Saturday, September 26, 2020

Mount Superior with Karly, August 2, 2020



Sunday's hike was up Mt. Superior from Alta with my daughter Karly. It's been a long, hot summer so we decided to go high to find some cool air, but apparently so did half of SLC. While driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon at 7AM, every trailhead was already overflowing. At the White Pine trailhead, likely at capacity all night, the cars were parked along the highway at least a half-mile both up and down the canyon from the turnoff. Gone are the days when I could pull into White Pine parking and find only two or three cars and I'd wouldn't see another sole while hiking the Pfeifferhorn. 

Karly is my third baby and second daughter, and she has given me two beautiful grand-babies, Harper and Madsen. Words cannot express the  joy that Harp and Mads bring me. In a world full of contention and endless bickering, even from friends that should be an ally, the love coming from a grandchild is pure, sweet joy. I'm in heaven when they run up spontaneously and bear-hug my legs. Hiking with my daughter is a distant second on the joy list. Sorry Karly, but it's your fault.  

American Fork Twin Peaks, the highest points in the central Wasatch (west peak 11,489ft, east peak 11,433ft). Timpanogos and Nebo are higher.


Pfeifferhorn (11,326 ft.), dead center. 


Fuzzy Pfeifferhorn, the Doug Fir sharp . . not the needles, just the photo. My Dad use to tell me the best way to determine if it's a fir, pine or spruce is to back into the tree. If you say SHIT! it's a pine or a spruce. If it feels soft and silky it's a fir.

Sorry for the repetition, the Pfeifferhorn view is stunning. The drainages seen here from Mt. Superior,   Red Pine, Maybird Gulch and Hogum Fork.

Beauty all around when I could stop looking at the Pfeiff . . .    

. . . but you know what captures my attention.


Karly high above Alta on the final approach to Mt. Superior's summit. We hiked the Little Superior ridge from Cardiff Pass. 


Humming Bird at 10,00 feet. How much more must they beat their wings in the thin air?


View into Cardiff Fork and Cardiac Bowl, the ski run dropping off the NE side of Mt. Superior. 

Daughter and her Dad.

Karly is the hero today! View SW from the summit of Mt. Superior (11,050 ft.), and of course the Pfeifferhorn just off Karly's elbow.

No joking about the crowds, those cars are the overflow from the White Pine trailhead. 

Two weeks out from surgery to repair a ruptured bicep tendon. The weird brace is to keep my arm from fully extending, bringing many stares and whispering from other hikers. "What the hell was that." Overheard after passing another group of hikers. 

Two hikers topping out on the south ridge of Superior, a classic Wasatch scramble. 

 



Yes Bishop, we did go to church today. 


Sunday, September 20, 2020

Finding my Dad's Arch, 45-years Later, July 28, 2020

Dad's Arch, on the North Canyon/City Creek Canyon divide. Not much to look at but I've been searching for it for 45 years. My Dad spotted it years ago (early 1970's) while hiking with me and my brother Mark when I was about 10 years old and Mark about 11. We were hiking up the North Canyon trail when my Dad saw this hole in the rock from a quarter mile away.  It is rarely visible given the distance and its size (4 feet wide, 2 feet high, 4 feet long), it.can be spotted from the North Canyon trail for just a few minutes each day when the sun is at a perfect angle for a beam of light to shine through. Dad was ecstatic to see an arch high on the ridge above, in Davis County no less which is not known for its geography. Without the sun angle just right, it looks like nothing more than a small depression in the cliff. Of course my Dad had to go see it, so we bush-whacked up the steep slope to the ridge. Once there, Dad took a bunch of photos of Mark and I crawling through. It was just big enough for a kid to crawl through one at a time. My parents are now gone and I can't find those photos, likely buried in the storage of one of my siblings. 


Moon above Dad's Arch, from the same spot where my Dad spotted it so long ago from the North Canyon trail. 


Horned Toads everywhere near Dude Peak. 

View SW from Dude Peak.

View south from Dude, and the Central Wasatch.

View east, with Bountiful Ridge and Rudy's Flat just beyond the rounded, sunny peak.  




No wonder I thought the arch had collapsed. From 100 feet below while hiking the Dude Peak Trail, it looks like nothing more than just shadow on the rock, but it's there. 

The arch is the dark spot in the rock, and I've walked past it too many times while searching for it, too lazy to walk up a few feet investigate. Today I got ambitious and hiked up for a closer look, and BAM! There's Dad's Arch!  







Rudy's Flat.


I wish! I've seen bootleg graves in several spot along the North Canyon trail.