Posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2013 by Dennis

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I had a somewhat lackluster camping trip last weekend. Michael’s birthday party was on Saturday and we took him out to dinner that evening, and because of those plans I’d been thinking I wouldn’t be able to do an overnighter during the weekend. That changed mid-week when I got an e-mail from payroll at work telling me to have my timesheet submitted early on Friday because Monday was a company holiday–I didn’t even realize I had President’s Day off! Despite knowing I had a three-day weekend, I didn’t begin to plan a trip until Sunday morning. I woke up, threw my gear into the Jeep, uploaded a few waypoints to my GPS, then hit the road. I drove toward the Head of Sinbad area with the intention of repeating parts of a trip that Chris and I did two years ago. On the way there I stopped to find some petroglyphs that a friend had told me about. I knew roughly where to find them and it only took me a couple of minutes to find the rock art (along with some bees!).

I continued toward my destination, exiting I-70 at exit 131 and driving toward Swasey’s Cabin. After leaving the main graded road I found increasing amounts of snow on the road. In one place the road is cupped down below the surface of the ground and a lot of snow had drifted up there. It appeared that an ATV had managed to drive over the snow, but from the mess in a couple of spots I could tell that some full-sized vehicles had become stuck at one point. I tried plowing through the snow but lost forward momentum a couple of times, then I did like most everyone else and left the roadway, driving parallel 20 feet or so to the side. I made it to Swasey’s Cabin and tried finding the “Ice Cave Double Bridges” seen in Google Earth. There was more snow than I was expecting there and I simply didn’t feel like exploring while hiking through it, so I only got as far as the Ice Box before turning around. Strike one.

My next plan took me south into Rod’s Valley to try finding the Family Spurs geocache. It’s a multi-stage geocache where the first location has information that leads one to the final. I found the information welded onto a drill hole cap, crunched some very simple numbers, and found that the final was too far for me to drive to and still make it to my planned camp spot before dark. Strike two. The short excursion to the drill hole wasn’t a complete bust, though. I saw what must have been hundreds of ravens in flight over the pinyon/juniper forest at the north end of Rod’s Valley. Never had I seen that many in one place. I also found a downed pinyon pine near the road, which I bludgeoned with the blunt end of a log splitter to get enough wood for a nice campfire.

I searched around the Head of Sinbad for a place to camp. The first place I had in mind turned out to be breezier than I would have liked, and I ended up at the same spot where Chris and I camped a couple of years ago. I set up the tent, built a fire ring, then hiked around the ledges and cliffs above camp briefly before the sun went down. I heated some canned dinner over the fire, then read a magazine until I got chilly enough to hit the sack. That sack, by the way, was a new Marmot 0° down sleeping bag that I bought for backpacking, and this was my first time sleeping in it. The temperature got into the mid-teens and the bag kept me plenty warm. I pulled the drawstring tight so that there was a hole only about four inches in diameter above my head. A thick layer of frost formed around the hole during the night, so that when I crawled out to piss at 5AM my sleeves and beanie cap ended up slightly damp (from the frost, not the piss).

I roused slightly after 7AM and fixed some coffee, which I sipped while sitting in the sunshine on a ledge above my camp. Despite the cold air temperature, the sun felt quite warm and I thoroughly enjoyed that moment more than any other on the trip. I quickly packed my gear up. Since almost everything was covered in frost I didn’t bother packing it up properly. I wadded the tent, air pad, etc., up and stuffed it inside the Jeep, which made for a quick departure from camp. I explored a couple of the roads in the area and found the remains of a collapsed cabin. It was presumably a cow camp, as nearby there’s a cove surrounded by steep sandstone on three sides and a fence on the final side where I’m sure cattle were corralled. I also found some old cowboy names inscribed on the rocks, the oldest of which was from 1893.

After finding the cowboy names I started driving out to the main road following a different route than I’d taken in. The snow on the road hadn’t been traveled at all, and as I tried powering through it the Jeep bogged down until all the tires were spinning and the axles and body were sitting on the snow. I had to dig for a couple of minutes with a shovel to free myself, then I drove a short distance cross-country to reach the main road. Twin Knolls was my next destination. Chris placed a geocache there which nobody has found in the two years since. Since I didn’t make the climb up either of the Twin Knolls on that trip, I really wanted to do it this time. I hoped for less snow there than I’d seen around Head of Sinbad. I drove as far as I could on the 4×4 route before the trail turned into a motorcycle-only designation, but I was disappointed by how much snow was there. I wasn’t willing to hike the four miles round-trip to get to the geocache. Strike three. I drove home on the freshly graded dirt and gravel road to Buckhorn Wash and realized how desensitized I’d become to that view. One of my first trips through the Swell was along that road. I’ve been through there many times since, but on my way home this time I had a little more appreciation for it.

