The Twisted Forest, Dixie National Forest, Utah

While I was looking through tourist information on our trip to Cedar Breaks, I found a reference to the Twisted Forest, a grove of bristlecone pines, and some general directions to it in the Dixie National Forest. I was intrigued--I love bristlecones. So we braved a Forest Service road that started near Brian Head with the van. The road was in great shape, and I hooted with excitement as we drove across the slopes at Brian Head ski resort. We wound our way around the mountain, through beautiful aspen groves, past empty campsites, over a big, muddy puddle, and arrived at the Twisted Grove trailhead 3.5 miles after leaving the pavement. A sign, overhung by a bristlecone pine, greeted us.

As soon as left the trailhead, we entered Ashdown Gorge Wilderness. We also had stunning views of what awaited us: old growth bristlecone pine on orange and white substrate. How cool was that!

Some of the bristlecone pines looked very strange, and not that healthy. I'm not sure what's going on with them.

Many showed stripbarking, or only a small strip of bark alive keeping part of the tree alive, while the rest was dead. This is a common strategy for bristlecone pines to live longer. The sign said that at least one tree in this grove was over 2,000 years old.

We did find some younger ones. We'll have to revisit this tree in a few years and see who is taller. (Note what Desert Boy is carrying. He read so much this summer!)

We kept going until we reached the ridge (this brought some tears from Desert Girl, who really didn't want to hike the half-mile trail). I left the kids with water and snacks and walked the ridge to explore some more. I found all kinds of neat trees.

This one was barely hanging on. Brian Head Peak is in the background.

This one was dead but had such an interesting shape.

I must love the neat twists, as I took a lot of photos of them!

The lighting wasn't what I considered ideal, but I tried to work with it.

A storm was moving in from the east and we could hear some distant thunder, so we couldn't stay much longer.

 This sure is a place I'd like to return to. You can find more info about the Twisted Forest here.

On the way back we walked up to the top of the chair lift at Brian Head.

It was crazy seeing the slopes without snow. Hopefully we'll be back this winter!

Enjoying a Cool Getaway - Cedar Breaks National Monument

 

Last week I had planned on going up Mount Rainier to survey some glacier caves, but due to some bureaucracy, the trip was delayed for a year. I had already requested the time off, and decided I might as well enjoy it. On Sunday, the whole family went to Cedar City and then up to Cedar Breaks National Monument. We set up camp in the 10,000-foot high campground and then set off for the Alpine Pond loop trail, a distance of about two miles.

The kids were not happy hikers, but we made them do it anyway. The pond was pleasant, but not exactly thrilling. I enjoyed being at 10,000 feet on a nearly flat trail.

We got some smiles by the end of the hike.

My husband had to head back to the ranch, so we headed to the ranger program at the campground. They have programs Friday and Sunday nights, with astronomy programs Saturday night near the visitor center. This program was about bug kill, and Desert Girl took a close look at the spruce bark beetles responsible for killing so many trees.

It was fun going to a classic ranger campground program.

In addition to the high elevation of the campground, something else I really like about it is that it has hot showers! Woohoo! And it didn't fill up any of the nights we were there. And the wildflowers were amazing.

We were in a monsoonal period, so the skies got very dark and threatening at night. In fact, it rained every night we were there, but we were mostly prepared. We only did get a fire stared once, though.

Desert Girl and I took the half-mile long to the visitor center in the evening to check out the neat clouds and distant lightning. We could see the glow of Cedar City in the distance.

That night I woke up in the middle of the night and knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so I went out and took some night sky photos. The stars looked so close!


The next morning we woke up to beautiful fields of flowers just outside our tent lit by our nearest star.

We walked over to the visitor center and checked out the sun through special solar telescopes.

Then it was time for a hike to the Ramparts Overlook, a little less than two miles each way. Desert Boy packed a book, and whenever he was waiting, he pulled it out.

We started down the trail through the woods, then soon came out along the rim, looking into the magnificent hoodoos.

Soon we arrived at some old bristlecone pines. They were magnificent.

Desert Girl posed for a photo with me. Then we had a reading/snack break.

I had a lot of fun taking photos.

The kids decided they wanted to take photos too, so I took a photo of them before and after their set of photos so we could keep it all straight. They're going to enter a couple of their photos in the fair.

At the Ramparts overlook, we had some outstanding views. We ate lunch, worked on Desert Girl's junior ranger booklet,  and then headed back.

While Desert Girl and I tried to find the marmots we had seen earlier, Desert Boy took the opportunity to read a little more.

Storms were expected that afternoon, and the building clouds made for some even more dramatic views. We finished the hike, all happy to have had a chance for a slow-paced, fun walk.

 When we got back to the campsite, Desert Girl wanted to find a friend to play with. Fortunately, other kids were camping, and she and Desert Boy played a couple hours. It started raining, and I just wasn't feeling like cooking in the rain. So we drove to nearby Brian Head and had pizza. On the way back, we decided to drive up Brian Head Peak.

The van made it to the top of the three-mile gravel road to over 11,000 feet. We checked out the hut bit by the CCC at the top.

