Final Adventures in Utah

Pando, the biggest aspen grove in the world, from the slopes of Mt. Mytoge.

 Resulting from a discussion of BIG things (a fully loaded 747 is like 36 school buses duct taped together and flying through the air at hundreds of miles per hour!), Jan-Man and I decided to spend our final weekend in Utah at Fish Lake, home of the biggest aspen grove in the world.  Pando is one organism, one that's like 7 Walmart Supercenters all next to each other!  In taking vantage of Pando, I had the opportunity to scale a 10,000 ft mountain.  The peak of Mytoge reaches 10,097 feet.  We camped on BLM land on the backside and then walked up the trail.  Fish Lake is a popular summer destination, but we didn't see a single person on the trail that day.  In a stunning example of how averse people are to hiking when they can fish, boat and car-camp, ospreys decided to nest right on the trail because it gets such little use.

One of the ospreys that lived next to the seldom-used trail around the Lake

 Pando is incredible, but it is hard to spend a whole weekend there, given that there are no advertisements to avoid adding extra human traffic to the stress it is already under from the vacation homes being built in it.  Aspen groves share a root system, so all the trees are clones.  This most massive of groves is ancient, and a simple view from the slope across the lake is plenty.  After hiking and looking we found ourselves at Saturday afternoon with nothing to do, so we decided to drive to Spiral Jetty and go looking for ghost towns Sunday morning on our way around the Great Salt Lake to the Salt Flats.  About 8 hours later, in the middle of the night and in complete darkness, we reached the end of the line on the gravel roads on the Promontory.  Miraculously, we awoke to find ourselves at Spiral Jetty.  And we had it all to ourselves.  The northwest side of the Lake is some of the most barren land of the desolate state of Utah.  We awoke to see no souls, no lights and no buildings.  It's a beautiful way to experience Smithson's piece of environmental art from 1970.  He used construction equipment to place sand and boulders to make a jetty in the shape of spiral in such a way that it would spend half it's time submerged and half it's time exposed and salt-crusted.

Spiral Jetty is just that, and it's huge too.  1500 ft long

 There was a lot of snow this year so even in August the jetty was still submerged.  The basic shape is visible above, and the haunting quality of the piece and location is apparent below.  The water is a reddish purple from the bizarre, salty creatures that live there.  It's all very to odd to find in a desert, and it's even weirder when it wakes you up in the morning.

Janet enjoying a quiet morning at the Jetty

 After leaving the jetty, we happened upon a creepy man sitting by an abandoned spit.  As we walked by he asked if we had any water.  I replied that I did in the car and I inquired if he would like any.  He declined and then in the most cryptic manner anyone has ever talked to me he said, "You should go get it.  You'll regret it if you don't.  There's no water out there."  He lingered on 'regret' and 'no water' like he either knew something I did not or else he was some supernatural being.  Regardless I forgave water on the fifteen minute walk around the spit, and the creepy old man didn't murder me.  This interesting exchange made up for the lack of a ghost town across the lake.  The road around followed an abandoned railroad track to Nevada.  From there we circled back to I-80 and the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Mr. Whitney may not approve of this blur, but by no fault of the Buffalo.  Odyssey was haulin'.

 The Salt Flats are maintained by the BLM, which more or less means anything goes.  As long as there is not an official speed test going on, people are allowed to drive their own vehicle anywhere they damn well please out there.  Flat, white salt stretches in all directions, cones outline the course for speed tests, and mountainous islands rise out of the salt.  It was a perfect occasion to drive at breakneck speeds with no hands on the wheel and your head out the window and to take glamour shots of the charging Buffalo.  Check and check.

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Sophia looking out from the top of the breaks.

The second to last place we worked was at Cedar Breaks National Monument.  The view is breathtaking, as are the views at many of the nearby parks, such as Zion and Capitol Reef, due to whatever geological happenings took place to create a zone of abrupt 5,000 foot transition from basin floor up to the Colorado Plateau.  A "breaks" is the most abrupt, as it is what remains when you replace a gentle mountainside with a canyon wall.

Beautiful red rocks and hoodoos fill up the breaks.  A breaks is when a mountainside is removed and instead there is an amphitheater like canyon wall.  Cedar Breaks has high altitude bristlecone pine that precariously rest on red rock cliffs and arches. Hoodoos are the spires in the picture above made famous by Bryce Canyon.

In southern Utah, canyon wall means dramatic red rock.  We were repairing fence along the edge of the park to keep the sheep out.  Lucky for us, the edge of the park goes to the edge of the break.  It's tough to beat a summer job of relatively easy work in a place with a view that stretches for hundreds of miles.  We were the last UCC crew to come through, so our boss didn't have very much for us to do.  We spent our time repairing washed out steps in the campground, digging up boulders, and chopping up wood.  It was good times.  Our last night we pulled out the dutch oven, prepared a feast, and went to bed better fed than any other souls in Iron County that night.

