Solitude of South Willow makes for ideal snowshoeing

Following tracks in the snow is a fascinating pursuit—especially when they’re your own.

An ice-crusted South Willow stream is one of the highlights of a winter trip to South Willow Canyon (photo by Clint Thomsen).

The following originally appeared in the December 17, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

The lone set of snowshoe tracks swerved gradually back and forth as they climbed the canyon road.  Back-tracing them, it was easy to reconstruct my entire run.  Here—where the tracks sink in deeper than the rest—is where I stopped to shed my coat and gloves.  Small deviations in my route showed where I had cut over to examine a large canine paw print, where I took my eyes off the road to monitor the advancing storm above, and where I stopped to listen to my heart pound against the insulated silence of the snow-coated canyon.

I was alone in South Willow Canyon, which is not an uncommon occurrence.  I inaugurate each spring and winter season with a run in this intimate Stansbury Mountains chasm.  South Willow sees a large number of visitors during the summer, but is virtually people-free the rest of the year.  It’s especially quite during winter when the closed Forest Service gate restricts the canyon’s upper half to foot traffic.

My winter run is decidedly tougher because snowshoeing is much more rigorous a workout than regular walking or running.  A 2002 study by the National Strength and Conditioning Association showed that snowshoeing on packed snow at four miles per hour is equal to walking on a treadmill at six miles per hour.

Increase your snowshoeing speed even slightly and your energy expenditure doubles that of treadmill walking.  According to a 2004 study by the University of British Columbia, running in snowshoes is twice as difficult as running on the road– and they’re talking packed snow.  It’s estimated that breaking trail in unpacked snow is up to 50% more taxing.

Last year a few snowmobiles and other snowshoeers had broken my trail for me.  If the trail was already broken this year, I would run about 2 miles to the Medina Flat trailhead and hike another 1/3 mile to its intersection with Mining Fork Road, a narrow double track that leads into the Deseret Peak Wilderness toward South Willow Lake and a colossal glacial cirque.  The rarely traveled road is publically accessible only from this junction. If I pushed myself and timed things right, I’d have time to snap a few pictures and return to my car by dusk.

Forest sign (photo taken during last year's run)

Why Mining Fork?  Why now?  Because when I hiked it last summer I couldn’t get over how utterly lonely it was.  Beautiful? Yes, but alarmingly dreary.  If there’s any place in these mountains I wouldn’t want to be alone during winter, I thought to myself that day, it’s Mining Fork Road.

So that’s precisely where I was headed.  It would be a rite of passage– my annual coming to terms with a season marked by chill and unease, a season with which I’ve always had a love-hate relationship. I love its simple, cruel beauty and the concept of the Great Reset, but I’m no fan of the cold, and I approach wintertime adventures with a degree of unease.

Outdoors writer Brion O’Connor wrote that “the backcountry isn’t always a benevolent place.  In reality, it’s unaware of our presence, unconcerned about our fate.”

Nothing epitomizes this notion than winter, and nowhere are the odds more stacked against the lone man than in a winter mountain canyon.  Play it smart and you’ll leave the canyon intact with a rewarding workout under your belt.  But one misplaced step could spell disaster—especially if you’re alone.

No sooner did I walk past the Forest Service gate than I realized Mining Fork was out of the question.  A light snow fell as I strapped on my snowshoes.  The dark olive-colored cloud that loomed in the mountains ahead was spreading quietly down the canyon toward me.

The road beyond the gate was unbroken, covered by a pristine blanket of unconsolidated powder at least a foot deep.  Breaking a trail would delay my arrival at the Medina Flat trail head by at least 45 minutes.  Assuming I even recognized the trail to Mining Fork, I wouldn’t arrive there until dusk.  I didn’t like those calculations.

Bridge over South Willow Creek (also from last year's run)

I decided to stick to the canyon road.  I ran to where the creek disappears into a weir, pausing to listen to the haunting call of a bird somewhere on the mountainside.  At about a mile in I decided that the way the road’s slope framed my snowshoe tracks below the stormy peaks warranted a photo.  If it turned out well I could apply black and white and caption it with an inspiring quote about breaking trail.

I continued exploring for a few more minutes before putting my coat back on.  A stiff wind tore through the canyon, whipping a fine wall of powder against the canyon’s southern wall.  Dusk was upon me.  The olive cloud had advanced to my position.  I didn’t hurry out of the canyon.  I walked, calves burning and mind invigorated, back over the snow I had packed.  I may not have made my exact destination, but I think I was sufficiently winter broken.  And I’ll be back—preferably after a few snowmobiles or a large snowshoe party.

TRIP TIPS
Snowshoeing South Willow is an excellent workout.  To get to South Willow Canyon, turn south on West Street in Grantsville and drive 5 miles to the South Willow Canyon turn-off.  Follow the road 3.2 miles past the cabins to the Forest boundary.  The road is paved up to the gate and the dirt road beyond it is snow-packed.  The gate is closed as the campgrounds don’t operate in winter, but the rest of the road is open to foot traffic and is accessed by walking around the gate.  Cottonwood Campground is 1 mile from the gate, but the road continues up the canyon for 3 more miles, ending at the Loop Campground.  The road is well-packed in some spots, but most everything beyond the gate is impassable without snow shoes or cross-country skis.  Before venturing into any canyon in winter, consult the Utah Avalanche Center’s website at www.avalanche.org/~uac.

 

There’s meteorites in them there hills!

The adventure began just after midnight on November 18 when a bolide meteor– possibly a stray from the Leonid shower– streaked through the night sky over Tooele County and sparked a public frenzy.  The fireball, which was seen as far away as California, hit Earth’s atmosphere with such intensity that it had to be measured in terawatts.  Those fortunate enough to witness the event were treated to the light show of their lifetimes.

The above is a compilation of several clips from Salt Lake City area security cameras that captured the falling meteor.  The following originally appeared in the December 3, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

Silky clouds crept over the Stansbury Mountains and began spilling rapidly into the range’s western canyons.  An unrelenting wind tossed large tumbleweeds helplessly across Skull Valley.  The scene might have been ripped straight from an epic western film– one with a major science fiction twist.

My sons Bridger (8) and Weston (7) and I marched along a bare stretch of terrain, our eyes trained on the ground, scanning every inch of dirt for remnants of another world.  What would a meteorite look like?  We didn’t know exactly.  But the prospect of freshly fallen space rock was too appealing to pass up.

Our method wasn’t scientific.  Most of the technical legwork had already been completed by astronomers and devout meteorite hunters the country over.  Tap that mass collaboration, I thought, and we just might have a shot.

