How The West Was Spun

Shingle Creek Trail Ride

One of the things D and I wanted to do when we got the horses was use them to explore back country areas in Utah.  To that end, our friend Jane found us a great book called The Back Country Horseman's Guide and we have been using that to help plan our little jaunts to new trails throughout Utah.  We've ridden several of the trails already in the book but we hadn't been to any of the ones up in the high Uinta Mountains. 

This weekend, we were on tap to go with Pam, John and Daniel (and respective horses) up to the Mirror Lake area, where we were going to explore the Shingle Creek trail.  We drove up through Park City and through Kamas.  The temperature was perfect (upper 60s) when we got out of the truck and got the horses tacked up for the trail ride.  The trail itself follows Shingle Creek up through the woods from a starting elevation of 7660 to just under 9700 feet, so after we went through the metal stock gate, the trail immediately began a gradual climb up through groves of aspen and pines.

The stream is still running fairly swiftly through the area, and there are signs of beaver activity and dams all along the waterway. 

The guidebook we've got lists some of the hazards of the trail: There is a wooden bridge crossing on the first part of the trail and there is "one section of the trail that is steep and has a steep drop-off".  Yes - check - both of those things.  However, the author downplayed the fact that long stretches of this trail are rock - both loose rock and large sections where the horses have to walk on rock which is cut in steps.  Following Hap up the trail, Digger and I could watch the sparks flying off her shoes where she was nicking the edges of the rocks.  The middle section of the trail (after you cross the creek the second time) sloped sharply upwards along the face of one of the canyons, and the narrow trail (with drop off) is nothing but scree rock where the pieces slide down under your feet.

After we successfully navigated that, we alternated between hard-packed dirt trail sections through the woods, and areas which were littered with rocks which the horses had to carefully pick their way through and pay extra attention to their footing. This is a shot looking across the creek gorge after we had made the climb up about two-thirds of the way towards the top.

We were about a mile away from the lake (our final destination) at the head of the creek when Pam happened to glance up at the sky through the trees and remarked "Gee, I don't like the looks of that cloud", and pointed out a large dark gray cloud mass that was gathering above us.  We stopped to take a look at the map and the GPS, and just about then, we heard the first thunder.

Getting stuck on the mountain in a summer thunderstorm in the Uinta's is NOT a safe place to be, so we made the decision to wolf down some lunch and turn the group around and head for home, knowing we would have to navigate all that rock again on the downhill, and now it would be wet from the rain.  As soon as we had finished lunch and started to get going back to the trailhead, it began to rain - we all got rain gear on - and surprisingly, although it continued to thunder above us and rain steadily, it wasn't raining too hard and the horses were staying calm enough we decided to just keep on going.  We put Hap (our pace car) in the lead and sent her ahead with the rest of us just keeping up and letting her set a nice steady (but not foolhardy) brisk pace.

She and D led the crew down off that mountain, picking her way carefully back through all the scree and the several creek crossings.  Pam and Jazz followed her, and we did luck out and get a break from the rain when we paused to let the horses catch their breath after the worst of the rocky downhill sections.

Daniel and John brought up the rear, keeping an eye on the two youngsters (Jazz and Digger).  Daniel had been kind enough to let me wear his extra rain jacket - I made the decision that I wanted to take my long lead line (and was glad I did because I had to work Digg over some of the scarier obstacles with it) but not rain gear - but he didn't seem to be too bothered by the storm either.

When we got back to the parking lot, the rain was just barely drizzling, although the temperature had dropped to about 55 degrees and there was a wind up.  We got the crew untacked and decided we'd go back down the road to look at a few other trailheads.  Once on the road, we ran into the center of the storm, complete with pounding rain and hail, and we all decided we were really happy we had managed to get down off the mountain in just a little light rain.  There are several other trails which we understood from one of the other riders we ran into in the area, most of which are less technically challenging.  So, we have plans to go back to the area after our Ireland adventure and do a bit more exploring.

Digg says he's up for that.

All for now....

Wyoming Trip - Part Three

Late Saturday afternoon, we arrived back at the ranch for a little "down time".  The horses were hot and tired from the ride; Happy spent her time yawning while we were trying to get them un-tacked and into the trailer.  However, when we got back, there was another, much larger stock trailer parked next to the corral/barn area, and we saw a small group of horses out grazing in the sagebrush.  Well!  Happy does not particularly care for "intruders" into her area, and while Digger gave them two glances and snorted once before he got down to the business of rolling in the dirt, Happy was now on guard.