Civilian Conservation Corpsmembers built this structure on top of Brian Head (11,300 feet) to make digesting the view a more comfortable experience (Arizona, Nevada, the Great Salt Lake, and miles out on the Colorado Plateau are visible).  They did this by hand.  They probably built the road up there too.. by hand.

Hillary telling the story of The Colossus of Clout calling his shot while in character as Squints.  The story mostly contained the following happy refrain: "And he liked it!  A lot!!"

Two weeks in Wyoming ending in the great Oyster Ridge Music Festival

This is Wyoming every direction you look as long as you aren't on I-80 or behind a camper in Yellowstone

On the way back from Yellowstone, Mitch, Janet, Sophia and I stopped for some pizza at Studebaker's in Montpelier, Idaho and caught an opening weekend showing of Harry Potter.  As a town situated in the lonesome part of the crowded West, Montpelier numbers among that distinguished municipal fraternity for the victims of crimes by Butch Cassidy for which he was never caught.  In 1896 Butch and his Wild Bunch robbed the Bank of Montpelier and lit off for the hills on horse.  Strangely, the sheriff grabbed his gun and pursued on bicycle.  He never caught up to them.  The Bank of Montpelier had the last laugh however, as they still serve the financial needs of the good citizens of Bear Lake County and no doubt they helped erect the historical signage on Washington Street about the heist.

The sky is incredible in Wyoming, especially west of Jeffrey City on SR 287/789

The next morning, my crew set out for two weeks in Wyoming.  Our first week we collected seeds for the Lander office of the Bureau of Land Management.  We drove around a lot, and we saw a lot of sky, hills, antelope, sage grouse and sagebrush.  It is some of the least traveled country of the lower 48.  On our way out to a collection site, we drove past a place called Lost Cabin---named after a Scottish settler presumed to be lost by the Shoshone after he set up shop in a place they saw no reason to ever live in.  Beyond that lay a fracking area, where ConocoPhilips kindly alerted us of the possibility of lethal levels of Hydrogen Sulfide gas.

After traversing to the remote side of all that, I pleasantly collected seeds and gazed out over the "range," and I tried to figure out how it was that I came to be in the windswept, forlorn heart of Wyoming combing the ground for the seeds of specific ground-hugging plants.  The answer was never made clear.  Although recently I took stock again as I sat in Morton, WA trying desperately to find a reason not to pursue a career as a middle school English teacher in some destitute school district.  I guess moments of life-course lucidity happen from time to time, and the perspective that they grant usually leads to thoughts such as "Oh gaawdd, this is not what I signed up for!"  Considering I signed up for the UCC to schlep chainsaws through blizzard and bear den, things seem to be unfolding in my best interest.  And should I hazard to divine what slouching heathen of a situation approaches to be confronted the next time I audit my life, I find the prospect slightly less dreadful when I remember I no longer collect seeds of obscure plants in central Wyoming.

We surveyed the River for possible swimming holes as we hadn't showered in a week

 The weekend after Lander, we checked out the Popo Agie River in Sinks Canyon.  I've never seen anything like it.  The river crashes along before it flows into the ground: the Sinks.  A quarter mile later, it reappears out of the rock: the Rise.  It's a big river, and it does not go through a tunnel.  It literally flows through rock.  At the Rise there are trout who try to swim upriver but cannot because they are unable to swim upstream through rock.  Oddly enough, they are not allowed to be fished, but they can be fed, so they have become real tubbers while waiting patiently for the rock to somehow disappear so that they might continue upriver.

The Sinks: where the river either drops down through Limestone bedrock or gets swallowed whole by a gargantuan sedentary terrestrial whale.

Our second week we again worked for the BLM, but this time in the fabulous town of Kemmerer (like Jimmer, or dimmer).  We again picked seeds.  The following weekend was the Oyster Ridge Music Festival, so I was able to stay and do fun things too.  Kemmerer is already notable as the location of the original JC Penney, and the museum/home of James Cash himself.  Apart from that Oyster Ridge is free.. and in Wyoming, a music festival is a guaranteed Big Deal.. and on top of that a free one with affordable food and beverage?  Yet Kemmerer is a small town, so even during it's big weekend, events were low key.

A charming house in Kemmerer, Wyoming, where all the houses are in a neighborhood, and there is only one neighborhood.

The view of the tracks from under the bridge.

