Fish On! in Washington

For the past couple of years I have been fortunate enough to head up to the homeland (well, one of my homelands) and go fishing for a weekend.  This homeland happens to be Tri-Cities, Washington where the mighty Columbia , Snake and Yakima Rivers all meet.  When people drive by the Tri-Cities they quite honestly don't think much of the city.  In fact, most people really poo-poo the whole region.  It used to really bother me growing up.  I'm okay with it now because the city is growing a lot anyways and more people means congestion and this hidden gem being found.  I realize there is a lot of sagebrush, rattlesnakes, and ticks (see picture below).  But hey,...my parents complain if you have to wait for more than 2 cars at an intersection!  It's a great place with lots of water activities and fertile soil thanks to Mt. St. Helen's blowing up a few years (decades) ago.  Heck, there's even deer and some really cool big barges that go up and down the river!

 An oil barge on the Columbia River

A few deer besides ticks and rattlers!

In October the weather was mild, sunny, and beautiful.  One of the fun things I always remember about this part of the world is that in the fall cobwebs float by all the time.  As a kid I didn't care for them, especially when walking home from school! But now, I think they are fascinating as they float and shimmer in mid-air.  I have never encountered this phenomenon elsewhere.  Well, the cobwebs were floating by all weekend! 

We fished not far from where I grew up on the Columbia River.  Most people go up to what is called "the Reach" at this time of year so you can catch a really, really big king salmon.  We've done that in past years but it is a long (but beautiful) boat ride up to the free-flowing part of the river and there tends to be a gazillion people.  Really, even in the small town with no more than 2 cars at an intersection.  Instead, everyone is out in the same small area of the river.  So, we took a more laid back approach and hit McNary Dam.  The fish aren't as big but they are more plentiful.

Fishing was really good.  We caught many fish each day.  Steelhead and salmon tend to be a one or two per day sort of event so it was great to reel in a lot!  The only problem is that we had a few issues with the pole setup and had to let several go (ok, we lost them but hey you can't land everyone of these bad big boys) on the first day.   Thereafter we did much better.  The freezers are full.

Ya!  One of the many...

Fishing goes on until dark and the sunsets on McNary Dam are truly spectacular.  I've put several in the picture gallery for viewing pleasure or purchase (CLICK HERE -SCROLL to "UNITED STATES"). 

Trilobites and Topaz

TRILOBITES

There's a lot of T's in that title!  My friends and I went on a local adventure to one of the least populated places in the US and if you can believe it, it is right here in Utah!

This journey started by traveling about 3.5 hours southwest of Salt Lake City out into the sticks.  Well, I'd say sticks but there aren't even many sticks out there!  There is a great big lake - Lake Sevier with an oasis type view through the dessert.  The one cool feature along the ride is the "shoe tree."  This is a dead tree along the road that passerby's leave their shoes.  It's kind of funny and neat all at the same time.  If you take the time to look there are a ton of varieties from tennis shoes to red high heels.  It's definitely a unique feature along the rather boring drive.  As I did some quick research I found that there are actually a few of these shoe trees in Utah.

The Shoe Tree

Driving past Delta, Utah about 30 miles and then taking a well maintained but gravel road another 20 miles you end up at the U-Dig fossils.  While there are apparently a few dig sites this site seems to be the best.  The curators (if that is what you call them) are an extremely friendly husband and wife team and they provide you with buckets and hammers.  Even better is that after you collect your finds they polish and cut them for you! 

The Vista from the dig site

The U-Dig Office

When we first arrived there was a family from Switzerland.  They had skipped Zion's, came straight from Bryce and slept in their campervan just outside the gates to be the first ones in for the day!  They spent a total of four hours chipping away.  The two young girls seemed very excited about their finds.  I'll have to admit that I would not put this on my foreign trip agenda (there is just so much driving in the desert and out of the way) but we met more foreigners and apparently the site has a ton of foreigners during the week.  I would have never thought!  At the same time I guess it is pretty cool to find fossils ~500 million years old - that's old!

Anyway, my friends and I scaled back to a two hour session which we deemed plenty long.  The site takes a back hoe and digs out of the side of a shale rock area which has a ton of trilobites in it.  You simply go up and start hammering away at rock.  You can get out some good aggression this way!  Maybe it was my too strong of hammering but I seemed to only find half of fossils or no fossils at all.  My friend, on the other hand, seemed to crack a rock and find several trilobites each time.  I found that walking along the dig area and turning over rocks was more productive for me. This may not be as exciting as Indiana Jones archeology but it's fun to play an archeologist for a morning! 

