Our Little Zion Adventure--Sand Digging Canyon

 Over the weekend we went to Zion National Park to meet one of my brothers and his girlfriend. The park was packed! I couldn't believe how many people were there. In fact, the park is on track to have more than 3 million visitors this year. That's a lot of people for a park that has few roads through its 232 square miles. All the parking lots were full and the highway through the park was very busy. 

Nevertheless, it is possible to find a little quiet. We lucked out into one spot. We parked right before the second, smaller tunnel. A social trail led down to Clear Creek, the canyon that the road parallels for a long section. I figured we would hike in it. But then Desert Boy noticed a side canyon. In particular, he noticed a long tunnel. It was a tunnel that had been carved through the sandstone to allow the canyon to drain. He asked if we could go in.

You already know what I said!

The tunnel was nice and cool and easily walkable. On the other side we popped out to some pools.


I admired some of the fall colors. The maples had a few red leaves.

We spotted a lizard.

We continued hiking in some very nice terrain, the kids leading the way. They were so happy to be exploring. I was so happy to have a little piece of the park to ourselves. They kept telling me I needed to touch the sand because it felt so great. When they found some wet sand, they said it was perfect sand-castle making sand. I could tell they wanted to stop, but I told them we were going to keep hiking.

Then we rounded a corner and found this sweet spot, and I knew we had found our little mecca.

 Not only did we have wet sand, we also had water, colorful rocks, and a little bit of shade. I quickly claimed the shade and laid down on the nice sand and took a little snooze.

 The kids quickly started digging and constructing their sand castles. Everyone was happy!

When I felt refreshed, I wandered up canyon a little.

I found more pools with some stained water in them. The canyon opened up a bit.

I didn't go far, and found the view coming back down was great.

I even found some flowers in bloom.

Desert Girl was happily throwing sand into the puddle. The beauty of desert canyons is that rearranging the sand causes no harm--floods will rearrange the sand much more than two little kids could do in an hour.

Because they're kids, they couldn't resist the water. They asked if they could go for a swim. I said sure, as long as they took all their clothes off. And so they did, quickly discovering that the water was rather cool. 

No one came the whole time we were there. 

 When we scrambled back up to the road, we were back to the highway, with one car after another.

I suspect that there are a lot of sweet spots in Zion, just off the highway. So if you're there, take a chance and see what you can find. We couldn't have been more than a quarter-mile off the highway, but we had it all to ourselves. Even better, the kids keep asking when they can go back. Since they led the trip, they feel ownership in the hike. (See this post for tips for visiting Zion with kids.)

That was our little Zion adventure. Coming soon: our epic Zion adventure.

Mountain Biking at Sacramento Pass Recreation Area, Nevada

 When I was reading my friend Jenny's blog about their trip to the recently-opened Sacramento Pass Recreation Area, I was inspired to go for a visit.

They have a really nice sign with lots of information.

While my husband and Desert Girl tried their luck at fishing, Desert Boy and I decided to try one of the hiking/mountain biking/equestrian trails. To make it a little easier, we biked up the road to the equestrian trailhead, which also has three very nice campsites. Then we started down the trail.

It was fun mountain biking!

We reached some obstacles where we had to walk the bikes.

The trail was well marked in some places and in others we had to do a little searching. We rebuilt a couple rock cairns that had fallen over.

A little bit of the trail was flat and smooth.

A lot of the trail had rock obstacles.

I was quite impressed with how Desert Boy handled his bike.


























Here's a video that shows Desert Boy going over a particularly rocky section.


We were getting a little tired after mile two, and the aspens sort of took over the trail. Nevertheless, we persevered, as we knew we were close.

It turned out to be a great ride, and we look forward to going back and trying out some of the longer trails.

Meanwhile, Desert Girl had learned to cast well.

We had forgotten the worms, so we only got two trout in about 2.5 hours, so we'll have to go back and work on that too!

Sac Pass is definitely on our list for camping next year. The BLM did a really nice job renovating this area, and we'll be back!

A Night Under the Moon

 My friend Jenny had the great idea to take the kids for a moonlit hike. During the summer, Great Basin National Park offers full moon hikes to Stella Lake. Now that it's October, those hikes are over, but there was nothing to stop us from going ourselves! We decided that we would try Strawberry Creek instead of Stella Lake. One of the reasons is that we wanted to hear elk bugling, and indeed we did. In the photo above, we stopped to listen to the eerie sound.

 As we hiked, the nearly full moon rose over the ridge. We tried to have the kids keep their flashlights off. It wasn't easy for them, as they were not comfortable hiking at night with just the glow of the moon. Gradually, though, they got used to it.

 We've hiked the Strawberry Creek loop before, but in daylight. The kids fondly remembered the bridges.

It didn't take long to get to the top bridge. We stopped for snacks and photos. It was hard to get everyone to sit still! Can you see the Big Dipper in the background? (It's on the left.)

We decided to play around with long exposures and some flashlight writing. I set the camera to take a 30-second exposure, then keeping the headlight covered, ran over and wrote the word "moon." Then I illuminated us for a couple seconds. Again it was hard to keep everyone still, and I look like a ghost, but you get the idea! We'll have to work on this technique some more.

After the bridge we were out in the meadow, and it was so bright! The kids walked really fast, and by now it was no problem to hike in the moon light without flashlights.

I was amazed how bright everything was with just the moon. I dragged behind experimenting with photos.

We got to the bridge at the end right about bed time. It was the perfect length hike for the kids.