 During acts we had already seen, we adventured around the town.  I don't understand how America developed her romantic fascination with trains, bridges and the hobo lifestyle, but I'm a sucker for that sort of sentimentalism. Relaxing under the bridge in Kemmerer was a highlight of my summer.

Sunset on the cargo train

Extra pic of Surprise Lake

Surprise Lake in Teton National Park

I am glad this picture of Surprise Lake in Teton NP popped up in my last roll of film because it is a useful guide for describing the epicness of the vista.  We had just hiked five miles up to the thing with the last half mile being through the snow.  The saddle in the snow is actually a snow bridge over a waterfall that is the birth of a stream down the mountainside.  It drops into a canyon that opens out into Jackson Hole.  You can stand directly over the shiny white water as it spills out of the frozen-over, glacially-deposited lake.  You can also climb out on fallen trees and rock ledges to look directly over the water as well.  Not only is the beauty of the scene is too intricate to corral with words, this was also one of those sights that could barely be enveloped by the frame of a slide of film.  This sight could never be reached by a car.

Teton National Park

Janet and Sophia at an overlook from Jackson Hole.

Sunset on the Tetons

We strolled into Teton National Park from Yellowstone on our way back towards Logan.  We were greeted by this vista as we blasted "Blame it on the Tetons" by Modest Mouse for no apparent reason.  We came in Sunday night, stayed at a campsite on Jackson Lake.  We got up early to see the sunrise.  We found this view and similarly stunning views of the mountains as those of the night before, but with a near-mirror-like glass over Jackson lake.

Early morning twilight on Jackson Lake.

The view of Jackson Hole from the slopes of the Teton front.  That oblong mound in the background is a glacial moraine: rocks and rubble transported in a glacier only to be deposited en masse as the ice recedes.  At one point, this glacially carved landscape was covered in ice up to all but the tallest peaks of the Tetons.

We left early Monday morning before the rangers showed up.  This is a great way to save money if you don't care about supporting the maintenance of our beautiful, cash-strapped national parks.  We decided to do a day hike up to Surprise and Amphitheater Lakes.  To Amphitheater Lake it is about 5 miles from the 6,000 ft valley floor up to the 9,700 ft lake.  There were 17 switchbacks.  The Tetons are sheer.  We were greeted as the first ones out on the trail to a black bear at the trailhead.  He went along on his way and we on ours.  Luckily the huckleberries along the trail were not ripe yet or we probably would have seen more than just one busy black bear.  We climbed most of the way with two climbers setting out to conquer all 13,775 ft of Grand Teton.  Any later in the season and the peaks start creating their own afternoon thunderstorms--a vicious obstacle for such exposed rock faces.  The trail up to Surprise Lake is one of those incredible trails that is doggedly tough but totally worthwhile and rewarding at the end.  Both Amphitheater and Surprise Lake are outstanding alpine lakes.  They expressed impossible shades of blue: from black hole dark on to radioactive-bright antifreeze.  Both lakes were still covered in ice and surrounded by spring snow.  The views out onto the valley were too big to photograph and the tobogganing was in season.  A capstone hike to a mammoth weekend.  Actually, deep-dish pizza in Montpelier, Idaho (the site of a Butch Cassidy where the sheriff gave chase on bicycle into the mountains.  They were never caught.  The bank is still open.) followed by Harry Potter on opening weekend was pretty great.  "Come on Harry, let's take a walk."

Surprise Lake, nearly 9,700 feet up in the Teton Range.

PS if you make it up to the Tetons and Yellowstone, you have to try Huckleberry ice cream.  A flavor not to be forgotten.

PPS "Hey, what should we do for the epilogue?"  "How about we let Ron and Harry grow a couple days of stubble and we put Hermione's hair up?"  "OK. that should work." = Harry Potter easy button.

Yellowstone National Park

Mitch in full mullet soon after entering the park.

On a three day weekend, Mitch, Janet, Sophia and I decided to road trip Yellowstone and Teton National Parks.  We left about an hour after getting back for the weekend and stayed friday night in Bridger National Forest in Wyoming, near Alpine.  After driving through Jackson Hole and past the Tetons we entered the park and headed straight for Old Faithful.

Old Faithful erupted in minutes after we walked up.  I've never seen a dog so politely excited and so thoroughly ignored.  It was the only dog around a thousand people and no one cared.

