstone. Likewise, it had a similar sulfur smell and series of travertine pools surrounding it. Occasionally, when humans interfere with Mother Earth the results can be beautiful… and apparently explosive.
At Crystal Geyser, nature and industry mix in strange but striking ways.
Next, we paused to check out Spirit Arch in the same section of the San Rafael Swell we visited on our way down. Unlike the path through Black Dragon Canyon, the trail to Spirit Arch is solely for hiking. It goes down two short ravines in a Y shape, Petroglyph Canyon and Double Arch Canyon. One has, as you’d expect, two arches collectively called Spirit Arch. That gully ends in an alcove with abrupt stone walls on three sides. Spirit Arch can be seen high in one of these. While the arches are nifty, they are too far away to examine closely. In my opinion, they are overshadowed by the understated exquisiteness of the canyon’s striped sandstone and graceful curved walls.
Spirit Arch is actually two arches.
The petroglyphs in Petroglyph Canyon were not easy to locate even with the blog posts we found about finding them. They are not at the very end of the canyon as some online information suggests but near the end on the right side. The short side trail that leads to them doesn’t look like a real path, so it is easy to miss. They aren’t large but are quite distinct. What I thought most interesting about this panel were the lines of tracks the artist took the time to carve for each animal and human depicted. This two-canyon trail was two miles of easy hiking, but it took us about two hours to complete because we stopped often to appreciate our surroundings. We didn’t see anyone else the entire time.
We’ve wisely realized that Moab shouldn’t be our only destination when we go to Moab. There is so much to experience and appreciate between here and there. I’d wager we will find more enroute distractions with each visit whether there be dragons, wild horses, or sailor’s heads.
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