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Viva la Vernal

When I was a kid a trip to “Dinosaurland” in Vernal was about the most exciting prospect for a Saturday imaginable. The sculpted dinosaur replicas at the museum there thrilled me as much as if they were originals.

Last weekend we decided to recapture some of that childhood dino magic with a group camping outing to Eastern Utah. Our friends the Bresees, Rowleys, and Ashleys all joined us. Now “camping” in this case shouldn’t conjure up images of a lean-to rigged together in some desolate wilderness 40 miles from anything. No, we weren’t exactly roughing it. We stayed at the Vernal KAO; the Rowleys brought their RV and Jason and I took advantage of the campground’s “cottage.” The cottage was an upgrade from the cabin that the Bresees and Ashleys shared because this baby had a small kitchen area and, most importantly, its own tiny bathroom. The plumbing alone convinced me that the extra cash for the cottage was a worthwhile investment even if that bathroom was so little I could only fit one of my butt cheeks in at a time. With a private restroom, microwave, fridge, stovetop, and TV, our accommodations may sound rather plush but, in my opinion, our plywood bed was practically worse than sleeping on the ground and definitely uncomfortable enough to justify that liberal camping classification.

Our cottage was basically a trailer. Its wheels were visible through the lattice around its base.
The stones of Red Fleet were stamped with 200 million-year-old remnants of a dino block party.

Our trip was packed with excitement, education, and educational excitement but also chaotic disorganization. Our group was a bit too large and kid-laden for schedules and rendezvous to really work, which made our museum expeditions a little tricky. Still, unraveling the ancient mysteries of this corner of Utah kept me generally satisfied with my situation even if our crew had to make more bathroom stops than a bus full of prune eating contest winners.

Impersonating our prehistoric predecessors, including the Utahraptor, required lots of teeth and vicious fingers.

Friday night we went to Red Fleet Reservoir with the Bresees to check out the trackway: hundreds of dinosaur footprints embedded in the sandstone near one area of the shore. Hunting around on the hillside for tracks was quite entertaining. It made me feel a bit like a paleontologist detective. (Note to self: you should never consider a career in paleontology. You can’t even tell the difference between a rock and an old acorn.)

I'm a squeaker so trying to be a squawker wasn't too difficult for me.
The quarry wall at Dinosaur National Monument was so unbelievably packed with fossils that it was hard for my brain to process it as reality.

Our Saturday was also filled with prehistoric intrigue. We started out at the Utah Field House of Natural History Museum. This is the place that dazzled me when I was a youngster. The museum had moved into a much nicer and bigger building since I’d last been there but they still had their life-size dino replicas outside, much to the delight of my youngish heart.

Here's most of our bulky group plus a bulky stegosaurus.

Next we were off to Dinosaur National Monument to check out their quarry wall filled with over 1,600 bones from hundreds of dinosaurs. Awesome! A hot hike on the Fossil Discovery Trail later we were more than ready to hit the murky waters of Steinaker Reservoir. Steinaker is located just a few miles out of Vernal and is touted for its nice sandy beaches. Despite optimistic accounts, we found more mud than sand on those shores but that didn’t stop us from jumping in. The kids quickly transformed themselves into filthy creatures and the adults willingly waded through sticky muck in order to hold cannonball contests off a floating platform. After all, a little lake slime never hurt anyone, at least not anyone outside a B-grade horror movie.

The kids were rather happy with the quantity of high quality mud they found at the reservoir.
The two Rowley boys, Milo and Silas, wasted no time sheathing themselves in a protective mud coating at Steinaker.

That evening our “camping” status compelled us to roast wieners and marshmallows around a roaring fire. Dang that camping for having such stringent terms of service! It was a yummy dinner and one of the highlights of the weekend. Chatting around flames + combusting marshmallows = one of life’s essential pyro delights.

No one can resist a good wiener roast, except maybe a self-preserving stick.

Hooray for Vernal! After a twenty-year absence, my dino buddies and I were able to get reacquainted. Our weekend was occasionally eye roll worthy but all in all we had a pretty great stay. In another 200 million years we’ll have to do it again.

