Trail Pictures

South Cedar Ridge

Canyon

South Cedar Ridge

The river

The river

South Cedar Ridge

DSC00873

Flowers?

Salt Lake from Great

Western Trail

Layton

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Where I work

South Cedar Ridge Canyon

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Well, on the long Memorial Day weekend of 26 May 07, I had a tough time deciding what to do.

Tracy was going to be out of town and couldn't find anyone else to go backpacking with me.

The snow was still too deep in the mountains.  The weather was already too hot in the

southern canyons.  And I didn't feel like spring hiking in the grizzly country of Yellowstone by

myself.  So I didn't know where to go.  I finally settled in South Cedar Ridge Canyon (Google

Map) about halfway between Salina and Richfield in the Fishlake National Forest.  I figured this

was halfway between the heat of the south and the snow of the north, so it would be a good

compromise.  I got to the trail on Saturday morning, and there was no one else there...this was

a good start.  But then I immediately had to cross the snow melt swollen river.  But it wasn't too

bad...yet.  The trail was flat, and that was nice.  But the canyon was pretty uninteresting,

consisting primarily of pinon and juniper trees.  I learned that those trees irritate me the most.

Typically in the desert when you don't have any shade, it means that you can at least see

forever.  Or in the woods, when you can't see far, at least you have shade.  Pinon and juniper

trees, however, are like the worst of both worlds: too short for shade, but too tall for views.  So

I was hot.  But the heat was broken up by LOTS of river crossings.  I hiked in 3 miles and

crossed the river 14 times.  And remember it was typically about 2 feet deep, which meant I

was getting wet.  Well, eventually the sky started to cloud up and I was worried that if it rained

the river would swell a lot more, and I would never be able to make it out.  After 3 miles I was

only about halfway up, and I had already made 14 crossings.  I didn't feel good about.  Not

only that, in that 3 miles I hadn't found one decent campsite, so I didn't know how far I would

have to go for a campsite, either.  So I chickened out and turned around.  I wasn't really

enjoying the views or heat of the hike, anyway.  I made it back to the truck, and there still

wasn't anybody out there.  I did find two geocaches out there, and that was cool.  I even found

one of them with no GPS signal...that was a first for me.  After getting back to the truck, I

decided t find a trail in the mountains and just deal with the snow.  So I drove up through the

mountains west of Price.  There were some nice mountains back in there, but the requisite

Memorial Day family camp out rednecks had already overrun everything.  I eventually headed

back home is disgust.  But I woke up Sunday morning and said, screw it, I'm heading to the

Uintas, screw the snow and the people.  I got two miles down the road and my check engine

light came on.  Well, my plan called for driving four hours, an hour of which would be on a dirt

road.  I didn't feel good about doing that by myself when my truck might die on me.  So I turned

around to wait for something to open so I could figure out what was wrong with my truck.  But

this was a Sunday in Mormon country, and Memorial Day weekend on top of that, so by 1 pm I

realized nothing was going to open.  So I headed up to the Great Western Trail on the edge of

town to dayhike it some.  I was actually pleasantly surprised.  The trail was nicer than I

expected, and there weren't many people around.  I found another geocache, and just enjoyed

the sunset.  I went back home, spent that night in the emergency room (don't worry, I didn't

die), and then spent Memorial Day trying to recover from my crappy weekend.  So, what did I

learn?  Stick to Yellowstone on Memorial Day.  The northern end is usually snow free, and

there aren't crowds in the backcountry.