Indiana Jones' for the day!

Way nice curator measuring my find

So here is the funny part...novice TrekkingTrego, I, found two different very large trilobites.  I thought they were cool because they were big but apparently they were some of the biggest found this summer.  The name of this fine fossil is Asaphiscus and it measures 2.5" long!  Typically they are only 1.875" long so mine is huge!  Apparently they are worth up to 150$US.  I'm not sure where the market is for these types of items so I'm not sure how to realize that amount other than to brag to people about it when I show it to them. 

The big trilobite!

All in all we had a good time.  The curators are just so friendly and amazingly helpful.  Its easy enough for any age child to do it so if your child is interested you should go for it - just know that it is a seriously long and boring drive.

TOPAZ

To round out the day and since we were already out in the sticks, I mean near Delta, we drove over to Topaz.  Topaz is one of the ten interment camps for the Japanese during WWII.  Online there is indications of a museum and that parts have been renovated or rebuilt.  I'm here to tell you that it hasn't happened yet.  I was so glad this wasn't the only reason we drove out here or we would not have been happy campers.  After driving through the weed field (literally) for the Topaz site we found on the far corner a nice monument with a little information. 

The monument

The historical site, or lack thereof...

It was a stark reminder that we take for granted many freedoms and beliefs now days.  I hope that someday this site is restored to a more historic area where we can all be reminded of our past and how we can learn from it.

Flaming Gorge Wyoming 2013

In August I was lucky enough to head down to Flaming Gorge for a long weekend.  I went with one of my college roommates, Kay, her family and another family.  It was a great time even though the Wyoming weather was not the most cooperative (but when is it ever?).

The northern side of Flaming Gorge, Buckboard Marina, is out in the sticks where the antelope roam along with sagebrush, dust and jack rabbits.  The campground itself is really quite barren but the spaces are big and the bathrooms and showers are nice.  The Russian olive trees (if you can find one) provide a little shade (sort of) in the heat of the day.  What the trees are really good for is tying down tents and things so they don’t blow away! 

Barren Campground

Antelope roaming...

 Actually there were more than antelope - how about this lost river otter?

One great advantage of Flaming Gorge is that most people go here to fish so there really isn’t much competition for other water sports – which is drastically different than most places in Utah.  The downside is that you do deal with the wind and the weather.  Each day we were sadly blown off the water by about 3pm and as early as noon.  The water is pretty brisk so a wetsuit is advised.  But, when the weather was nice it was a great place to be!

Glass water to ski or wakeboard on

Waterskiing, wakeboarding, knee boarding and surfing were all had by everyone and it was fun.  Max was able to stand up on a knee board while Bridget was getting better every minute on the slalom. Blake was able to do flips and all sorts of crazy tricks on the wakeboard.  Everyone else has a ways to go to catch up to him!  I even tried some surfboarding.  As I’m a bit balance challenged I didn’t do very good but had fun regardless.  Thanks to Abby and Mo for being energetic teachers. 

Blake showing us up on the wakeboard with a flip

While camping I learned a few new tricks.  One is to play glow stick "bocce ball".  After dark you take 3 glow sticks and connect them to create the target ring.  Then, you take 2 glow sticks to make a smaller ring for each individual.  You throw the bigger ring as a target and each person tries to throw their ring the closest to the bigger ring.  It looks cool and all levels and ages of athleticism can do it.  That isn’t to say that skill isn’t involved which apparently I didn’t possess.  It was lots of fun.

 

Another fun thing to do is take pie makers and cook biscuits in them.  I’ve cooked lots of things but never biscuits.  Throw some honey butter on them and it is darn tasty! 

I made some new friends and if things work out maybe I’ll be invited again next year –with hopefully better weather!

Yellowstone 2013 Highlights

In July I went on my family annual vacation to Yellowstone.  Sadly, times are changing and many of the extended family doesn’t come due to distance, cost or just other opportunities.  And, while I greatly miss those fun times with cousins, aunts and uncles it’s always great to be in Yellowstone.  Maybe someday I’ll blog about some of the funny standard (and not so standard) things we’ve done over the years.