She blew about two minutes after we arrived.  Feeling up on our luck, we pranced around deriding all the other tourists.  Many instantly dispersed back to their lodges and RVs after Old Faithful erupted.  Others stayed to peruse around to other geysers.  They had saved up their life's earnings to get an RV with which to visit all the great highway-accessible sights of the continent.  Yellowstone is built for that tourist and that tourist was getting his money's worth on this day.  Still others were awkward adolescents and showed up with their parents for Roadtrip Cringefest 2011.  Our favorites were the few who possessed an unquenchable sense of wonder.  Overheard on the matter of the steam coming out of hot springs: "Does the heat make it rise?" "Yep." "Ooh."  A close second were those tourists with checklists, who would cruise right past hot springs like the one below without even a glance as they rushed on to their next destination.  I like to think these tourists needed to use the restroom.  I mean who is legitimately blasé about forbidden hot springs?!?  Not even a glance??!?  We hiked the half mile out to Solitary Geyser (which is so ridiculous and appropriate for Yellowstone) and saw it practically blow us off the mountain.  We waited the 5-8 minutes for another in order to take a picture, but it just so turns out that the first eruption was the biggest in the last 15 years and the lil' bubbler for which we waited was grossly underwhelming.

Superheated sulfurous death, but still tempting.

After Old Faithful we drove on through to the Madison campground.  As expected it was packed, but after dinner we walked to the Purple Mountain Trail.  It was evening and it was dark for most of our descent back down the 8,433ft hill.  We did not see a single person on the trail, which, given our location as a haven for cougars, grizzlies, wolves, moose, etc, was as troubling as it was refreshing.  Yellowstone is advertised as and feels like a safari through a time portal into a fictitious version of North America in 2,000 BC.  It is primal and manufactured at the same time.  Still, it is incredible to get on a trail, be alone, and see the prodigious growth amid the still apparent wreckage of the Fires of 1988.  The place almost feels like the heart of the continent given its location on the continental divide, its geothermal activity and its high altitude for a flat area. The mosaic of young lodgepole forest and soft meadows adds to the feel of a newly forming territory entirely distinct from the nearby Tetons.

Yellowstone from the slopes of Purple Mountain.  Washed out in afternoon sun, but all the standing dead from the fires of 1988 are still visible amid the regrowth.

The album cover for Mitchell Fosnaugh: The Album.  A lazy sunday afternoon on our way back to Teton National Park.

We often lunched at picnic areas.  The Sunday picnic area bordered a huge grassy field that was great for relaxing, digesting, and listening to music.  Mitch has taken to calling his guitar a shirt, as this seems to help him get around those "no shirt, no shoes, no service" regulations.

Ensign Peak and the City of Salt Lake

Sloppy Sophia looking like the real deal while cutting tread for a trail.

We got a taste of trailwork before we again succumbed to the curse of the SLC City Council.  The project fell apart and we got banished to a third week in the dog park.  Oh well, I got a view of Salt Lake City from above.  Mormon pioneers who came from the East (left on the picture below) at what is now This is the Place State Park climbed Ensign Peak to survey the headquarters of the empire that they would create in this newfound region that they called Zion.

The City of Salt Lake from the peak where it was planned.

The Wasatch front along the Salt Lake City metro area

While in and around Salt Lake for the week, I had a chance to spend an hour downtown.  I walked through Temple Square on my way to the Family History Museum.  I found two of the vaunted sister missionaries (many girls who do missions get sent to Salt Lake to be present around the LDS headquarters.  Interestingly, young men generally do not, as far as I know, get sent to Salt Lake.  That, to me, is indicative of some bizarre gender norms, or worse.  But that is the Church's trip, not mine.)  I wanted to forever remember SLC bizarro, so I asked my two new friends, one from Malaysia and one from Singapore to take a picture with me.  Being obligate helpful souls, I gave a third an opportunity to help me out by clicking the shutter.

Two sister missionaries, Sophia and I in Temple Square.  They are obligated to be happy and nice.  It is their mission.

In the Family History Museum I found that my great great great great grandfather William Coe Critchlow moved his wife Harriett and children William Fuller, Benjamin Chamberlain and Scharlot out west to the Ogden/Brigham City area north of Salt Lake in the 1850s to farm.  They were Mormons from Pennsylvania.  William Fuller married Mary Eliza who gave birth to William J in 1868.  William J would meet a very special Anna C (she was Danish) who would give birth to my great grandfather Victor David Critchlow in Ogden in that fateful November of 1898.  Victor David's brother, William J Jr. would go on to become a high priest, stake president and general authority within the Church of Latter Day Saints.  Victor David divorced my great grandmother Jesse and was largely absent from the lives of the subsequent line of the Critchlow clan except for one occasion when he showed up to a family barbecue and happened to drop dead in the backyard, or at least that's how my own father describes the imprint on his ten-year-old brain.

In any case, I am not Mormon, and after that tragic exit and dramatic encore in the lives of us non-LDS Critchlows, I will remain dubious towards a comeback by the Mormon church in my family.  As far as I know, there are still Mormon Critchlows in the Ogden area.