The adventure began just after midnight on November 18 when a bolide meteor– possibly a stray from the Leonid shower– streaked through the night sky over Tooele County and sparked a public frenzy.  The fireball, which was seen as far away as California, hit Earth’s atmosphere with such intensity that it had to be measured in terawatts.  Those fortunate enough to witness the event were treated to the light show of their lifetimes.

Regional seismograph stations recorded vibrations that seem to have been generated by the meteor’s sonic boom.  The event was captured by several Salt Lake area surveillance cameras.  Footage was given to media outlets, who promptly broadcasted it and posted it online.  Astronomers recognized the phenomenon and scrambled to calculate the details.  Local experts estimated that the meteor exploded at about 20 kilometers above the earth’s surface and its fragments dispersed somewhere over western Utah.

Like the fireball’s appearance, the response by meteorite hunting groups was both intense and brief.  News of the “witnessed fall” quickly reached Mike Bandli, founder of Historic Meteorites, a private meteorite collecting and hunting organization based in Washington State.  He immediately called his hunting partner, Rob Wesel, and told him to take some time off work.  In the last year Bandli and Wesel have recovered meteorites from three separate falls and were ready to spend their Thanksgiving scouring Tooele County’s deserts.  With the help of meteorite modeling expert Robert Matson, the team began to aggregate data.

Step one was crowdsourceing.  Bandli posted a request for eyewitness accounts in the comments section of a Salt Lake Tribune article about the event.  The team then turned to the video footage.  The flash lit up surrounding mountains, revealing the cameras’ angles in relation to them.

A fresh meteorite has a charcoal-like fusion crust with a chipped off portion revealing the bright interior (courtesy Mike Bandli, HistoricMeteorites.com)

The team used the camera locations available online to map each location in Google Earth.  Using five accurate camera angles, Bandli and crew determined that the meteorite distribution, or strewn field, was somewhere on Dugway Proving Ground.  Other groups arrived at this same conclusion, which one anonymous Internet poster called “statistically unfortunate.”

And so the effort screeched to a halt.  Fellow meteorite hunters that had been dispatched to Utah tried unsuccessfully to collect more information.  Seismic data gave only an expansive area where the fireball occurred, and the fall failed to register any usable Doppler radar data.

Bandli and Wesel, who were ready to fly into Salt Lake that day, contacted Dugway but were denied access.  Dugway spokeswoman Paula Nicholson confirmed that some groups had contacted the facility to gain access but were denied.  She said there’s no evidence yet that anything landed there, but promised to keep the public informed of any findings.

I came across Bandli’s Tribune comment while parsing media reports.  I contacted him and he was happy give me a peek at the complex world of meteorite hunting.

“We often work in small teams that consist of people we trust or work well with,” Bandli told me.“It is important that the data we collect and information we release be managed in a controlled manner. We don’t want irresponsible would-be hunters trespassing on people’s land or creating a spectacle.”

Once the team identifies a portion of the strewn field, the hard science takes a back seat to simple visual analysis.  “We rely heavily on our eyes,” Bandli said.

And instinct.  Some hunters carry magnetized canes to probe the ground (most meteorites attract magnets), but experienced hunters like Bandli can identify meteorites visually.

“They’re black, burned rocks that look out of place.  In many cases they are chipped or broken revealing a bright or grayish interior,” he said.  The team walks in a gridding pattern to accurately sample areas.  When meteorites are discovered, they begin to map the strewn field.  Smaller meteorite fragments lie toward the strewn field’s tail and grow in size toward its head.  Finds are meticulously detailed to maximize their scientific value.

“Dugway is a hunter’s dream,” Bandli lamented.  “Looking for black rocks on a flat and bright salt floor– it could have been a historic recovery.”

Still, Bandli understands the security situation at the facility and hopes the military can conduct its own successful search.  “There is good reason to keep people off that property,” he said.  “We respect whatever decision Dugway makes.”

But the meteorite hunting community may not be entirely out of luck.  Bandli said some data suggests that fragments may have broken off of the meteor early and landed in rugged terrain immediately northeast of Dugway.  Calculations proposed to Paula Nicholson by the Discovery Channel also place the strewn field northward.. Despite recent reports placing the termination point even further west, Bandli remains confident in his Dugway triangulation.

“Basically what we have is a huge search area,” he said.  “The only way we’ll know for sure is for somebody to find a piece.”

The boys and I had chosen a flat area on the flanks of the Cedar Mountains a safe distance north of the Proving Grounds.  We walked a criss-cross pattern, finding a few rocks looked out of place but that didn’t match Bandli’s description.  We left empty-handed but hopeful that somewhere in this no-man’s-land lies a trove of otherworldly fragments, waiting to be discovered.

 

Dutch oven cooking makes for a simple Thanksgiving feast

“Fine weather for an outdoor cookout, huh?” I asked Mike sarcastically.  He smiled, lifting a large Dutch oven onto the burner.  “I’ve done this in worse.”

A sweet potato pie topped with browned marshmallows makes an easy Dutch oven Thanksgiving treat (photo by Clint Thomsen)

The following originally appeared in the November 25, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

The northern sky couldn’t have been clearer about its intentions last Sunday evening.  The tell-tale calm and the looming fog blanketing the Oquirrhs meant only one thing for me—that dinner could get interesting.

No sooner had my friend, Mike Denman, set up his propane burner and cook station than large, wet snowflakes began to horizontally bombard our outdoor kitchen.  It was either going to blow by quickly or stick around for a while to drop the season’s first significant snow.  Judging by the storm’s ferocity and my uncanny tendency to plan activities to coincide with bad weather, it would be the latter.

“Fine weather for an outdoor cookout, huh?” I asked Mike sarcastically.  He smiled, lifting a large Dutch oven onto the burner.  “I’ve done this in worse.”

By “worse,” I assume he meant in real life outdoors conditions– like high in the mountains with only a flimsy dome tent for shelter—as opposed to my front yard.    But location in this case wasn’t as important as the mission, which was to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, outdoors-style.

It was an ambitious project, mainly because I possess no culinary skill.  I’ve never prepared a regular Thanksgiving dinner, let alone adapted the process for the outdoors.  Fortunately, Mike has.  Each year he logs countless volunteer hours lending his Dutch oven talents for numerous local events.  If you’ve ever enjoyed a Dutch oven meal at a church or Boy Scout function, chances are it was prepared in one of Mike’s well-seasoned pots.

Dutch oven cooking is the very essence of outdoor and Old World food preparation.  Introduced to Utah mainly by the Mormon pioneers, the Dutch oven was also a staple for explorers, mountain men and cowboys.