Rachel August 24, 2012 1 Comment

My Timptation

About 7 weeks ago I messed my bad ankle up playing laser tag. Whether I undid my surgeon’s tendon reconstruction handiwork with this booboo remains unknown. I got an MRI on it this morning though so hopefully I will have some answers on that front soon. (I’m crossing my fingers for the “right” answers.) But that will be the subject of another post’s ramblings.

In the meantime I got my doctor’s approval to undertake a feat that few attempt even when they aren’t one ankle shy of cooperative legs.

In between two vertical challenges a sprawling meadow gave our legs a little break.

Mount Timpanogos is not Utah’s highest peak, it’s not even on the top-ten list for the state, but it dominates the Utah Valley landscape with its 11,749 feet and is one of the most popular climbs around. We made plans to conquer the 16 mile trek to its top with our friends Adam and Abigail a couple of months ago but then my ankle injury left the feasibility of this conquest a little uncertain. Finally, last week my doc said if I wore my brace I should be able to scale this behemoth unscathed thus we decided to still go for it. Of course, what the doctor exactly said was that my ankle would be very sore but taking on this twelve-hour hike wouldn’t do any permanent damage so he had no medical objections to the activity. Since I am pretty much the most stubborn person alive, pain but not permanent injury was good enough of an endorsement for me.

The trail up Timp travels through diverse vistas. Each region is so different it's hard to conceptualize the entire area as a unit.
When we stopped at the saddle for a snack break Adam immediately fell asleep and started snoring.

The last time I hiked Timp I was a teenager; I’m not going to confess how long ago that was. Adam too hadn’t traversed this trail since he was an adolescent and Jason, despite his years as a scouter, had never made it all the way to the top. Since the thought of ascending Timp hadn’t ever even occurred to Abigail, we were all kind of green to the experience and oblivious to the suffering we were about to endure.

The blooming wildflowers were everywhere. They painted the landscape with stripes of color.
The climb from the saddle to the peak was pretty rough. Wobbly rocks and dizzying heights made the going slow.

We began our climb around 7 AM to give ourselves plenty of time to get up and back down the mountain before it got dark, which was wise because construction on the trailhead parking lot forced us to park near another connecting trail instead and hike in nearly a mile to get to the actual start of the trail. We ended up doing nearly 2 more miles of climbing than we had anticipated; that’s over 17 miles in total for those of you who can’t count.

The wedge-shaped peak looked intimidatingly severe even from the saddle.
This ugly shack marks the top of Timp. It may not be much to look at but the view from it sure was.

The scenery along the Timpooneke trail is beautiful and constantly changing. First you travel through thick growths of pines and aspens with the occasional waterfall offering you its flowing chatter until you end up in a boulder-strewn grassland. Then, a sharp climb through pine covered precipices later, you find yourself in a stretching alpine meadow full of brilliantly colored wildflowers with the starkness of the triangular peak looming in the background. Once you leave those blossoms below the landscape becomes harsh. From the saddle up the terrain is nothing but rock. With lots of loose stones and over 1000 feet of vertical gain that last ascent is a bugger.

The panoramas from the ridge were spectacular and otherworldly.
We crossed paths with a herd of mountain goats; we counted over 40 in total. A few of them let us approach surprisingly close.

The weather during our trek was perfect. A nice breeze and some afternoon cloud cover kept us pleasantly cool for the most part. Mother Nature was in a good mood and her hillsides of vibrant blooms, which are apparently prettiest this time of year, seemed to echo that cheery humor.

The steps to the stony summit seemed never-ending.
The trail passed a few mossy waterfalls as they gracefully cascaded toward the valley bottom.

How did our group and my ankle fare? I’d say overall things went rather well. All of us made it to the top and that counts for a lot. I think Adam and Abigail got a bit more from this hike than they were bargaining for though. Adam, who proudly admits that he hasn’t exercised in years, struggled a little on the steep slopes from the saddle to the peak. He lagged behind us on the way back too and was so exhausted he actually fell asleep on the side of the trail when he stopped to rest for a minute. Luckily, Jason randomly decided to backtrack to find him right about then or we may have tramped all the way to the bottom without realizing that Adam was snoring in a grassy patch hours from finishing his descent. Abigail didn’t close her eyes unexpectedly mid-mountain but I don’t think she was the happiest of campers the last few hours of our expedition; she just wanted to be done. I guess when you’ve never hiked that far before you don’t realize that throbbing swollen feet, achy knees, and utter fatigue are the price you must pay to see your world from an extraordinary perspective and obtain some bragging rights. As for my ankle, I was proud of it. It gave me grief the last few miles and its aggravation didn’t subside when the trail ended but, since I was expecting more resistance, I was pleased with it all things considered.

