We all have places that make our hearts expand and our minds calm. Favorite places that we visit and re-visit like a reliable best friend. Sometimes, however, you can be a hundred steps onto a trail you’ve never been on before and realize it is a home you never knew you had. This is what it feels like walking and fishing the Upper Deschutes River. Running parallel to the Cascade Lakes National Scenic Byway, the Upper Deschutes has multiple access …
Category: Things to do outside
With less than sixty seconds of research last weekend we decided to visit Chush Falls: a 200’ waterfall with an easy trail and possible fishing on Whychus Creek along the way. In a serious rookie move, we asked google maps for directions which most definitely were wrong. By the time we realized this we were well out of cell coverage and couldn’t determine which forest road might take us to the trailhead. But where we were looked pretty, so we …
My previous post on Hams Fork is by far the most popular on this blog so far. I have no data on whether what I wrote was useful, but it made me think about how odd the valley was last time we went, and so we took another trip there last weekend. As we rolled down Hams Fork Road there were multiple wilderness fire camps, large highway signs about fire activity and road closures. We passed fields of tents, fire …
It is the nature of exploration that not every adventure will be the best adventure. Last weekend we drove out to the West Fork of the Duchesne River. We’d heard rumors that this was a worthy river and fishing great, and just our style. It’s a longish drive on pavement and the dirt road is rough, but we figured it was day-trippable from the city. For the first few miles we drove on a forest service road that goes through …
Spending 10 days on the road, camping, fishing, mountain biking and trail running might sound like a pretty fun vacation (and it is!!), but as I try not to scratch the bug bites on my arms, and scabs are starting to itch as scratches heal, I realize this style of vacation is not for everyone. Bugs. I was outside for most of 10 days and my arms, legs, hands, back, belly, head and ears are covered with an assortment of …
We usually stay home on 3-day weekends to avoid the crowds, but this Memorial Day we were jonesing to sleep outside and figured we have a whole lot of experience finding solitude in Utah… How to Avoid Crowds on a Holiday Weekend Take a leisurely departure on Saturday morning. Most people funnel out of town on Friday afternoon, and where we live, this includes not just cars, but also RVs, trucks, and really big trucks pulling trailers, really big trailers, …
If you work at a job, in an office, you know the general refrain about Mondays being the worst days. And if you had an especially excellent weekend doing your favorite things, it is rarely easy to get back to work. When you spend your weekend doing all of your favorite things, how long does it take for that glow-y feeling to wear off once you sit down at your desk on Monday morning? I’m sure it depends on the …
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote How to Adventure. Here are a few reasons why… Stars: If you are far enough away from a city on a moonless night, tucked into a canyon or perched on a mesa, you will not believe how many stars there are. So many, it can be hard to find the few constellations you might know, and space doesn’t look vast and empty at all, but cluttered with tiny dots of light. Time: When …
What do you think of when you think about Wyoming? Yellowstone, the Tetons, Jackson Hole, maybe the Wind Rivers? All of those exist in the western half of the state. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine the eastern side of Wyoming is nothing but a flat, icy blast of desolation. But what about the rest of that western half? Mountain biking (and camping) on Teton Pass is huge amounts of fun. The Tetons, Yellowstone and Wind Rivers are …
Many years ago, when I lived in San Francisco, someone asked me how to go camping. They had never been. I had never met a person who had not camped, had no memory of being a person who didn’t camp, and it was hard to know where to start. That was back when I still camped in campgrounds, where they generously provide tables, toilets and water. Sometimes, you can even make a reservation to make sure your spot will be …
Inaction gives me a certain amount of anxiety. I like to be in motion, changing things up, doing things, moving. Winter seems deliberately made for stasis, and in case you want to fight it, here’s some snow, and more snow, and ice, and mud and maybe some more snow. You have to shovel out, scrape off the ice, wear layers, bundle up, armor your feet, cover your ears and hunker down. Even my tires are deflating in the cold. It …
We all know people who view the world in a very black and white fashion, but I am all about gray. I once infuriated an Austrian who I went wine tasting with. “Do you love it?” he would ask. “I don’t love it, but it is interesting.” “So you hate it,” he said. “No, I don’t hate it.” He didn’t understand the vast possibilities of the middle. I spend a lot less time loving winter than I do the other seasons, but …
A couple of years ago, for a couple of years, we lived in the little town of Moab, Utah. When people ask me if I miss living in Moab, the thing I immediately think of is being in awe of the landscape and grateful to be in it, every single day. We camped less, because our backyard was as good as most places we camped. Of course, the mountain biking was amazing, too. But mostly it was the beauty, the light, …