The practice of cooking in cast metal pots is thought to have originated in Europe during the 1600’s.  The British imported most of their ovens from the Netherlands, as the Dutch foundry process was considered vastly superior.  Later, the English adapted the Dutch system to produce “Dutch ovens” for their colonies.

While the Dutch oven as we know it wasn’t developed until the 18th Century, records of the first Plymouth Colony’s first Thanksgiving feast suggest that cast-iron vessels were used to prepare its various courses.  House, car, and concrete driveway aside, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of a culinary kinship with our pilgrim forebears.

I had compiled various recipes based on their adaptability to Dutch oven cooking and simplicity of preparation—because when it comes to camp cooking, the simplest dishes tend to taste the best.  Our meal would include four courses: a turkey, sweet potato pie, stuffing, and peach cobbler.

Our small turkey was a fine candidate for Mike’s Ultimate Dutch Oven, a deep pot with a cone in its center designed to circulate heat around the food like a conventional oven would.  Originally designed by a rancher in Salina, Utah, The Ultimate Dutch Oven has become the crown jewel of many an enthusiast’s collection.

Our kitchen

Having a taste for Southern faire, I selected some Cajun seasonings for a dry rub, which Mike applied beneath the bird’s skin.  He then set the prepped turkey over the cone and set the pot aside.

Next up was the sweet potato pie, a dish that originated in 18th Century Europe, spread over to the colonies, and sunk its roots deep in the American South.   According to food history website FoodTimeline.org, sweet potato pie was originally considered a savory/vegetable dish.  19th Century cookbooks group it with deserts.  Most modern restaurants serve it as a side dish.

If done right, a good sweet potato pie can easily upstage most other Thanksgiving dishes.  For this meal I chose a tried and true recipe offered by outdoor blogress Jenn Warren of A Blessed Crazy Life.  We poured canned sweet potatoes into a Dutch oven and drizzled a mixture of sugar, eggs, vanilla, and butter over it.

We then mixed the cobbler by pouring a batter of yellow cake mix and 7-Up over a layer of canned peaches.  When it was ready, it joined the sweet potato pie over coals on the cook station.  Mike carefully placed coals around the lid for even heating.  Then the turkey went on the burner.

I mixed a crude stuffing from a generic box mix and stirred in sautéed onions, garlic, and celery.  I planned to cook it in foil for variety, but Mike convinced it was a job best handled by one of his pots.  By the time all the ovens were loaded and on coals, the canopy over our makeshift kitchen was drooping with several inches of snow.

Halfway through cook time, I added a second mixture of brown sugar, butter, and flour to the sweet potatoes before mashing them.  All we needed to do now was wait and muse about the weather.  The food was done before we knew it.

It took a good minute for the turkey’s steam to thin out enough for me to see it’s golden brown exterior.  Uncovering the rest of the ovens was like cracking open little treasure boxes, each bursting with Thanksgivingy goodness.  We dished the food up in the house, where everybody else dug in.

Me?  I decided now was not the time to move things inside.  Though the snow was still swirling with flakes the size of packing peanuts, I went outside alone to enjoy my first helping—if only on principle.  The still-smoldering coals provided some warmth.  More was no doubt generated by a feeling of self-satisfaction that might have been more appropriately attributed to Mike and his cook station.

The snow lulled as we tipped the dust off of the oven lids and began dismantling the kitchen.  The neighborhood was still and covered seamlessly in snow.  I began constructing mental metaphors about the concepts of the season and harvest, but I quickly remembered that my family was inside and my food was getting cold, so I laid deep thought aside and went in for seconds.

he northern sky couldn’t
have been clearer about
its intentions last Sunday
evening. The tell-tale calm and
the looming fog blanketing the
Oquirrhs meant only one thing
for me — that dinner could get
interesting.
No sooner had my friend,
Mike Denman, set up his propane
burner and cook station
than large, wet snowflakes
began to horizontally bombard
our outdoor kitchen. It was
either going to blow by quickly
or stick around for a while
to drop the season’s first significant
snow. Judging by the
storm’s ferocity and my uncanny
tendency to plan activities
to coincide with bad weather,
it would be the latter.
“Fine weather for an outdoor
cookout, huh?” I asked
Mike sarcastically. He smiled,
lifting a large Dutch oven onto
the burner. “I’ve done this in
worse.”
By “worse,” I assume he
meant in real-life outdoors
conditions — like high in the
mountains with only a flimsy
dome tent for shelter — as
opposed to my front yard. But
location in this case wasn’t
as important as the mission,
which was to prepare a traditional
Thanksgiving dinner,
outdoors-style.
It was an ambitious project,
mainly because I possess no
culinary skills. I’ve never prepared
a regular Thanksgiving
dinner, let alone adapted
the process for the outdoors.
Fortunately, Mike has. Each
year he logs countless volunteer
hours lending his Dutch
oven talents for numerous
local events. If you’ve ever
enjoyed a Dutch oven meal
at a church or Boy Scout
function, chances are it was
prepared in one of Mike’s wellseasoned
pots.
Dutch oven cooking is the
very essence of outdoor and
Old World food preparation.
Introduced to Utah mainly
by the Mormon pioneers, the
Dutch oven was also a staple
for explorers, mountain men
and cowboys.
The practice of cooking in
cast metal pots is thought to
have originated in Europe
during the 1600s. The British
imported most of their ovens
from the Netherlands, as the
Dutch foundry process was
considered vastly superior.
Later, the English adapted
the Dutch system to produce
“Dutch ovens” for their colo-

 

The horse gentler:

Erda horseman trains mustangs and prepares living symbols of the West for adoption

The eye of a survivor: a close-up of Reno, a mustang I rode last spring.

The following originally appeared in the November 10, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

Cliff Tipton stands beside a fence on the north end of his 5 acre ranch in Erda, taking in a crisp November morning.  Chickens promenade about a tall stack of hay bales.  A calico cat tiptoes toward a row of stalls where a collection of horses silently look on.   The setting couldn’t be more serene.

The 52 year old cowboy isn’t a man of many words—until the conversation finds focus on those horses.  Unshod and intrinsically rugged, these aren’t the average domesticated horse.  That’s why the fences are 7 feet high.  They’re wild horses—mustangs.  And for Tipton, each one represents a labor of love.

Tipton and his wife, Janet, founded the Intermountain Wild Horse and Burro Advisors in 2003.  The non-profit organization promotes the Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro adoption program and works to prepare mustangs for adoption.  Cliff and Janet volunteer about 1,500 hours apiece each year assisting the program.

“It’s their eagerness, their survival instinct,” Tipton said when asked about the mustang’s appeal.  “They’re a clean-slate horse.  There’s no interbreeding.  Once they understand something, they’ve got it.”