Later that night I woke up to go check out the lunar eclipse. I took a ton of photos but wasn't very happy with how they turned out. It reinforced my desire to do a 2015 Moon Photo Challenge. I'll have more up on the blog about that later, but basically the idea is to take a photo of the full moon each month, experimenting with different locations and techniques. I hope you'll join me!

Here's the full moon from under the fall colors.

The blood moon during the full eclipse.

And finally, the eclipse ending.

I was exhausted the next morning, but it was worth it.

Desert Boy's First Triathlon

Delta, Utah, had its first ever triathlon yesterday, including a kids event. Earlier in the year I had asked Desert Boy if he wanted to do a triathlon (thinking that might help him improve his swimming), and he answered an enthusiastic "Yes!" So we registered him and took him to the Delta swimming pool for the start. Adults had to swim 300 m, bike 6 miles, and run 1.6 miles. Kids swam 100 m, biked 1.5 miles, and ran .25 miles. Desert Boy had never swam that far before, so I was eager to see how he would do.

He quickly flipped on his back and did his version of elementary backstroke, which actually propelled him fairly rapidly through the water. At age 7, he was the youngest contestant of the eight kids competing.

As soon as he finished swimming, he ran out to the transition zone and quickly got stuck trying to put his shirt on. Transitions are never easy!

Once he started riding, he was stoked. He said there were people at the corners pointing which way to go. We had also driven the bike route right before the race so he knew where to go.

When he got to the track, a helpful bystander grabbed his bike so he could do his lap around the track. He didn't even bother to take off his helmet.

He liked the cheering section.

And then he was across the finish line! It took him about 20 minutes to do the whole race, and he was beyond delighted that he had finished it. Even better were the free swimming pass and drink coupon he got for participating, both of which he used later that day.

When I asked him at the end of our busy day (which also included flu shots, caving, a special lunch out, swimming, and more) what his favorite part was, he said the triathlon, and specifically swimming in the triathlon. So hopefully we'll be doing more of these races!

The organizer said they're planning to do the triathlon again next year, probably at the end of May or beginning of June so it doesn't interfere with school activities. If you're interested, check out Ready, Set, Tri on Facebook.

Making Our Own PVC Chicken Feeder

Our chickens are doing really well. The rooster crows every morning, and I look forward to the cock-a-doodle-doos. The hens still aren't laying, despite giving them more calcium, putting a golf ball in a nest box "to give them the idea" and putting a light in the coop on a timer so that they get an extra couple hours of daylight every day. From my research on the Internet, it looks like they grow a big wattle right before they start to lay, which one of the hens has done. (A wattle is the red part under the bill.) Otherwise, although 5-6 months to lay is average, it does take some of them 12 months. I guess we'll just keep waiting (if you have any good ideas, let me know!)

Despite the lack of eggs, we're really enjoying the chickens. They are very messy, though, and I was getting tired of them spilling their chicken feed everywhere from the metal chicken trays. I looked around the Internet a bit to figure out a better solution and decided on PVC feeders. I didn't follow any one plan, but got ideas from several and went to the hardware store. I bought two 3 ft long sections of 3 -inch PVC pipe, two Y joints, and two caps of different types.

The design was simple enough for Desert Boy to assemble: stick the pipe into the Y-joint. We added a lid for the bottom, put it on a brick in the coop, tried to secure it as best we could, poured in chicken feed (the newly-acquired canning funnel helped!), and then put on a lid just to keep anything else out. Assembly was less than ten minutes.

We also made one for the run, and for this one we used the sturdier cap for the top and the plug for the joint to keep rain out.

Here's Desert Boy filling up the PVC. We only need to do that once a week or so.

The chickens seem to be very happy eating out of the new feeders, and the mess is greatly reduced. Success!

Fall Colors in Great Basin National Park

 The colors are changing up high in the mountains, and we really wanted to go see them before they fell off. So after school one day, we loaded up and headed up the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive in Great Basin National Park.

It was a partly cloudy day, and when the sun came out, it was magical. Even when the sun wasn't out, the colors were so vibrant.

Our first mini hike was to the amphitheater.

The trees were in full yellow.

Then we went for a quick jaunt on the nature trail, where we had a snack at every bench. The trail is only about 1/4 mile long and there are many benches, so I guess I shouldn't say there was anything quick about it. Nevertheless, it didn't take that much time.

Then it was time to head for a walk around Wheeler Peak Campground. Actually, the kids ran most of the time. They had a lot of energy.

When they found this tree stump, they wanted to pose.

A different tree stump.

Some of the leavers were really red. I love it when they turn that way.

When we got to the big meadow in the middle of the campground, we let the kids run. They slowed a little to climb up the boulder in the middle.

It and nearby rocks became "launching pads," and the kids jumped off them repeatedly.

All that running worked up a thirst, so we stopped at a water spigot.

Then it was time for the forest adventure, which involved balancing on logs while crossing the creek...

…and climbing trees...

…and choosing which way to go. This was Carmela's first visit up here, and she loved all the colors.

We repeatedly crossed the creek. I told the kids to stay dry, as I didn't have extra clothes with me, and amazingly they listened.

It was a very fun afternoon, and spending time with friends made it even more fun!

I almost forgot the sibling carry. They really had a lot of energy!

There's supposed to be a big storm coming in this weekend with the snow level at 8,500 ft, so a lot of the leaves will fall off soon. It's been a really nice September, though, so we can't complain!

Have you seen good fall colors this year?