Peak #3 Mt. Nebo, Utah County

Now this is a peak!! Anyone wanting to feel truly High in Utah should do this peak. At 7 miles round trip, it is short but has all the features what one would expect from climbing to almost 12,000 feet. We camped at the trailhead (Monument Trailhead). I was advised to not follow the guidebook I had which said to climb up Andrew's Ridge - and I advise all others to not follow that ridge either. The Monument Trailhead is awesome!! Justin and Matt joined me on this one and we enjoyed food and cards the night before. After sleeping under the stars, we hit the trail at 7am. We passed a couple of groups that started earlier, even with Justin not feeling too well. I was very impressed at how he pushed himself up the mountain even though he was in pain. Way to go little brother!! What I loved most about this hike was the exposure on the last part of the climb. One photo tries to show a gully that dropped off for hundreds of feet. There is an established trail all the way to the top but it could be dicey for those who fear falling thousands to feet to their death. I don't fear death, I just don't want it to be today. I wouldn't want engraved on my headstone "Here lies a moron".(Summarized from Deep Survival). The top was cold but very little wind and the only clouds were over the Uintas. The views were amazing.

One way down, we passed many groups. Some would ask how much farther. One gal asked if it was as hard as it looked. I just said that it was quite the haul up the ridge. Very memorable hike and people need to remember that we aren't walking on the beach here, you are mountain climbing and it should be hard, otherwise, the rest of the valley down there would be up here, and we don't want that, do we?

Peak #2 - Brian Head Peak, Iron County

After our travails on Signal Peak, I opted for an easier to bag peak. These easiest of them all is Brian Head. However, this peak is not short of the beauty of nature and the feeling of being high above everything else. We logged a couple of geocaches while up there and enjoyed the drive through Cedar Breaks on our way to the Shakespearean Festival. Jakob and Tanner were both in the Tempest with a bunch of friends. They performed on the Adams Theatre which a re-creation of the globe theatre.

Catching 'Zards

We were invited to a cool birthday party - a lizard hunting party for Clark Fox. Diamond Fork is know for tons of reptiles - especially for a large number of rattlesnakes, bull snakes and blow snakes. Unfortunately, we didn't see any snakes but plenty of lizards. Tanner caught two and brought one home as a pet - Junior is his name.

Lake Blanche 2010

Every once in a while I take off on a hike by myself, mostly to keep myself sane. This latest installment was to a lake that is well know to hikers and one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on, and right in our backyard up Big Cottonwood canyon. 6am start time and I cruised up and made the lake at 7:30. I hung out for 1/2 hour and ran down to be back at the car by 8:45am. Sundial Peak is amazing in the sunrise. I highly recommend this hike to all. It is a bit steep and guidebooks recommend you count on 2.5 hours to make it up. The views are great and don't forget to head west to catch the other 2 lakes up there.

Sawtooth Sweetness 2010

Do you like the title? Can a sawtooth be sweet? When the Thygerson's are in town, yes they can. I think Idahoans know this range of mountains very well, but it is an undiscovered gem that is very close to us here in Utah. Now, you may wonder, why go to the mountains of Idaho when the mountains here are so beautiful? Two words - new adventure!! Tanner got some great photos of us fishing and catching our limit of rainbow trout. Everyone got their own trout for dinner.

We found out that Jakob has been reading on how to survive in the forest. He tried some of his techniques and to our astonishment, they worked. The video is of a squirrel that he snared. One of the coolest things I've seen in a while. We know now that with his fishing and trapping techniques, he can provide food for us. Good thing to know.

The biking was great, Mac is getting really good at off road stuff. We found a great swim beach and paddled for 2 hours on Redfish Lake. On the way out we stopped in Custer, a town abandoned in 1911. We then trekked over to Craters of the Moon and love the cool caves. Great exploring for the boys. One had plenty of ice in it even though the outside temps were in the 90s. Then on to Lava Hot Springs for some tubing down the river. Anders screamed his first run, then sat out two runs, then rode down the 4th run asking ever minute if the next rapid was the biggest. I think if I told him we had just passed the biggest rapid then he could relax knowing he passed the point of danger. One our last run, as we went over a large rapid a lady in front of us fell off and we hit her with our large 4 person tube. I couldn't find her for a bit then Tanner pointed her out. She was struggling to stay above water, had lost her tube and was screaming for help. I jumped off the tube expecting much deeper water, got her up. The boys got some exposure as her swimsuit had come off. She could not stay up on her own and was going under and saying "I'm too weak!". I got her to shore and handed her off to her husband. It amazed me that she couldn't just stand up in the river. I don't think people realized the strength of the water and that some ability is need to ride that river. McKinley kept saying she was homesick after 5 days even though she was with her mom, dad and brothers. I don't think she knows what homesickness is.