The American mustang descends from once-domesticated horses that strayed or escaped from ranches in the late 1800’s.  Those free-roaming feral horses banded together into herds and have roamed the West ever since.  The BLM estimates that 29,500 mustangs roam public rangelands in 10 Western states.

The mustang’s frayed appearance and regal gait are the personification of independence.  In 1971, Congress declared mustangs “Living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.”

“Mustangs have a survival instinct,” Tipton explained.  “They’ve had to struggle and fight for their food and water all their life.”

Tipton has always loved horses.  A native of New Mexico, he’s worked with them on ranches all his life.  After living in various parts of the Intermountain West, Tipton finally settled in Tooele County in 1996, when he met and married Janet.  Together they operate Flying T Acres Ranch in eastern Erda.

The vocabulary of the horseman reflects his unique view of his relationship with the horse.  Horses are trained, but they’re not tamed.  They’re “gentled.”   Tipton doesn’t call himself a horse whisperer, per se, though he studies and employs natural horsemanship techniques.  “Horse gentler” is the term he prefers.

“When you train a mustang you’re not domesticating him, you’re becoming his partner.  You’re creating a bond.  I’m not his superior, I’m his friend.  I want my horse to want to be with me, not feel like he’s forced to be with me.”

Tipton gentled his first mustang a decade ago.  He says working with a mustang as opposed to a domesticated horse involves a definite learning curve.

“A mustang’s thought process is totally different,” he said.  “The basics are the same, but you have to break it down a little better for a mustang.  It took me time to learn that.”

Approaching a mustang for the first time is a challenging task.  After all, he’s lived his entire life to that point in survival mode.  He’s keenly aware of his surroundings and is exceptionally cautious.  Acclimation to human presence is the first step in forming the relationship.

Tipton uses a bamboo pole to touch the horse while maintaining a safe distance.  He inches closer as the horse’s natural fears gradually give way to trust.  Working on the horse’s own timetable is paramount; he does everything on his own terms.  Once the distance is closed, Tipton reaches out to give the horse its first human touch.  The partnership begins.

“I get a halter on him, then we start the leading process and it all takes off from there.”

Tipton then works on trailer loading, saddling, and riding.  He still remembers his first ride on that first mustang.

“We didn’t quite know what to expect from each other,” Tipton recalled.  “But there was a definite point when it clicked, and it was just like somebody handed me a million dollar bill.”

That joy wasn’t Tipton’s alone.

“The horse was same way,” Tipton said.  “His eyes were big.  His whole demeanor changed.  He moved lighter—he was happier.”

Thus began a long and fulfilling career of mustang volunteerism.  The BLM sends Tipton about 30 mustangs per year to be gentled.  He and IWHBA’s 85 member volunteer force train each mustang as much as time will allow before they’re adopted out.

“We have adopted out over 130 horses in the last 5 years,” Tipton said.  “We want to instill a partnership with the rider.  It doesn’t make a difference if you’re inexperienced or if you’re the most advanced rider out there—you listen to each other to do what needs to be done.”

Training mustangs to the halter point can take anywhere from a few minutes to two weeks, depending on the horse.  On average, Tipton halters a mustang within 4 days, and he’s proud of his work.  In 2007, he was selected from a pool of 220 horse trainers from across the United States to compete in the Mustang Heritage Foundation’s Extreme Mustang Makeover in Fort Worth, Texas.  The completion allows horsemen to showcase the results of their gentling techniques.

For the completion, Tipton was assigned a 4 year old bay named Hercules from the Warm Springs Herd in Nevada.  Tipton and Hercules were given 100 days to form a partnership and train before performing in Fort Worth.  They placed 17^th overall.  Hercules accompanied Tipton back to Erda after the competition and has called the Flying T home ever since.

Last weekend, Tipton served on the organizing board for the Mountain Valley Mustang Makeover in Heber.

“We had an awesome course up in Heber.  We had mountains, trees, running waterfalls, and other obstacles.  It was a very unique trail,” he said.

While he specializes in mustangs, Tipton works with all breeds.  He creates courses similar to the competition courses for his summer training series, which is geared toward helping horses gain the trust of their handlers.

“It’s a passion,” Tipton summed up.  “I love all horses and I love the mustang because they’re just a clean pure slate.  It’s their purity, their heart.”

 

Stargazing starts by seeking the dark

Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, was the first constellation in focus.  Then there were Sirius, Ursa Minor and the North Star, and a few planets I couldn’t identify.  Blinking earth-orbiting satellites zoomed across the celestial sphere.  As the minutes passed, the visible star field multiplied until the sky was filled with points of light.

La Luna (photo by Scott Crosby, Salt Lake Astronomical Society)

The following is a blog-friendly adaptation of my piece that appeared in the November 5, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

“You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light,” wrote naturalist Edward Abbey on the folly of using a flashlight while exploring the wilderness at night.  It’s one of my favorite outdoor quotes.  Unfortunately, the concept’s profundity sometimes outweighs its practicality.  Take, for instance, my bumbling pre-dawn trek at Timpie Point last weekend.

I could chalk it up to the darkness or the abnormal terrain or the fact that I didn’t bother looking for a trail up to the large limestone outcropping.  Yes, I should have brought a light– or at least waited until my eyes adjusted.  Then I might have noticed that huge mud puddle just outside my car door.  I also might have caught on sooner that those two out-of-place looking boulders I was heading over to check out were really two nervous cows.

But there I was—my ankle twisted, my ears frozen, and my agitated bovine companions looking on—under an extraordinarily clear sky.  “Well, whaddya know,” I told told myself, “those Internet sky charts were right.”  Now to find a rock flat enough to lie on.

I’ve been thinking a lot about space lately.  It started with a visit to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. last summer.  I love aviation history, but whenever I visit that museum I tend to spend most of my time in the space wings.  Nothing’s quite as exciting as seeing Buzz Aldrin’s space suit or studying the exterior of the actual Apollo 11 Command Module.  And my inner nerd doesn’t miss a chance to gawk at the original Star Trek production model of the USS Enterprise.

I tend to look up at the night sky with a little more contemplation after visiting that museum.  The fascination sparked by last summer’s trip has yet to wear off.  Perhaps it’s sheer curiosity about what’s beyond our world or the mysterious appeal of that cold, dark void.  Somehow in its mind-blowing infinity, the view of space from Earth always puts things into perspective.  Nothing’s quite as peaceful as looking up at the stars for a good, long time.

USS Enterprise original production model at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (photo by Clint Thomsen)

“You’re a little late for stargazing season,” local pros told me a few days prior when I contacted them to ask for tips.  An entire astronomical viewing community is centered on the Stansbury Park Observatory Complex (affectionately referred to as “SPOC”) where scores of pros and amateurs spend the warmer months examining the heavens through a collection of high powered telescopes.