Alas, back to present times.  I myself haven’t always made it to Yellowstone but that being said I am officially an expert.  Well, not officially but as my friend Jennie said, “I know a heck of a lot more than those rangers.”  It’s true.  Having gone well over 100 times to Yellowstone over 43 years I know a thing or two about the intricacies of Yellowstone.  On the flip side there are several things I haven’t ever done and I was determined to do them this visit.  So, here’s a recap of some new things I did in Yellowstone.

Great Fountain

I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this geyser before (ok, so the rangers have me on this one).  It’s located roadside on the Firehole Lake Drive.  It goes off every 12 hours +/- 2 hours.  That’s the kicker part.  You might end up waiting 4 hours for it to go off.  We were lucky because it went off just 45 minutes after we got there. 

The geyser goes off for almost a full 60 minutes.  It spurts for 5-10 minutes and then rests for 5-10 minutes and does that 3-5 times.  The wind was slightly blowing so we positioned ourselves to not get hit by steam and waited.  Then, the eruptions started and just then the wind switches and we were totally getting hit by geyser mist.  It was kind of neat but, it made for crappy viewing with all the steam in our faces so we had to move around a bit!

While waiting for the next spew we met this Taiwanese couple who worked at the same company my Dad worked for for 30 years.  They had a great time chatting in their limited English.  I jumped in when I found that they were from Taiwan (having recently been there).  They were nice folks.

Great Fountain Taiwanese Friends

 

After the 3^rd fountain spew interestingly everyone left and it was just us.  It was great to sit and watch it alone and wonder why everyone else left – the biggest spews were at the end!  Definitely a cool thing I’ll do again.  It blows Old Faithful away!

Morning Glory Pool
Sad, but true.  When I was young it was always too long of a walk and everyone kept talking about how it didn’t look as pretty as it did long ago so it wasn’t worth the walk.  Well, now it’s been 40+ years and I’m sure it isn’t looking as good as it did back then but I need to see this iconic Yellowstone pool especially since its named after the stupid noxious weed that I can’t get rid of in my yard. 

The walk out was really easy and it didn’t seem like a full 1.4mile as advertised.  Maybe that’s because there are geysers and pools as you go.  On my way I stopped and saw Giant Geyser go off.  I don’t see that one go off very often but is one of the biggest to see and rather neat. 

I got to the pool and it was quite pretty.  Yes, I know there used to be more colors and such but the yellows and oranges are brilliant.  They look a heck of a lot prettier than the white flower weeds in my yard I had to admit!  It was worth the hike and now I can say I saw it before it changes even more!  I had to wait some time because the first guy who took my picture for me cut me in half.  Really?  Anyway, the second picture turned out much better – thanks random guy who took my picture for me!

Actually at Morning Glory - finally!

Riverside Geyser

On my walk back from Morning Glory I stopped and saw the Riverside Geyser go off.  It is supposedly the most predictable geyser going off every 5.1 hours +/- 30 minutes.  Ya, it was outside the 30 minute window and I had to wait the whole time in the hot sun!  But, it did go off and is rather beautiful spewing over the Firehole River.  I didn’t see the rainbow it produced but it was worth the wait.

Riverside Geyser

Fishing Soda Butte Creek

Soda Butte Creek is on the northeastern corner of Yellowstone.  We have recently started going up into that region more often to see grizzly, bear and wolves.  This year it was just too hot for all the animals but the bison.  To try and make the trip a bit more interesting my Dad and I did a short 30 minute fishing expedition on the side of the road.  Success!  I was able to catch 2 pan fry size fish (no, I didn’t keep them).  The biting flies, horse flies, mosquitos, anything else that flies and bites were really tough though so I was glad to have a little success before we took off.  The water was rather muddy due to a previous rainstorm so I’ll count my blessings that I caught something.  Maybe another day I’ll go in and attempt to catch a few more fish.

Definitely a Pan Fryer

So, there you have it.  I found a few new things to do and did them.  I think the only other “major” thing I haven’t done is hiked in and camped at Shoshone.  Maybe someday.   There will be more adventures in Yellowstone and more good memories created for sure.  I have pictures posted from other things I did in Yellowstone HERE. 

Zion National Park

Ah, I love summer!  I went down to Zion National Park in Southern Utah with my niece, Katie for three days.  It was a great little road trip with lots of sights to see.

The trip started on Sunday with a half day trip. Surprisingly, the line into the park and parking itself was not bad for an end of June weekend.  They indicate that parking is typically completely full in the park from about 10am-3pm.  I didn’t find that to be the case on this day which was nice.  It was a hot one at 100F. We took the shuttle up the scenic drive and did two short hikes.