Dog Lake 2010

Adrianne and I love to backpack. But going with little kids is a different adventure altogether. Jake and Tanner are at a good age to enjoy the backpacking - but we decided to see if McKinley and Anders would enjoy it. We outfitted them with their own packs and headed up to Dog Lake up Millcreek Canyon. It was a Friday (odd day) and mtn. bikes are allowed on the trail. Most were very courteous but one group of hot doggers almost took us out. We love this area. I tried my hand at building a raft with Jake and Tanner. After our last episode of raft building, Tanner wanted me to try it out first. It was successful for all of 5 minutes, then slowly came apart because we didn't have enough rope. We hiked around, played disc golf, geocached and really enjoyed the way down as we passed some 50 dogs and their owners going up to the lake, big ones, small ones, lost ones and some wondering how to get wet in the lake. I actually prefer to watch the funny owners - they watch their dogs like hovering parents watch over a one year old just learning to walk. Mac and Anders did enjoy the trip but we will have to wait and see if we do another one this year with them. Plus, our aching backs may not let us.

Peak #1 - Signal Peak

This is the first entry for our Endeavor 2029. This means that my brothers Matt and Justin and whoever wants to join us will attempt (and hopefully summit) the highest peaks in each of Utah's 29 counties. I years past I've only done King's Peak so we are starting over. Signal Peak was our first choice as it seemed to be one of the harder climbs on the list and we had better hit those hard ones early on. I arrived with my family at Dean Gardner campground on the Pine Valley side of the mountain range. This is a new NFS campground that is well maintained with great tent spots and tables, even cooking tables. No showers for those who need one. We enjoyed the campfire and hanging out. My brothers Matt and Justin arrived at the site at 2am since Matt was getting in from a business trip but didn't want to miss this first hike.

We woke up casually and hit the trail at 9:30am. Jakob was planning on hiking the whole time but Tanner decided last minute to join us - that meant extra water for me to pack. Brown's Point trailhead is easy to find but as we started ascending, we soon found out why this hike is rated difficult. It was relentless unhill with few if any flat spots for relief. Justin was just getting over a cold so he was struggling a bit but did well. I was impressed with Tanner and Jakob - both getting valuable hiking experience. Near the top of Brown's Point, we lost the trail and the snow was getting in the way. I knew it had been a big winter in southern Utah but was not prepared for what we were about to encounter in Nay's Canyon. At the ridge over Brown's Point, we marked the trail with a cairn and started the 300 foot descent into Nay's canyon. This is where the snow really started to give us troubles. Drifts 4-5 feet deep were fairly easy to walk on but Matt was leading most the time up and postholed several times. We followed some faint tracks and made it to the junction. At this point, we decided to go on since the snow had faded from the area. We were not following a trail, just waypoints and coords on my gps. We cross a large meadow and descended down into Further Water - a very large mountain meadow about 0.5 miles from the summit push. This was a beautiful area - I always love the high mountain meadows. We followed the obvious trail up a drainage for about 1/4 mile, then headed straight up the south facing slope to the top. Lots of snow and heavy breathing but the summit push was on. To be honest, reaching the top was a bit 'anticlimatic' as Matt put it. Unlike the peaks I'm used to hiking, reaching the top here was just finding the highest rocks pile and making sure my gps was tracking well. We enjoyed the summit for about 20 minutes, signed the log, found a geocache at the top as well and began the hike out. It was actually fun going down the snow. Tanner was in a very good mood and was really enjoying the sliding down, just like skiing. The hike down was uneventful until we made a serious mistake. We did not want to deal with the snow in Nay's Canyon again - so we followed the contour back to the cairn we placed at the top of Brown's Point ridge. Major mistake. It was slow, arduous work and even tougher for Jakob and Tanner. The most frustrating part was the gps telling us we had 0.8 miles to go to the cairn but it seemed to stay at 0.8 miles for 2 miles. We then hit a very steep slope that almost proved to be too much. Jakob took a small spill but was okay. Matt was tracking, Justin was helping Tanner and I stayed with Jakob. I kept beating myself up about making such a poor decision. At long last, we were just 300 yard from the cairn, I sent Justin with the gps to find it. He found it at the exact same time we finally found the trail heading down. Much relief. But now we were very tired and had a steep descent off the ridge. We were going fairly fast and my team held up most impressively. At the car, we realized the hike just took us 11.5 hours to complete. Not good timing, but what a hike and great memories. We thought about driving home to Provo and SLC that night but with the late night for Matt and Justin, I was the only driver and my eyes were as heavy as books. After a much needed hamburger in Cedar City, we slept in Beaver. This was a tough 14 mile hike that felt more like 20. We learned one good lesson, stay on the trail no matter what you think the gps is telling you. But overall, this was a good hike to start out Endeavor 2029.

Steve