My sons and I attended the last star party of the season there in October.  The boys thrilled at the opportunity to view nebulae and planets through the telescopes.  Equally captivating to me was watching the hushed crowd of stargazers politely line up to peek into deep space.

The area surrounding the complex is intentionally kept as dark as possible.  “Things that are interesting in the sky are very faint,” Salt Lake Astronomical Society (SLAS) member Scott Crosby told me.  “In order to see any detail [in an astronomical object], you have to intensify it using a telescope.  But the problem is when you do that, you also intensify sky glow.”

“Sky glow” is a type of light pollution.  Usually seen as a dome of light over population centers, it’s the brightening of the sky caused by excess artificial lighting.  Crosby chairs SLAS’s Dark Site Committee, a group that seeks out locations with low light pollution for optimal astronomical viewing.

The term “dark site” is more of a description than an official designation, though the International Dark Sky Association has established several International Dark Sky Parks throughout the world.  The first place to receive the designation was Utah’s Natural Bridges National Monument in the Four Corners area.  Light pollution prevents most places in our part of the state from competing for the label, but Crosby said there are several decent dark sky locations in Tooele County.  They include the mountain ranges and spots along the Pony Express Trail and in the Great Salt Lake Desert.

When online clear sky charts predicted excellent viewing conditions on Halloween Night, I couldn’t miss the opportunity for stargazing.  Since five kids plus five costumes plus five plastic pumpkins full of candy made for a rather exhausting Halloween night, early the next morning was the best I could do.

The goal was to isolate myself from Tooele Valley’s sky glow behind the Stansbury Mountains, so I drove to Big Springs at the north end of Skull Valley during what the kids call “early dark time.”  Eager to test out the night vision maximization tips I had read, I parked next to the spring and immediately started hiking, sans flashlight, toward the large rock outcroppings at Timpie Point.

Clear sky chart for the Stansbury Park Observatory Complex (SPOC) (screen cap from cleardarksky.com)

Dark vision adaptation involves a complex anatomical process wherein the rod and cone cells in the retina become more and more light sensitive.  It takes between 20 and 30 minutes for the eyes to completely adapt to dark surroundings.  With practice, dark acuity can become quite developed.

In hindsight, I would have been wise to stay by my car until my vision had fully adapted.  Instead, I adapted while boulder hopping (I’ve always been a multitasker).  I didn’t see the cows for what they were until I was almost face-to-face with them.  If I wasn’t fully awake before, I was now, and I perched on a cold slab nearby.

Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, was the first constellation in focus.  Then there were Sirius, Ursa Minor and the North Star, and a few planets I couldn’t identify.  Blinking earth-orbiting satellites zoomed across the celestial sphere.  As the minutes passed, the visible star field multiplied until the sky was filled with points of light.

I watched the sky until the sunrise upstaged the stars and cast a soft glow across the Great Salt Lake.  I hiked around for a while before driving back home, my space fix satisfied.  Satisfied enough to stop collecting Cheez-It proofs of purchase for that free Captain Kirk t-shirt?  I’m not making any promises.

 

Ghosts in the desert? Past and paranormal meet in Old River Bed

The Old River Bed haunted?  Not likely.  But what were those strange rumbling sounds that seemed to echo through the prehistoric corridor?  Why were the hairs on my neck suddenly rising?  And who was behind the wheel of that truck that was slowly rolling through the brush toward me?

The Pony Express Trail snakes up the eastern lip of the Old River Bed (photo by Clint Thomsen)

The following originally appeared in the October 29, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

They said the Old River Bed was haunted.  They said that’s why stagecoach passengers were uneasy about stopping at the station there—especially overnight—and why Riverbed Station could never keep a manager for more than a few months at a time.  They were adamant.

I was skeptical.  Is the place mildly eerie?  Of course.  You’d be hard pressed to find a remote desert spot that isn’t.  But haunted?  No way.  “They” were delusional.  And I had driven 70 miles at dusk on the weekend before Halloween to prove it.  The mind has a tendency, when stifled by darkness, to tap imagination to fill the visual voids.  This must have been the case at the Old River Bed.  Yes, that was it.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice how unnervingly lonesome it was out there in the dark, with no cell phone reception, far from my car, at the bottom of a massive ancient river bed.  Haunted?  Not likely.  But what were those strange rumbling sounds that seemed to echo through the prehistoric corridor?  Why were the hairs on my neck suddenly rising?  And who was behind the wheel of that truck that was slowly rolling through the brush toward me?

Dropping abruptly below the desert plain eight miles west of Simpson Springs in southern Tooele County, the Old River Bed is a naturally vulnerable place.  It’s a naturally strange place, too: a clear-cut channel as broad as the Mississippi at its greatest width, in the middle of this dry no-man’s-land.  The ancient watercourse owes its existence to Lake Bonneville.

As Bonneville shrank, water in the Sevier Basin drained northward via a low channel into the Great Salt Lake Desert, carving a mile-wide, 100 foot deep gorge as it went.  This river flowed for roughly 3,000 years.  Evidence of early human activity has been discovered in its delta.

The Central Overland trail crossed the river bed in the 1850’s and served as a major transportation artery until 1869.  The famed but short-lived Pony Express used the road from 1860 to 1861.  Riverbed Station was almost certainly built in 1862—too late to serve the Pony Express.

Drivers and riders hated the Old River Bed because although it’s wide and deep, it’s completely hidden from view until you’re right on its lip.  Bandits or hostile Indians could easily ambush a rider as he popped into or out of the channel.

The constant fear of ambush aside, there was always the chance of flash flooding.  Major Howard Egan recorded one nail-biting event in his diary about a Pony Express rider who heard a heavy rushing sound upon entering the channel.  Realizing something was horribly wrong, the rider “put spurs to the pony” and narrowly escaped a fifteen foot wall of water that surged through the river bed and washed out the road.

This concrete post marks the old Riverbed stagecoach station site. Note that while the words "Pony Express" are etched into the concrete, Riverbed Station never served the Pony Express-- it wasn't built until 1962 (photo by Clint Thomsen).

One rightly questions the rationale of building a stagecoach station in the dead center of the Old River Bed.   Perhaps it eased the fear of ambush or made ground water more accessible.  The station is gone now; flash floods eventually washed its ruins away.  All that’s left are a concrete post marking the station site and a few scattered rocks that may have been part of a foundation.  A Civilian Conservation Corps monument stands nearby.

Station keepers could deal with the natural and human threats.  It was the paranormal that kept them awake at night.  They– the managers, stock tenders, the stage drivers and their passengers– swore the place was haunted, specifically by “desert fairies.”

