Oak Grove Trail Hike

Attempted to hike to the top of the Pine Valley Mountains, with Allison, on Friday, October 16th. The hike to the top is three miles. We began at 10:15 at an elevation of 6500' and hiked two miles to an elevation of 8500'. Running out of water and still having a mile and 1500' feet to go, we headed back down. We arrived back at the Explorer at 2:00 . We met one other hiker who was hiking from Oak Grove, over the top, and ending in Pine Valley. This is the hike Marty, Pat and I did in 2003.

Bryce Canyon

Allison and I went to Bryce Canyon during the middle of the week (Wed & Thu) for a short Fall getaway. We began our travels at Summit and followed a dirt road up through the Ashdown Wilderness area coming out at Brianhead. From their we fished Panquitch Creek before heading to Bryce for dinner at the Lodge. After dinner we watched the Bar G Wranglers perform at Ebenezer's Barn & Grill. We spent the night in a cabin and then left for Mossy Cave in the morning. We traveled home through Tropic Reservoir, to Skumptewa Road, to Johnson Canyon and then to Kanab.

Blue Lake Hike

Allison and I hiked to Blue Lake starting from the Bullion Pasture Trailhead at an elevation of 10,993 ft. We began at 11:15 AM and hiked an abandoned road, used to repair the spillway in 2007, the 2.3 miles to the lake (elevation 9755 ft). It took us approximately one hour. We spent a half hour or so wandering around the lake looking at the spillway, an old cabin and taking in the views of Mt. Baldy (12,050 ft) and Mt. Belknap (12,128 ft) which we had hiked one year earlier. It took us about 1.5 hours to hike back to the Explorer, arriving at 2:30 PM for a total round trip hike of about 5 miles.

Tunnel Walk - Andrew's 18th Birthday

We (Allison, Andrew and friend Eddie) loaded buses at the Nature Center around 5:00 PM and rode to the east entrance of the tunnel. On the bus with us were Shaun and Karen Mason, along with Lee, Izabela and Matthew Drumm - all coworkers from Zion. After listening to a boring speech by the park superintendant, we were allowed to enter the tunnel at approximately 6:00 PM. We met several neighbors and friends that accompanied us through the hour trek - Len and Karen Mendenhall (neighbors), Steve and Eileen Drake (neighbors) and Dave Johnson (coworker). We had a great time peering out of the five different windows along the route and enjoying the views of Zion. After we exited the west tunnel (around 7:00 PM) we were bused back down to the Nature Center where we recevied our commemorative scarf and stick pin.