Spring green - Raven Canyon

nobody@flickr.com (oldmantravels) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:55:42 -0700

The new leaves of spring catching the morning sun at the bottom of a deep sandstone canyon along the Burr Trail Road. This photo was taken, exiting Raven Canyon.

My wife and I left our home at 4 pm 17 April 2009 and pretty much drove straight through (19 hours) to a 5 tent site, remote camping spot along the east edge of Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. We traveled in our 1994 Toyota four wheel drive pickup with a cab high canopy; a nice mattress bed in the back; and all our travel, hiking, and backpacking gear “roughly organized” and stored in either the back of the pickup or in the extended cab section of the truck.

When I tired, either my wife drove, or if we were both tired, we pulled into a place where we could both catch a little sleep. The pace was steady, persistent, but not rushed. The highlight of the drive down was Utah highway 72 up over the aspen laden high hills between I-70 and the tiny town of Loa. It was spectacular scenery; it had just become light and most important, we had never traveled this nice little section of road before.

Saturday 18 April 2009
We stopped at the Capitol Reef National Park visitors’ center for some information on Cedar Mesa camp and for me to cheerfully purchase my $10 LIFETIME America the Beautiful pass (one of the benefits of being an “oldmantravels”). The lady ranger, who gleefully sold me the pass, smiled when she said, that the pass would expire, when I do.

We stopped often to take photos as we worked our way down the Burr Trail Road south of Notom, Utah to our campsite. We were pleased with what we found. Juniper trees for shade; knock out view of the snow covered Henry Mountains; trailhead to Red Canyon right next to us; and a picnic table; fire pit; and nearby outhouse - - for all the amenities of camping you could want. Most of all it was quiet and uncrowded.

We arrived at camp near mid-day so we ate and organized our camp. I put up our Siltarp so I could sit in my folding camp chair in the shade. My wife loves to sit in the sun and I have always preferred the shade. Soon, we had the camp ready to our liking so we shouldered our day packs, and headed out for a five mile (with side scrambles) hike, up into scenic “Red Canyon”.

A swarm of gnats attacked us at camp, when we returned to camp so we took a short hike across the road until the combination of increased wind and decreased temperatures, removed our tormentors. We slept well in our truck canopy bed that night, though it got so cold that our water bottles in the cab of the truck, froze.

Sunday 19 April 2009
After a great night’s sleep, we fixed breakfast and repacked the truck to a bright sunny, if cool, desert morning. After leaving Cedar Mesa Camp, we turned south and drove along the capitol reef to the intersection of the Burr Trail leading up over the reef and through nice canyon country to Boulder, Utah.

We stopped frequently along this scenic road to take short scrambling hikes to viewpoints, wildflowers, or just for the fun of it through the slickrock country (always with camera at ready).

At the top of the switchback road up to the top of the reef we turned north on a four wheel drive road to visit “Peek-a-boo” rock and walk some of the washes in the area. An ice chest full of cold diet Pepsi, was always handy back at our pickup truck, and appreciated.

We stopped along a short, sweet, steep, narrow canyon along the paved portion of the Burr Trail and I took a fast hike to the headwall, to get a few photos. It was here, that I had my first, of many, “raven” encounters we would have during this trip. The raven became the “colophon, hallmark, and icon” for this road trip.

Before leaving home a good flickr friend of mine (petalouda62) from Belgium, had recommended a book for me. I bought it and saved it to read on this trip, which I did, every chance I got, when we weren’t hiking. The book: Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich. I thought I knew quite a bit about these highly intelligent, often mischievous, and often aloof birds - - but I would find in the book both entertainment and interesting information on these “wolf-birds”.

So deep in this short dead end sandstone canyon, I heard the constant calling, echoing back and forth down the canyon. As soon as I left the canyon and turned to take a few more photos of it - - silently down and out of the canyon, glided the resident raven. It was one of many magic moments on this trip, involving Corvus corax. Thank you Roberta.

We reached highway 12 at Boulder, Utah and drove on to Escalante, where we had a motel room reserved for Sunday and Monday nights (Circle “D”). Robert is the live in manager of the friendly little Escalante, Utah motel, and it is where we always try to stay when in the area.

Dinner at Escalante Outfitters, and a visit to the Escalante visitors’ center, completed our fun second full day of this road trip.

Shale trail on top of Old Snowy

nobody@flickr.com (oldmantravels) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:21:27 -0700

oldmantravels posted a photo:

WHAT AN OUTSTANDING TRAIL. This is the PCT as it starts to drop down off the high point on the high route across Old Snowy Mountain. The large majority of backpackers take the low route across the top of the Packwood Glacier (it is 1/2 mile shorter and 500 feet less elevation gain) BUT for the views and the experience - - the high route is the BEST route. OMT

September 7th & 8th, 2008:
This trip consisted of a short backpacking trip (four miles) up to the intersection of trails: 96 & 86 (from the Snowgrass flats trailhead) into the Goat Rocks Wilderness. Near the trail intersection I set up my tent to use as a "base camp" for two nice day hikes on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.

The first "day hike" from my tent site, was up to Goat Lake and the ribbon water falls of Goat Creek. This is a short easy hike through meadows of wildflowers and whistling marmot. Because of the late snow pack in the Cascade Mountains this year (2008), many of the wildflowers bloomed late and lupine still flourish. The harbinger of fall, the mountain bog gentian are showing up in bloom now.

Though clear skies prevailed, a really strong gusting wind storm rattled my tent late Sunday night.

The second day hike started Monday morning at 7:30 am when I left my tent site with a day pack. I hiked up trail 96 to the Pacific Crest Trail. At the PCT I hiked north and up over the high route of the Pacific Crest Trail, up over Old Snowy Mountain. I hiked north up and down the spine of the ridge until I was just above Elk Pass.

I returned back to my tent in the afternoon, following the low route across the west face of Old Snowy Mountain, that passes just above the Packwood Glacier.

The weather was perfect; the mosquitoes were few; the camp fire soul soothing; and you can't beat the scenery, exercise, and fresh mountain air.

Uploads from oldmantravels, tagged oldmantravelsfavorite250, with geodata

Spring green - Raven Canyon

Shale trail on top of Old Snowy