Former station operators claimed the fairies were the ghosts of two young girls who fell from a wagon in the area and died.  No records of the deaths have ever been found.  There are no individual accounts, no well-documented haunting.  University of Utah professor David Jabusch spent the night there while researching the site in the early 1990’s.  Of the desert fairies he wrote, “During our overnight sojourn, while mapping the site, we were not visited.”

Yet the story still lives on in journals and lore.  And though I’m a skeptic, there’s something about being in the Old River Bed at night.  Is it haunted? It’s hard to say.  As I walked along the river bed I wondered about those deep rumbling sounds.  I was convincing myself they were thunder or aircraft from Dugway, when the pair of dim headlights on the road that I had been carefully watching paused beside my car.

Then they turned and started out toward me.  I knew they weren’t there for the monument.  The old Chevy passed it and pulled off the double track toward me.  A chill went up my spine.  What could I do but introduce myself?

Two men sat in the truck.  They reminded me of a hermit version of illusionist duo Penn and Teller.  The thin driver remained silent, letting his larger passenger do the talking.  “We saw your car, then we saw your light out there,” said Penn.  “We wondered what was up.”

It turns out the two live in the area—Penn in an old trailer and Teller on a nearby ranch.  Sometimes they drive around helping people change flat tires (the Old River Bed is a notorious flat-maker).  “You’re tires looked fine,” Penn assured me.

“I’m Clint, and I’m hunting ghosts,” I declared, a bit surprised at my own whimsy.  “Do you believe this place is haunted?”

“Of course it’s haunted,” Penn said.  “When I first moved out here I was scared to death.  I thought maybe monsters would come up on me at night and tear me apart.”

We chatted for a while before they turned and left me alone again in the Old River Bed.  I was relieved that my new friends weren’t madmen, but my enthusiasm about this place had given way to discordant unease.   I glanced once more down the blackened corridor, just to give the desert fairies one last chance to show.  Then I was more than ready to leave.

They said the Old River Bed is haunted.  Who am I to argue?

 

The Benmore Experiment, Part 2 of 2

Some dreams die, but they need not be forgotten.

The Skidmore-Jorgensen homestead as it looked in the early 1900's. This photo must have been taken from the vantage point of the barn loft. A photo of the same house today led part 1 of this story.(photo courtesy USDA Forest Service)

The following is part 2 of a more blog-friendly adaptation of a piece I wrote for the Tooele Transcript Bulletin last week on the ghost town of Benmore, UT.  It originally appeared in the October 13, 2009 edition.  Click here to read part 1.

Israel Bennion’s dream was materializing, but it wouldn’t last long.

Annual precipitation proved too low for successful dry-farming in Benmore.  Homesteaders got discouraged and began to sell out.  To make matters worse, the wheat market collapsed, rendering an already impractical operation impossible.  By 1918, most of Benmore’s residents had moved away or were commuting to city or mining jobs.

The Benmore Ward was dissolved in 1920.  As the ward went, predicted Bennion at the outset, so would the town.  Most homesteaders eventually sold their claims to the Agricultural Resettlement Administration in what Thompson describes as a 1900s-style bailout.

Only the Bennion ranch remained.  Israel Bennion’s great granddaughter, Elizibeth Mitchell, still operates it today with her husband, Alan.  The rest of the land that purchased by the Federal government eventually came under the jurisdiction of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.

Some dreams die, but they need not be forgotten.

Compared to many other Utah ghost towns, Benmore is well documented.  Most of the information on the town was gleaned from land and church records.  Israel Bennion’s journal was preserved and oral histories fill in some of the gaps.

Beginning in 1999, Passport in Time (PIT), a Forest Service volunteer program, began recording and mapping the site and documenting the artifacts still there.

“Sometimes the only way we can learn about some of these families is to looking at the objects that are left out here,” explained Thompson.  “So these little objects are connections back to real people’s lives.”

Across the road from the schoolhouse is a historical jackpot: the partially intact remains of the Skidmore-Jorgensen homestead.   The house was a large one for its day, once boasting a second story and a large kitchen addition.  The skeletons of a fruit tree orchard lay amongst the brush along the approach to the old house.  The entrance to the yard was marked by the massive trunks of fallen poplar and Box Elder trees.

This photo shows the surface of the walls inside the Skidmore-Jorgensen house. These thin planks would have been covered with plaster. (photo by Clint Thomsen)

The house’s upper story and back kitchen have collapsed, but the main four walls still stand.  Its floor is littered with broken planks.  Non-native vines snake up the walls and through their timbers.  The scene is iconic.

Nearby are the remains of a workshop, a barn, a water cistern, and an earthen dam.  According to Thompson, some living Skidmore descendents grew up in this house.  Some of them even remember their mother dying during childbirth in the house.

“There is a very personal connection with this house.” She said.

The Benmore sites have fallen victim to vandalism and looting over the years, despite the best efforts of the Forest Service and the Mitchell Family.   Recently, a log barrier was erected across the drive to the Skidmore-Jorgensen house, but that hasn’t stopped shooters from targeting the remains.  Nor have the laws against stealing artifacts stopped scavengers from digging on the sites.

Despite the ongoing problem with vandalism, the Forest Service hopes Benmore’s remains will serve as self-discovery place where people can come and live the history in a very personal way.

Thompson recalled how during a PIT project, one of the volunteers found a little roller skate and thought of the cobbly roads.

“She started to cry.”  Thompson recalled.  “She was suddenly struck with this impression of a little boy or girl wanting to own a pair of roller skates and not having a place to use them.  She could visualize this little kid out there still trying.  That roller skate in a museum is just a roller skate.  Out here it’s in context, a testament to the desires of these families out here to make good lives out here.”

The Benmore experiment may have ultimately failed, but its crumbling foundations continue to tell a unique story of grit and resolve.

———-

Special thanks to Elizabeth Mitchell and USDA Forest Service archaeologists Charmaine Thompson and Jennifer Beard.

 

The Benmore Experiment, Part 1 of 2

Forest Service preserves remains of short-lived town in southern Rush Valley as ‘outside museum’

The semi-intact remains of the Skidmore-Jorgensen home in the ghost town of Benmore, UT (photo by Clint Thomsen)

The following is part 1 of a more blog-friendly adaptation of a piece I wrote for the Tooele Transcript Bulletin last week on the ghost town of Benmore, UT.  It originally appeared in the October 13, 2009 edition.

“Welcome to downtown Benmore!” exclaimed USDA Forest Service archaeologist Charmaine Thompson after parking her truck along a random-looking stretch of Forest Service Road 005, six miles south of Vernon.  An autumn breeze swept across a vast, seemingly empty field of brush.  Thompson smiled as she pointed to an area on the north side of the dirt road.  “Right over here is the old schoolhouse.”