On the way down, we stopped so I could check out the view. I heard a squeak and saw a pika! Pikas are small mammals that look somewhat like rabbits. They live high in the mountains, but surprisingly don't hibernate. They collect grass all summer long and make piles of it, called haystacks, in talus fields. In the winter, they find those grass caches and eat them.

We still had one more more day of adventure on our trip, but that needs its own post. It was great spending some quality time with these super kids.

Finding Frugal Ways to Enjoy Culture in the Desert

We had a wonderful vacation last week that along with camping included cultural things that we had never done before: watching Mary Poppins, a production of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and visiting the new Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA). The kids are still singing Mary Poppins tunes, and I think we'll try to make it a tradition to see a play each year.

I was so impressed with SUMA. It's free, which was nice because the play tickets were kind of pricey. The exhibitions are focused on the Utah national parks in honor of the National Park Service Centennial. Some works of art are for sale. One exhibit really caught my eye, by Kevin Kehoe, called Western Therapy. The works of art showed great Utah scenery, along with people experiencing that scenery. It was magical for me, and one of the reasons I enjoy art so much. I felt reinvigorated seeing those paintings, inspired to go out and enjoy the beautiful scenery around us and be part of it. His exhibit totally worked for me.

When we got home, the Olympics were starting, and I wanted to see them. The problem is that our antenna rarely pulls in NBC. We don't have a cable TV subscription, which is necessary to watch the Olympics on NBC's website. So I did some Internet searching and found an article on Fortune.com about how to watch the Olympic Games without cable. Basically, we have installed Tunnel Bear, a little program that disguises where our computer is. Then we can get on CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and choose what Olympic event to view. Last night we saw some of the archery on replay (which is kind of handy when you want to skip ahead to see my husband's second cousin compete), swimming, and air pistol this morning (talk about an interesting event I didn't even know was in the Olympics!). So far it's been free, but soon we'll reach our bandwidth limit, and I think we'll be happy to fork over $7.99 to watch the rest of the Olympics. Watching it from a Canadian viewpoint is culturally intriguing--their commercials are better, more intelligent, than those in the U.S. And their announcers are much more fair and even-handed than the U.S. ones. The Canadian swimmers got a bronze medal in the 4 x 100 m freestyle relay, and the announcers were focused on the Australians, who won and broke the World Record.

While I was catching up on blogs, I found one on Money Saving Mom about audiobooks. We've had a subscription to Audible.com for a few months (after 3 months free we decided to continue because we really like the audiobooks for our frequent long drives). MSM blogged about ways to get free audiobooks, including using Overdrive, a program available at many libraries. I had looked into that briefly a year or two ago but couldn't get it to work on my computer. I decided to try again, this time on my smartphone. Success! All I needed was to download the app and put in my library card number, and I suddenly had access to all sorts of ebooks and audiobooks for free! Most are available for a 7-day checkout. And many are recent, like Janet Evanovich's books and Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy. Yeehaw, I am a happy camper. Suddenly I have access to so many more books, which is nice when I live in a really remote place. And there are no overdue charges. :)

One other cultural event to mention on this photoless blog post (I know, how weird!). Saturday night, August 13, 2016, at 8 p.m. there's a free concert at the Great Basin Visitor Center in Baker, Nevada, by Hal Cannon and others.

Hurray for some culture out in the desert!

A Little Hike in Cathedral Gorge State Park, Nevada

 On the way back from a family reunion, we stopped at Cathedral Gorge State Park to stretch our legs. This is one of my favorite places to stop on the drive along Highway 93 to/from Las Vegas. We parked at Miller Point and enjoyed a nice view of the gazebo.

A new trail map with lots of info is now available.

We took off down the stairs into the badlands.

Along the way are some gaping holes. You wouldn't want to fall in one of these, as getting out it would be very difficult.

The trail is so much fun to follow.

I have to admit, I took a lot of photos!

It had rained the night before (we had been planning to camp, but wussed out and got a motel room in Caliente so we didn't have to pitch a tent in the thunderstorm), and remnants of the water were present in the form of mud. We all took off our shoes and enjoyed walking barefoot.

Usually I turn around here, but we had some extra time, so we kept going and came across this sign about the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and Cathedral Gorge State Park. They made several structures that still stand.

One is this covered picnic area.

Then we came up to more badlands, and narrow passages beckoned.

Desert Girl was so excited to lead the way and have choices.

We found a board high up one. We don't know what that's for.

Then we exited and checked out the old wellhouse.

Then it was time to visit more badlands.

The kids spotted a narrow crack and headed that way.

It was tight on them, so I didn't get too far!

Fortunately other passages were bigger. We had a fun game of hide-n-seek.

The walls have interesting textures depending on how the water flows down them.

On the way back we paused to watch some foxes play. They were such a neat sight!

To keep things interesting on the hike back, I told the kids that the person with the muddiest feet won. Here they are trying to get muddy.

It was a nice hike back up.

And winner of the muddiest feet? That would be Desert Boy. And that probably wasn't the greatest idea for a contest given that those muddy feet then had to get in the van and ride for another couple hours.

I am hoping to camp at Cathedral Gorge soon. They have a campground with hot showers and it would be so cool to see some of the badlands at night. To learn more (I've totally skipped geology, geography, and more in this post), check out Cathedral Gorge's website.