Weeping Rock

Ok, this is really more of a short jaunt than a hike.  It’s like a 10 minute walk along a paved path up to the cliff overhang where you can get refreshing water blown on you when the wind is right – and it makes it a bit tough to take a picture.  But, it feels good and the view down the valley is nice.  There happened to be a deer right below the walking area and people were going crazy, especially these French individuals (there were a TON of French this weekend for some reason).  It was a small, sickly looking mule deer and there are a ton of them in the park so we didn’t waste much time and moved on.

View from Weeping Rock

Emerald Pools

There are three pools.  The lower pool is an easy 1 mile walk.  The middle pools are a little tougher to get to (especially since there were trail detours going on) and an additional 0.5 mile.  The upper pool is yet another 0.5 miles up and harder to navigate.  Now, none of these are tough trails to follow or do but the first trail is a paved walkway while the last is more uphill stepping over rocks and a narrow trail.  The upper pool was definitely worth it.  There were only a couple of people there and it is right at the base of a sheer cliff so it was much more impressive and definitely worth the extra walking. 

After these two hikes Katie and I were famished so we grilled some brats before driving east through the tunnel (very neat) and hiked one last trail.  One of the neat things was that there were a ton of birds and deer out.  We saw both brilliant red and striking blue birds throughout our trip.  We saw scrawny deer (in addition to the one at weeping rock) but we also saw some healthy looking bucks as well.

Canyon Overlook Trail

I had never hiked this trail but it is one of the neater trails.  I would suggest hiking it in the morning rather than the evening if you want any decent pictures. We were staring right at the sun setting which was pretty, but was bad for any sort of pictures.  There is a short steep climb before leveling out for about a 1 mile walk where you can see into slot canyons from above and then into the main valley of Zion’s.   It was a great easy hike!

See, the sun was in the wrong spot - but you get an idea of how cool the view is.

Narrows
After sleeping on Katie’s floor my body was a bit creaky (maybe I should say creakier) but we headed off to hike the Narrow’s from the Temple of Sinawava.  You take the shuttle bus up to the last stop and then walk a mile along a sandy paved path going up and down hills to the starting point. 

We started at about 10am and while there were several hikers you could still find a little space between people.  On our way back it was like being in London’s Tubes during rush hour.  Ok, maybe not that bad but there were a lot of people!  The water was only calf deep typically so walking wasn’t too tough.   Maybe I should restate that.  It was calf deep for me (I’m rather tall).  Katie is on the shorter side (sorry Katie, but its true) and at times some of the crossings were pretty deep for her.  Being balance challenged, I was glad to have my walking sticks along the way as you are continually walking over rocks.  It wasn’t super hot outside either (the day turned cloudy and a wind storm came through keeping it cool) but with just wool socks and old tennis shoes my feet were never freezing.  I wouldn’t pay for the fancy neoprene socks and shoes unless the water was colder (they said it was like 60 degrees or something). 

We hiked up to the Orderville Slot Canyon (approx. 2 miles from the Temple entrance) and walked up that a ways.  There is a small 3 foot waterfall (again, easier for a taller person to navigate) to step over at the entrance and then it’s easy until you come to a debris area. We stopped at this point and turned around.  This is a great canyon because only a few people walk up it and the walls are much closer together – about 6 feet apart so you feel much more of that slot sheer canyon experience.   Don’t let the small waterfall deter you!

Ordervill Slot Canyon View

My knees were troublesome, and I’m old, so we walked just a bit farther up the Narrows as this is where the walls really start to come together before grabbing a bite to eat and heading back down. 

I was impressed by the older folks I saw navigating the river.  I was afraid some of them would break a hip but they were totally going for it!  We saw another guy puking his guts out about a mile upstream.  That didn’t look fun but it was a good reminder to drink LOTS of water – while at the same time DON’T drink river water– while it looks clean obviously there are other things in there! 

Kolob Canyon

The final day we drove up a 5 mile scenic drive at Kolob Canyon.   At the top is a 1 mile walk to a canyon overlook where you can see for miles.  I actually think that the viewpoint about 200 yards from the end has a better viewpoint so we ate our lunches there before heading back.

Kolob Canyon Viewpoint

All in all it was a great trip and activity packed.  We did see all of the major sites in the 48 hours we were there and I had a lot of fun (i.e. sore muscles, aches and pains) trying to keep up with my college aged niece.  

Check out the new pictures in the Photo Gallery!