The building’s foundation became visible after a few steps into the sagebrush.  Its footing was the size of a large shed.  Scattered about were fragments of ceramic and rusted metal—some unidentifiable, some clearly embossed with the decorative markings of early twentieth century school desks.

The structure’s brick edifice was dismantled in 1932—a mere 18 years after it was constructed.  Its materials were salvaged and reused somewhere else in the valley, leaving only the floor and strewn metal as a testament to the determined people who once called this place home.

It’s difficult to imagine now, but this schoolhouse was once the centerpiece of an organized and bustling community.  Tucked at the southern end of Rush Valley in the shadow of the jagged Sheeprock Mountains, Benmore was an experiment in human tenacity.

Most of the town’s land is now managed by the Forest Service.  Thompson is part of a team dedicated to preserving its remains as an outside museum.

“They came here to establish life,” Thompson said.  “But if I’m responsible for these remains, something went horribly wrong, because they’ve reverted to public ownership.”

“But at the same time,” she qualified, “Since this is now public land, their stories become part of all of our history, and we can come and visit them.”

Benmore was the brainchild of Israel Bennion, whose family had settled the area in the 1860’s.  Originally from Taylorsville, Utah, the Bennions were drawn to this clime by the prospect of free land under the Homestead Act, and the opportunity to escape what they considered an overcrowded Salt Lake Valley.  Israel’s father, Samuel Bennion established a successful livestock ranch in 1863.  He befriended the Goshute Indians, some of whom would winter next to his ranch.

A metal relic of an old school desk lies near the foundation of the old Benmore School (photo by Clint Thomsen)

To say that making a life in this harsh environment was tough is an understatement.  Rainfall averaged about ten inches per year.  Extreme weather only allowed a brief 130 day growing season.  Water from the narrow Sheeprocks was scant, and was eventually threatened by overgrazing.

Yet the Bennions persisted, driven by dreams of a thriving, close-knit community.  In 1905, Israel Bennion successfully lobbied to include the Sheeprock Range in the National Forest system.  Later he convinced the county to adopt and maintain the road that would become the town’s main street.  Bennion was serious enough about Benmore’s success that he would often give land, or sell it at reduced cost, to impoverished families.

“I want this waste place of Zion redeemed,” He wrote in his journal.  “I want the poor Saints provided with homes.  I want living here made tolerable now.” (emphasis Bennion’s)

The Bennions’ community-building effort was joined in 1905 by Charles H. Skidmore and family, who purchased 10,000 acres for a dry farming operation.  The town’s name was created by combining the two surnames.  The schoolhouse opened in 1914 and served 20 students from eight families.  The Benmore Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints became a ward the following year.  During its brief existence, its records boasted 187 members, 20 births, three marriages, and four deaths.  Benmore’s boon was hard work, resourcefulness, and a surge in wheat prices spurred by World War I.

———-

Click here to read part 2.

 

Drive through Johnson Pass offers history lessons on multiple fronts

Far be it from me to turn down an adventure, especially when the kids are all set to go.  Preparing four small children—finding shoes, socks, gear, and gathering whatever trinkets they find absolutely necessary to bring—is often the most rigorous part of any outing.

The fact that they were “departure-ready” could mean only one thing: Mom needed a break.

A view of the Clover Creek runoff is surrounded by trees near Johnson Pass. (photo by Clint Thomsen)

I knew something was afoot when I arrived home after work one day last week.  The kids were outside, which is typical for a warm afternoon.  But they were all decked out in their hiking gear.  They eagerly converged as I pulled into the driveway and met me at my car door.  8 year old Bridger was their spokesperson.  “Mom says you’re taking us on an adventure,” he announced.

Far be it from me to turn down an adventure, especially when the kids are all set to go.  Preparing four small children—finding shoes, socks, gear, and gathering whatever trinkets they find absolutely necessary to bring—is often the most rigorous part of any outing.

The fact that they were “departure-ready” could mean only one thing: Mom needed a break.

“I’ll keep the baby,” my wife said as I grabbed some Gatorade for the trip.  “The rest are all yours.  Have fun!”

4 year old Coulter suggested we go to the mountains.  Since we had visited both the Oquirrh and Stansbury Ranges quite extensively this summer, I decided it might be nice to visit an area that’s often overlooked—the snaky crook that divides the Stansbury Mountains northward from the Onaqui Mountains southward.

Though it doesn’t look it, SR-199 through Johnson Pass is a significant traffic artery for travelers commuting between the Tooele and Dugway areas.  The route traces its origins to the great Lincoln Highway, the nearly 3,142 mile long “improved” dirt road that connected New York City and San Francisco.

The Lincoln Highway was the brain child of Entrepreneur Carl Fisher, the developer of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the resort city of Miami Beach.   Fisher dreamed of building a continuous transcontinental highway—a “road with personality,” and an “economic and artistic triumph.”  The Lincoln Highway Association was formed and construction began in 1913.

The Tooele County stretch originally ran around the north end of the Stansbury Mountains to Timpie, then south to Orr’s ranch in Skull Valley.  No sooner were the first highway maps released than realignment efforts began to cut distance and smooth out the route.  In 1919, the highway was re-routed south through Tooele and Stockton, then into Skull Valley via Johnson pass.

I hadn’t had time to formulate a custom music playlist, as I do for most every trip, so we turned off the stereo while 6 year old Weston and his harmonica provided the soundtrack for our drive.  Jingle Bells and Mary Had a Little Lamb aren’t exactly mountain drive songs, but they did the job.

2 year old Ella, who is so far unimpressed with the outdoors and is terrified by curvy roads, was unexpectedly cheery, even cracking a smile on a few unnerving turns.

I aimed for a quick round-trip tour of the pass before stopping to explore the area around Clover Spring.  As we climbed through the pinyon/juniper forest, we passed a large zone of blackened earth and trees that was burnt in a recent forest fire.  The area is oddly beautiful, with bare juniper branches gnarling drearily upward and aside.

Those whose last trip over the pass was prior to July of this year may be surprised to learn that the large turnoff at the summit is now handsomely paved.  A sign identifies the spot as the future location of a monument to Carl Fisher.

Fisher supported the 1919 realignment and donated $2,500 of personal funds to the project.  The idea for the monument was born nearly a decade ago when then president of the LHA’s Utah Chapter, Rollin Southwell, studied the original construction contract.   Two conditions, it turns out, had never been met.  The LHA had stipulated that the pass would be renamed for Fisher and that a monument would be built in his honor.