A little while later, a second large trailer pulled in with more horses and mules.  There were 14 in total and they roamed the sagebrush/pasture that surrounded the cabins while Happy tried to take inventory and keep everyone organized from the confines of her corral.  After D and I cleaned up a bit, we went back down to check on her and Digger.  There was about half the group milling around the corral, and one of the mares in the group was obviously in heat, doing a little dance and flirting with Digg. He tried to wander closer to figure out what she was trying to tell him, but Hap laid her ears back, squealed and drove the other mare off through the corral fence, and then turned and snapped at Digg, who sort of shrugged and wandered off to look for any stray piece of hay that might have blown into the corral.

After dinner, when D and I were sure that Hap had the little band under her watchful eye, we decided to take a drive up the Hoback River valley towards Yellowstone and Jackson Hole.  The road here follows the stream northward and as it travels, the walls of dark gray rock rose up to follow the river, which looks like something out of a Robert Redford film.  Lovely late summer afternoon golden sunlight sparkles off clear water, which shimmers and bubbles over the rounded river rocks in grays and moss greens and browns. Really a lovely area and lots and lots of small campgrounds along the way.  We stopped at one to shoot some pictures of the valley walls.

We decided to take a tour out one of the gravel roads with access to the Granite Creek campground.  We passed a small hand-lettered sign on the way which read "Warning: Sled Dogs" - not something you see very often.  Granite Creek is almost the size of the Hoback, but feeds into it near the town of Hoback itself.  There are also a number of campgrounds spread out along the creek, and at the far end, there is a set of hot springs.

A lovely end to the weekend's exploring and a nice break from the summer heat of the valley.  The horses did very well trailering back home and we'd be glad to re-visit the area again.  There were a ton of trails to pick from and I'm betting most of them would result in beautiful vistas.  This is a great little area - not too commercialized/touristy, but close enough that you could go up to Yellowstone for the day if you had more than a long weekend booked at the rental.

We put it on the list for a return visit.

All for now.....

Wyoming Trip - Part 2

Saturday a.m. was beautifully sunny and cool (we wore sweatshirts in the morning while we drank our coffee).  We had studied the set of wonderful maps we had ordered from the local Ranger District office and had several local choices for our day's ride.  We finally decided we would like to explore the Fisherman's Creek area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest land.  The area is easily accessed via a dirt road about 15 minutes to the west and slightly north of where we were staying.

We loaded up the crew and got going.  We found a great shaded location to pull off the road near the confluence of several trails.  Digger was thrilled to get going. (He is such a boy - he can pee absolutely anywhere...and does.)

The trail we chose began in the shaded area where we parked and wound down into the north fork of the Fisherman's Creek, where cold water bubbled over smooth, rounded river rocks.  Although this trail was also used by ATV's, we only ran into one ATV on our way out on the trail.  After crossing the creek, the trail wound up through alpine meadows filled with late summer flowers, following the meanderings of the creek in and out of sunny glades and shade-filled glens while the smell of all the pine trees filled the air as the temperatures warmed up.

Just in the distance, you can see the Gros Ventre range of the Tetons.  There was still some snow visible in the deeper crevices of the slopes.  We didn't run into any other horses, but Digger did get surprised by a group of cows sleeping in the shade of a copse of aspen and pines.  (He is not very cowy - we are gonna work on that.)  After we got him calmed down, I got off and we moved the cows out in front of us for a bit.  Nothing too quick or agitating, as we realized there was a fairly large (albeit seemingly pretty mellow) black Angus bull bedded down with his cow harem. Digg and I discussed the fact that we were not going to irritate the bull, if we could help it - mostly because I felt fairly sure he could outrun me if the bull got really pissed.

We stopped for lunch after crossing the creek a final time, and sat on some downed trees to eat while the horses grazed for a bit.  With the higher elevation and sitting in the shade, it was really very pleasant and not too buggy.

On the way back to the trailer, we did encounter more ATV'ers, but all of them were very polite and stopped or slowed down so we could move the horses from the trail, before they went slowly by us.  We only saw two groups on the way back, and the horses both did just fine with the vehicles.  Apparently ATV's are less scary than cows in Digger's world, despite the fact that he lives next door to a cow here at home.

We were glad to get back to the trailer as the day had warmed up quite a bit and we were ready for some cold drinks and to put our feet up for a while.  Tomorrow, the final tidbits from our driving tour before we headed back to SLC.

All for now....