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Posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 by Dennis

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I couldn’t take it anymore–the snow, ice, freezing daytime temperatures, and then mud even after it warms up. I almost took the kids hiking in the San Rafael Reef this past weekend, but instead I got a wild hair up my ass and we ended up in the St. George area. I usually only go there once each year in March, though I think this weekend has changed that. Perhaps four or five times a year would be appropriate. The nighttime low temperatures in St. George were the same as the daytime highs in Price–how could I pass that up? I took half a day off work Friday and got the kids out of school a little early so that we could get to my planned camp spot before dark. On the advice of some friends who live in the area, we camped at the south end of Sand Mountain. I fueled up in Hurricane (which, I’m told, rhymes with La Verricane ) and called Eric, hoping to meet up with him and Sherie at least briefly, but they were out of town. The boys and I then headed south out of town and found a few geocaches on the way to camp. The camp spot was much as I’d envisioned it, and I was thankful for the recommendations to stay there.

We started a small fire with the meager amount of firewood I was able to fit into the Jeep, then set up the tent while our dinner warmed up. Dinner consisted of tortilla wraps filled with turkey lunch meat, sharp cheddar, and chopped green onions, all prepared and wrapped in foil the evening before. I’d purchased a roof-top cargo carrier for the Jeep more than a week earlier, and it arrived Thursday evening just in time for this trip. It made it so much easier managing all our gear–all the overnight stuff (sleeping bags & pads, tent, and camp chairs) went into the cargo box while everything else went into the back of the Jeep. We went to bed very early, just after 8PM, and I slept fitfully (normal for any camping trip) while the kids said they slept well. I got up at around 7:30AM and roused the boys, and we ate a quick breakfast while taking down camp. It was overcast and the skies stayed hazy most of the day, but at least it was warmer than we were used to.

We had no fixed plans for the weekend, but I had a list of things for Michael and Bradley to choose from. I offered them the choice of exploring more of Sand Mountain, or visiting the dinosaur tracks just south of our current location. They chose the dino tracks, which were just half a mile south of us, but since there was no road leading south off of Sand Mountain, it took a 15-mile detour to get there. Before leaving I wanted to scour the ground looking for arrowheads (after seeing many flint chips on the ground the previous evening), and surprisingly managed to find many pottery shards directly under where our tent was set up, and a single broken arrowhead point almost under one of the Jeep’s tires. Before leaving, we hiked to a geocache that was less than a quarter-mile away that offered a nice view over Warner Valley to the southwest.

We found a few more geocaches on the way to the dinosaur tracks. At those locations we saw a 1909 survey marker and an old Dominguez-Escalante trail marker. We arrived at the dinosaur track trailhead to find several vehicles there, and we saw quite a few people on the trail. There were more people there than we’d previously seen since leaving Hurricane. The dinosaur tracks were well worth the visit. Most of the tracks were easy to make out, and an interpretive sign helped us make out the less distinct tracks. The tracks were concentrated in a pretty small area, so we were done there quickly. We got back to the Jeep around lunchtime, and since we were less than two miles from the Arizona border and Michael had never been to Arizona, we headed south. Just south of the state line we stopped for lunch, where the boys ate Lunchables and I had a tuna sandwich accompanied with carrot and celery sticks.

For our after-lunch activity I got to choose where to go. The Little Black Mountain petroglyph site wasn’t too far a drive and that’s what I really wanted to see. On the way there the road passed through some sand dunes where I did a few donuts in the Jeep then stopped to let Michael and Bradley dig in the sand for a bit before moving along. We had Little Black Mountain all to ourselves–a small group was just leaving as we arrived and the Jeep was the only vehicle in the parking lot. While we were on the trail looking for petroglyphs on boulders, I got a phone call from Ken, a friend who lives in Hurricane. He was in nearby in Warner Valley and wanted to know where we were so we could meet up. He arrived with his two youngest girls and we met up on the trail and chatted for a bit while we hiked. We talked some more back at the trailhead, then I followed him part of the way back toward town before turning off on my way to our next camp site.