Politics prevented the pass’s official name change, and the monument was never built due to lack of funds.  The revived venture is a collaboration between the LHA, UDOT, a private architect, and others.  It is slated for dedication on October 3.

We continued over the summit and down toward the town of Terra.  My favorite part of this drive is known as Devil’s Gateway or The Narrows.  This rocky gap was once so narrow that officials wondered if it was even passable on horseback.  It was dynamited in the realignment project to make way for the road.  Just beyond it is the late Willow Springs Lodge, which was also the location of the convict laborer camp.  We turned around there.

Our final stop before returning to Tooele was perhaps the prettiest spot in the entire Onaqui Range: Clover Spring Campground.  The campground was constructed around a natural Spring, which gushes from the arid slope and follows a cottonwood-choked wash down to the valley.

The spring has been a popular oasis throughout history.  The Goshutes called the area “Shambip,” meaning “Clover.”  Explorers and pioneers camped here.  Maps from the 1850’s show military encampments along the spring’s flow.  In 1935, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a camp here that operated until 1939.

The site is now the location of a quaint campground, which lies partially on private property but is managed by the BLM.  The campground offers 10 individual units and one group site.  The lower units sit on the banks of the creek and are a lovely place to set up camp.  The kids grabbed their walking sticks and began exploring the campsite.  I carried Ella across the creek to a grassy spot on the other side, where it seems she discovered the outdoors isn’t so boring after all.

“I walk, Daddy,” she said.  I put her down and she crouched down to feel the rushing water.  Weston sat down on the shore to play his harmonica.  Coulter was disappointed when I had to break it to him that we weren’t camping there that night.

The kids were quiet and content on the drive home.  I was too, because they were now “return-ready.”  It was a tough job, but I was glad to do it.

TRIP TIPS
For more information on Johnson Pass and the Clover Spring Campground, contact the BLM at 801-977-4300.  Please respect all private property postings.

This article originally appeared in the 9/24/2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

 

Staying connected in the outdoors may require uplugging yourself

The following originally appeared in the September 17 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

by Clint Thomsen

From the top of Deseret Peak in the Stansbury Mountains, the communities in Tooele Valley look like tiny collections of etched traces and capacitors on a vast computer circuit board.  That was one of my first impressions of the view when I crested the 11,030 foot peak last summer.

There’s a reason why topographically prominent peaks—called “ultras” in peak bagging circles—are the most sought after summits.    In addition to elevation, ultras have high independent stature.  So they offer the best views and the most tangible sense of isolation.  Deseret Peak is one of just 57 ultras in the lower 48 states.

I had driven 8 miles up a canyon and hiked 3.25 miles, climbing 3,613 feet via switchback and rubble fields to reach this jagged quartzite platform.  If I wasn’t on top of the world, I was sure close.  Exhausted and satisfied, I threw down my pack and sat at the edge of the summit to ponder my feat.

After chugging a bottle of water, I reached for my cell phone, which doubled as my watch.  As I turned it on, I was surprised to see that I had full service—both voice and data.  Instinctively I checked my email.  Then I called my wife, Googled some information about the return trail, checked my work email, and read the latest news.

By this time, my hiking companions had also discovered this miracle of connectivity and were calling spouses and dialing up info too.  Others were busily checking pedometers, shooting video, and programming GPS receivers.  For a little while, Deseret Peak was a regular cyber café.

While the knowledge that I had this technological lifeline in one of the most remote and dangerous places in the county was truly a comfort, I felt like the whole internet part of it was somehow wrong.  Not morally wrong, but out-of-place wrong– like listening to Christmas music in July or drinking milk from a Coke can.  I couldn’t help but feel like I had violated some unwritten outdoor code.

Part of me wished I would have left the phone on my belt.  The other part spent a good chunk of the return hike wondering what other cool gadgets I could employ in the wilderness.

Aside from my wife, Meadow, I have two other loves: the outdoors and technology.  Regular readers of this column are no doubt aware of the first.  And when I’m not outside (or at work or changing diapers), I spend what little free time remains in front of a laptop—shopping online, reading news, and drooling over electronic gadgets I’ll never be able to afford.

Meadow says I’m addicted to computers, to the internet, to my phone.  I assure her I can stop at any time, that I’m in complete control.  She remains unconvinced.

Despite what some may think, technology and the outdoors often complement each other nicely.  I blog, Facebook, and tweet—mostly about the outdoors.   I do most of my research online and I get many outdoors ideas from online forums.

In the field, who can argue against the benefits of GPS and the ability to call for help in emergency situations?  And if you can check email and stream YouTube– all the better, right?

Some outdoor purists consider these assets as cheating.  They argue that wilderness should be experienced solely on its own terms.  The tougher the mental and physical challenge, the greater the reward.

I get the idea,  but I wonder if experiencing nature in full is always practical or even desirable.  The great explorers and pioneers were more in tune with nature than I’ll ever be, yet they probably would have given anything to enjoy modern technological conveniences.

We casual adventurers sometimes forget that while our predecessors enjoyed the wild, more often than not they were there out of necessity, not hobby.  They aimed more to survive nature than to fawn over it.

Still– if only at the subconscious level– their connection with the mountains, trees, and trails must have given them a certain fulfillment that the modern outdoorsman can only attain in fleeting bits and pieces.

I’m not an ideologue when it comes to these matters.  If my goal is to experience nature in the raw, I ditch the gadgetry.  If the kids are along, it’s got a dedicated pocket for it in my pack, with extra batteries.  The point isn’t to abandon technology altogether.  It’s to prevent the entertainment aspects of it from overshadowing the greater outdoor experience.

I’ll admit that balancing the organic experience with the digital isn’t always easy.  It’s difficult for me to check my tech tendencies at the trailhead.  If I’ve got a connection and I start using it, I tend to focus on it until my head is completely in cyberspace (though I of course remain in complete control).

I faced such a temptation last month on a hike in the Deseret Peak Wilderness area.  I was delighted when, after a 3.4 mile hike to South Willow Lake, I pulled out the smartphone and noticed I had full data coverage.

I had made the hike with the Transcript Bulletin’s editor, Jeff Barrus and our sons.  When we reached the lake, the boys happily waded into its shallows.  The view of the 10,685 foot glacial cirque surrounding it was amazing.  I sat down on a large boulder on the lake’s shore.  My first thought: How cool would it be to post a Twitter update from up here!

I fired up my web browser and feverishly navigated to the Twitter home page before finally catching myself, remembering Deseret Peak.  I assured myself that I would thoroughly document the hike online, but later.  Right now it would be, well, just wrong!  I put the phone away and didn’t get it back out that night.  And I didn’t even open my laptop until the next day.  Funny how that worked.