Wyoming Trip - July 2006

Friday a.m., we got up bright and early to beat the heat and got the horses' gear together for a long weekend trip into Wyoming.  Temps were predicted in the low 100s here in the SLC valley, so anything sounded better than that. We headed out to the north, with our final destination a 2000-acre ranch just south of the small town of Bondurant, which is about a 15-20 minute drive south of the Jackson Hole area in Wyoming.  The place we were staying is a working cattle ranch with two "cabins" (one of which sleeps 9) on the property.

Both of the buildings are log structures.  They sit up on a rise overlooking a valley filled with sagebrush, through which a stream meanders.  Here's our little cabin, which is nestled in a group of aspen trees.

And standing on the porch in the early mornings, we were able to watch the cattle come in to drink at the creek.  About a mile from here, there is an elk feeding station, so in the early mornings, we could hear the elk bugling, with their high-pitched melodic calls echoing off the mountains.

After we got settled, we tacked up Hap and Digger and set off for a little exploration of the river valley and the ranch.  This area of Wyoming is still fairly green, even in the heat of the high summer, thanks to a lot of small creeks and rivers which run out of the mountains here.  The area is also at a high enough elevation that there are wildflowers scattered throughout the trees and through the meadows.

The horses were a little keyed up as they had been in the trailer for several hours, but we just took a leisurely jaunt out and enjoyed looking at the mountains.

Out to the west of us, there was a large, dark gray plume of smoke.  The western-most edge of the Bridger/Teton forest had been hit with several lightening strikes during a storm in June and the fire was still burning.  There was an interesting notice up from the Forest Service about how they were "managing" this fire - or rather, not managing it.  Since they often have to set purposeful fires in order to manage undergrowth in certain areas, since this fire was not affecting any homes, they were letting it burn.   They had 24/7 fire monitors watching it, but no immediate plans to extinguish it.  Letting Mother Nature run her course, so to speak - and a very different approach than that you normally see with forest fires in the more heavily populated areas of California, or even here in Utah.

After our ride, we got the horses settled into their new home away from home - a very sturdily built corral - and let them explore a bit before giving them dinner.

D and I got cleaned up and cooked out on the deck of the cabin, and after dinner, we planned our adventures for the next day's ride.  More on that tomorrow.

All for now.

Strawberry Reservoir

Sunday, although NOAA was calling for thunderstorms in the higher elevations, we decided to chance it and take the horses up to Strawberry Reservoir, which is in the Uintah Mountains, south and east of us.  We packed up our crew, and met John and Daniel with Charley and Shahara for the 2-hour drive up to the reservoir basin.  This is a man-made lake and was created at the convergence of several smaller rivers (creeks, really, to those of you on the east coast). 

The trail we picked to ride begins at the boat ramp for the reservoir access at 8000 feet and travels through low-lying marsh grasses through sagebrush and summer flowers, up into alpine forest filled with lupines and evergreens.  During almost the entire ride, you can see at least some portion of the body of water and/or the tributaries that feed it.

We started off on a narrow single-track trail through the sagebrush.

The trail crossed a few very boggy spots where springtime runoff obviously had fed into the reservoir, and then led gently upward towards the east.  Surprisingly, given the heat of the July weekend, there were only a handful of boats on the water.

We climbed up through fields of Indian paintbrush and flax to where aspens began to dominate the landscape and the smell of the Douglas firs filled the air.  Lupines were scattered in the spots where the sun cut through the forest canopy.  The trail through this area was very twisted and there were sections with large rocks sticking up through dirt surface of the trail.  The trail then curved along the face of a very steep rock cliff and took us away from the main body of the reservoir up one of the creek banks that feeds the reservoir.

We stopped here for lunch and made sure all the horses got a good drink of the cold and very clear water running in the creek.

While we were eating lunch, the large puffy white clouds which had been gathering over the mountains began to turn dark gray and black, and the wind started to pick up, so rather than finish the entire trail (and potentially get stuck up on the mountain in a thunderstorm) we decided to turn back.  The horses were a little bit keyed up with the change coming in the weather.  While we had stopped for lunch, a large powerboat had motored as far up the creek as they could, and were sitting, bobbing in the water (the engine was off and the couple in the boat were just enjoying the scenery and solitude).  Digger was in the front of the pack, and we were picking our way back along the narrow rocky ledge when he saw this boat bobbing in the water.  He could not figure out what that odd object was with the water smacking against it and it panicked him.  On a trail I thought was too narrow to turn around on, he did - and we found ourselves facing the oncoming group of horses - who were trapped and unable to back up on this narrow trail.  I asked Digg to turn his nose figuring if he turned around, he could turn back, but he was having none of the scary object.  Instead, he launched himself like a mountain goat up onto the rocks above us, and teetered around until he found (relatively) secure footing.  The rest of the group inched by him, and I was able to ask him to slowly and carefully pick his way back onto the trail. 