I hadn’t made specific plans for camping on Saturday evening, but I had a rough idea of where I could find a spot. I drove up the west rim of Sand Mountain, where I’d been last year in Eric’s Jeep, and started exploring. We first drove up a deep, sandy canyon that looked promising, but there wasn’t a spot of ground that didn’t appear to be well-traveled. Despite being just after sunset, there were also quite a few OHVs in the area, so it was unlikely we’d have any seclusion there for the night. Just south of the canyon I found a secluded spot between some slickrock domes that looked perfect, so we set up camp there. Again we had a small fire and cooked dinner on it, this time consisting simply of ramen noodles and Lit’l Smokies. We’d found a little extra firewood during the day, and we were able to keep the fire going until almost 10PM before it was time for bed.

After rising for the day on Sunday, I got a text from Eric. He was back in town and on his way out to see us. The kids and I ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal and started taking down camp. Eric arrived when I was collapsing the tent, and we drove back into the canyon I’d driven in the evening before to explore the two box canyons at its head. Eric brought his dog, Bosley, and he and Torrey got along nicely–I think they wore each other out. We hiked and Jeeped around in the canyon for an hour or two before Eric had to leave. I had brought bread and peanut butter for lunch, but I forgot the jam or honey for sandwiches, so Michael and Bradley and I went into town and ate fast food for lunch.

I had no additional plans or ideas for the rest of the day, and I think the kids were missing home. While we ate lunch I looked at the maps in my GPS and found what I’d hoped would be a good place to explore and keep the kids engaged for a little longer. It was outside of the area I’d scouted in Google Earth from home while planning this trip, but I remembered looking at it a year or two ago before one of mine and Traci’s trips down south. It was just north of Sky Mountain, on the north side of the Virgin River. Geocaches can usually be a great guide to an area, but unfortunately the 950 geocaches I’d downloaded to my GPS only reached about an 11-mile diameter from the south end of Sand Mountain, which came up short by two miles from the area to which we were headed. My memory of the area didn’t fail me, however, and we found some fun stuff to do despite knowing very little about the place. During the drive there I saw a sign for Sand Cove, which just sounded like a fun place–and, importantly, the boys agreed. We parked at the trailhead, donned our backpacks, and followed the trail to Sand Cove and Sandstone Mountain. At Sand Cove we found a few springs that flowed down Sandstone Mountain but disappeared into the sand dunes at the base of the mountain. The boys enjoyed climbing the steep dunes and then running down them. I enjoyed the textures in the sandstone and the warm, sunny day that emerged out of what had begun as an overcast and dreary morning. We followed some trail signs that pointed toward an arch, and the trail kept descending toward the Virgin River. The signs didn’t indicate how far the arch was, and after following them for a while the kids began to tire. I knew we’d have to ascend the trail to get back to the Jeep, and I decided that following the signs without knowing how far the arch was could be problematic for keeping the kids motivated. We turned around, and only after returning home did I find out the arch was a mere 0.18 miles from our turnaround spot.

Back at the Jeep we ate a snack then continued south on the road toward the river. I figured a quick visit to the river would be the perfect ending to our trip after we all returned from Sand Cove sweating. While driving toward the river, I was waved to a stop by a Washington County sheriff deputy who was parked on the side of the road. He was a very friendly guy and only wanted to let me know about some rock art and dinosaur footprints that were along the road in the direction we were heading. I thanked him for the info and we continued toward the river. There, Michael and Bradley took off their shoes, rolled up their pants, and waded in the river for a very short while–apparently the water was quite cold. We skipped some rocks then got back into the Jeep and returned north on the road. I couldn’t find the spot where the deputy told me the dino footprints would be, but I easily found the petroglyphs. That was our last exploration of the weekend. I got on I-15 near Leeds and started the long drive home. We stopped in Cedar City for fuel, and dug around in the back of the Jeep for some snacks that we ate for dinner. The kids just barely tolerated me stopping near Castle Dale for a couple of photos of the Hunter Power Plant at night. It’s a shot I’ve long wanted to take, but never before taken the opportunity. The trip wasn’t terribly more expensive than a more local trip would have been, and the kids are now old enough to handle the longer drive, so I can envision this type of thing happening much more in the future.