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| The heart of Bountiful Ridge: Mark's Ghost (right-side drainage, flaring widest at the top), Crescent Peak and Bowl (middle, rounded high-point, the bowl is directly below. |
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| Number Seven from the Kenny Creek Trail. |
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| Bountiful Ridge from the rock outcrop on the Kenny Creek Trial. |
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| Blue Flax, Lewis Flax or sometimes called Prairie Flax, but the technical name is Linum KLewisii. It grows on ridges and dry slopes, so Utah is a natural home, and it grows from sea level way north (Alaska) and up to 11,000 feet. |
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| Mt plant APP says this is Mountain Laurel, but I don't think so, they grow in Texas and New Mexico. My brother Brian says its a Sweet Pea (Bonneville Pea or Lathyrus Brachycalyx), so I checked my book Desert Plants of Utah and Brian is right. |
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| Zoomed view of the Hidden Couloirs: I, II and III. I skied HC II in April (see April 19 post). |
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| Ridge line: (l-r) Burro Mine, Blacks Peak, Mark's Ghost, Crescent and Crescent Bowl, and Rectangle Peak, North, and Face. Diagonal middle slope, covered with Douglas Fir: (l-r) Hidden Couloir I (middle left line - it's more open than it looks, and it's the upper entrance to HC II), Hidden Couloir II (middle open gully - again, it's more open than it looks when under snow) and Hidden Couloir III (gully, middle right). |
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| The miners cabin of upper Kenny Creek Trail. In the mid 1970's, when I was 14 or 15, this cabin was fully intact with a solid, waterproof roof. In the late 1970's the cabin was vandalized when an upstanding pillar of our community went up there with a pry-bar (or sledge, or maybe just a stout log) and took out one corner which collapsed the roof and, as you can see, it is now barley recognizable as the living quarters of a mine that was operated about 50 yards up the hill. |
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| Number Seven (the peak) seen from the miners cabin. |
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| Who knows. Maybe an old wheel barrel? And with the Utah-required bullet holes. |
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| Yes, of course the gunners have to shoot at something. It is their way to self actualization. Here's a crazy idea, instead why not shoot your Dad's Lexus? It'd look total bad-ass covered with bullet holes when you drive it to Junior Prom, or to your PHD dissertation, whatever the case might be. It's Utah, either scenario is probable. Yeah, the cabin might look like junk, but to some it is history and to some your shooting is nothing more than mindless vandalism. |
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| Mine tailing's from a long gone era of Mueller Park. |
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| Blue Flax. |
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| Sweat Pea |
Yeah, the Bonnie and Clyde cars up Farmington Canyon trail have been shot to hell too. Seems like signs can't survive either as they're tempting targets for shooters.
ReplyDeleteOn my way back from Rice/Mud bowls, as I approached the fire-break road, I came across a ton of people that have made a part of the mountain side their own make-shift shooting range. There was garbage in the form of broken clays, bullet shells, and all sorts of shot-up junk littered everywhere. They were pissed they had to stop shooting while I was coming down the mountain with skis on my back. I told them to clean up their garbage. Things got heated. It wasn't fun. One guy said he had to watch me put my stuff in my car so that I wasn't tempted to key his car, etc. Total A-holes. In hind-sight, I wish I would have just gone way around them. I didn't want to at the time, though, because I was super exhaust, and just wanted the direct line to my car.
On another occasion, I turned a blind corner while hiking only to find a target at my feet, and some idiots aiming at it with their guns. Glad I wasn't shot.
Guns are fun to shoot, I get that, but I wish people cared more about the impact of their sport, and had a little more brain power about where they decide to shoot.
+1 for b/c skiing, since I think, if done right, it is as low-impact as any sport can be. Leave no trace.