Jason, as always, was a trooper. He didn't whine even though his backpack was hurting him and left big welts on his back.

Both Jason and I are glad we trudged into the wilderness. Achieving that mountaintop goal was a highly satisfying and breathtaking experience. I’m not sure Adam and Abigail feel quite as enthusiastic about their accomplishment but I’d like to think that with time, after the torturous aspects of our adventure have been forgotten, they’ll realize how beautiful the slopes and valleys they were so eager to leave behind actually were and decide that the misery of their extreme workout was worth the chance to view one of nature’s unaltered masterpieces.

Rachel August 15, 2012 No Comments

For the Love of Lasers!

I thought I was done writing and complaining about my warped ankle. My surgery was nearly 4 years ago and the condition of my tendon had stabilized. Leftie wasn’t 100% but it was doing well enough. I could handle its occasional crabbiness and I thought I knew what to expect from here on out. That was until a little rock changed everything.

We had 30 people in our group. That's plenty of targets.

Jason planned another fantastic laser tag party up Provo Canyon for my birthday this year. Thirty friends joined us for this event. You can’t get much better than a bunch of adults running willy-nilly through a dark park wearing bizarre headgear and brandishing plastic weapons like they were Rambo.

The guys from Frontline did a great job keeping our group engaged in the game.
The Timpsons tagged me more times than I care to mention.

About 30 minutes into our 3 hours of play my perfect party turned tender. I was sprinting across a field of grass when I hit a hidden rock just right and rolled my bad ankle. I knew the instant it happened that I had done some serious damage and that I wouldn’t be dashing around the rest of the night. Although it hurt to put any weight on it, I wasn’t going to sit in the pavilion with my foot up while my friends got to dodge each other in the bushes. No, I would enjoy my party if it killed me.

Each game we played had it's own objective and rules. The evening wasn't just a shooting free-for-all. Here we are listening to our next round of instructions.
Drew and I demonstrated the basics of a sibling vs. sibling battle for everyone.

Despite my perseverance, as gimpy as I was I was next to useless to my teammates. I moved as fast as my lopsided gait would carry me but it wasn’t fast enough to avoid being spotted and targeted over and over. Sorry Team Alpha, I wasn’t much of a leader; it’s hard to lead when you can’t even follow.

This is what my ankle looked like when I got home from the party. And yes, its pain matched its appearance.

By the time I got home my ankle was severely swollen and throbbing. It looked like I was smuggling a golf ball under my skin. The next morning I reluctantly pulled out my box of ankle gear and dusted off my crutches. Plenty of bad memories were resurrected by that lot.

Just another unpleasant view of my ankle following the festivities.

I’m not much of one for giving my body a rest but I have made some effort to at least put my ankle up and ice it once in a while during the last week. The swelling has gone down considerably but now the bruising makes it look like I was the victim of a Leprechaun assault.

Four days after my injury the swelling had receded but the bruising was just getting started. It actually looks much worse now.

I am no stranger to ankle pain. Over a decade of tendon trouble has made me as tough as it has made my ankle weak. So while a sprain is inconvenient, especially when it pretty much ruined my own birthday party, my chief worry in all of this is isn’t my current discomfort but the possibility that I might have re-torn my tendon. A peroneal tendon tear feels like a bad sprain, a bad sprain that never heals. I could have a severely sprained ankle or a slashed tendon, the symptoms are the same. In a few weeks if things aren’t feeling better then I guess I will be heading in for another MRI. I can’t tell you how much the prospect of having that awful surgery again makes me want to go hit my head repeatedly against a wall. It took me a couple years to fully recover last time and I’d like to repeat the experience about as much as I’d like to go bodysurfing on asphalt naked.

On a lighter note, a big thank you to all the friends and family that joined me for my birthday celebration gone awry. It was nice being shot by you as I hobbled around in misery. To the birthday girl go the foils!

Rachel July 9, 2012 1 Comment
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