That was enough excitement for me - the camera stayed firmly packed away until we were down off the mountain into the flatter and broader area of the sagebrush trail.  On the way back, we flushed a HUGE red-tailed hawk, plus a rather large and rotund badger.  The reservoir had tons of birds - including a pair of cranes who took off at the sight of us.  Things were calmer once we had reached the flatter topography near the lake, where we were out of the wind and on the far side of the ridge from where the storm was brewing.  Calm enough that I was able to snap this picture of John and Charley while we rode.

Back at the parking lot, D's GPS showed about a 12-mile round trip.  A nice little jaunt.  We picked several other trails on the way out of the National Forest area where we'd like to try other trips.  I think the area would be stunning in the fall - it's simply gorgeous right now as well.

All for now......

Memorial Day 2006

Saturday and Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend were not-so-nice here.  Saturday was windy, and although we got a short ride in during the morning hours, the rain showers started in the afternoon.  Sunday was even worse from a weather perspective.  The temperatures around here dropped pretty drastically (90-ish on Friday, 50-ish on Sunday), the winds were up, and we had rain off and on during the day, with some snow up in the higher elevations of the mountains.

We had originally planned to ride up at the Strawberry Reservoir, but with the snowfall at that elevation, we decided we'd find someplace a bit lower down to ride for Memorial Day. We had made plans to go with Pam and John, and their friend, Mike, who was here visiting from Denver for the weekend.  When Jane was here, she found us a great little book on backcountry trail rides, so we poured over that, pulled out some maps of the area, and decided to go to Settlement Canyon.

Settlement Canyon is out to the west of where we live, on the western side of the Oquirrh mountains.  As the crow flies from our house, it's 15 miles.  To get there, however, we had to drive north and pick up I-80 west, skirting the edge of the Great Salt Lake, a distance of about 55 miles.  The entrance to the canyon is just past the reservoir that provides water for the town of Tooele.  The trail itself leaves the campground parking lot (elevation 5446) and follows a winding creek up through dense (dense for the west anyway) stands of trees.  Once you pass through the trees, you have to ride up a dirt road for a bit, where it's obvious cattle are pastured (lots of cow pies!) and then pick up another spur of the trail that veers sharply upward.

We took a brief break to survey the topo map D had downloaded for us.  Just above us, the peaks still have snow on them. 

We plugged away up some very steep (19% grade) hills with the entire group, heading upward to our destination at 7075 feet of elevation.  We stopped several times to give the horses a breather.  We were about two-thirds of the way up to the crest where we were going to stop for lunch when it began to snow lightly.  Once at the crest of the hill, we took a brief break, to let the horses breathe and for the riders to eat some lunch.

That's Shahara on the far left, standing next to Charley.  D is standing, looking down at his topo map, holding Happy, and that's Mike standing with his back to the camera.

The rest of the trail was all downhill.  We wound through aspen and oak trees on a narrow single-track trail.  In general, the trail was pretty well maintained.  Some spots were a little muddy from the rain and snow the previous day, but the footing was good.  The trail wound down through the trees, and eventually caught back up with the main road, which we followed back into the campground.

Digger did very well.  We haven't been out in big groups very much, so 5 horses was a new experience for him.  He was a little bit wound up in the parking lot at the trailhead, but there were several large RVs pulling in and out, and kids coming up behind him and throwing balls, and barking dogs, and tarps and tents flapping in the wind.  Once we got on the trail, however, he led perhaps half of our trip and set a very nice pace.  Poor guy is sadly outnumbered, as the other 4 horses in the group are all mares, so he has to read the dynamics of that group, and who is in heat and either finding him an attractive stand-in for something better or those who just cannot stand the looks of him and keep laying their ears back at him. He, however, is very philosophical about the whole thing.

 

In general, a very nice ride - one that would be particularly pleasant in the heat of summer because of all the tree cover.  The grade is fairly steep in places, but much easier going down the winding switchbacks than we had originally thought.  The footing is good.  There is no motorized/ATV traffic, and even on a holiday weekend, we only passed perhaps 4 other groups of riders in the 3 hours we were out (and two of them were in the last 30 minutes).

All for now.....