Goodbye Summer

Our awesome bonfire!

The autumnal equinox is tomorrow, so what do you do to celebrate the last weekend of summer? Why, go camping of course!

The Forestry Club at Utah State had a fund-raising project lined up with the USU Outdoor Recreation Center this weekend. We had to backpack into the Blind Hollow Yurt on Friday and help split and move firewood to be used for the winter. It was about a 3 1/2 mile hike in, which is not a challenging hike by any means, but I was breaking in my new internal-frame backpack so I was pretty pooped by the time we got to the yurt. The hike was beautiful, though! The leaves on the trees are just starting to turn and we hiked along some beautiful ridges that looked out upon the Mount Naomi Wilderness. I am so lucky to always be near a national forest no matter what time of the year.

We got to the yurt around 5:00 p.m. and spent the daylight hours working on our project. The rest of the evening was spent eating and just kicking it in the yurt with the other members of the forestry club. It was a blast! The next day Peter and I had to leave early so that we would have time to hike out and then drive to Bear River in the Uintas where we were meeting our two friends, Nick and Kelly, to do even more hiking and backpacking.

I have noticed a trend in the hikes that I go on with Kelly. They usually end up with us getting caught in some big rainstorm. This time, however, we came prepared with rain gear. We took the East Fork of the Bear River trail that leads up to Allsop Lake in the High Uinta Wilderness. It's a nice level trail, and not very technical. We were hoping to get to Allsop, but the weather prevented us from attempting a higher elevation. I was also pretty pooped from already having hiked that day. So, about four miles into the hike we broke camp and set ourselves up for the night. As we moved about putting up tents and gathering firewood we could hear elk bugling to each other in the distance. I love to hear elk. They make such an eerie, otherworldy sound.

Because it had been raining off and on that day, it somewhat inhibited our efforts to make a fire, but not for long. By the time night fell we had a raging bonfire going, despite the rain. A group of people on horseback passed our camp who looked pretty drenched, and we offered to share our fire with them, but they were in a hurry to get off the mountain and declined our offer. If I had been them, though, I totally would have stopped. Our fire was awesome.

After eating dinner and "chewing the fat" for a few hours, we called it a night and climbed into our sleeping bags. I was exhausted so it didn't take me long to drift off to Dream Land, but I hadn't been asleep long when I was awakened by a rumbling crash and the sound of rain pelting the roof of my tent. I laid awake for a while counting the time between flashes of light and the loud cracks of thunder that followed them. I was a little nervous being out in a thunderstorm since we had never tested our tent's waterproof capabilites before, but it held up like a champ. It rained hard all night long but we stayed warm and dry. Thankfully the rain stopped right as soon as we got up and broke camp, and it remained clear throughout the rest of our hike out.

I didn't get to see much wildlife on this hike which is something I always hope to see when I'm out in the woods, but we did see a lot of deer and moose tracks, a few squirrels, and I even spotted a bald eagle. It was interesting to see the effects of the fire that had desimated that area seven years ago. The bones of old dead pine stood all around, but they were surrounded by hundreds of little baby aspen no more than a yard or two tall. In a few years it will be a huge aspen grove, and you will hardly be able to tell that a fire had destroyed that area not too long ago. I love how Mother Nature works like that. Today I'm feeling pretty stiff and sore from all of the hiking, but it was a lot of fun and it was great to see Nick and Kelly again. I'm glad they have remained our friends even after work ended this summer.

So I wish you all a very happy autumn! Now, get out there and enjoy those fall colors! They won't last long!