Back to IF

Well, we got back to Idaho Falls last Monday and since then we have been getting chores done around Karen's house and getting ready for our trip to Kansas. It's been raining on and off all week so the wet weather continues. It's Friday today and we are off to yard sales this morning then I need to get packed and ready to leave again. Our plan is to leave Sunday morning and get to Kansas by Monday afternoon.

This next trip will take me into some very new country for me. We are going to go through Nebraska along I-80 and then at the Missouri river head south to Leavenworth. I have never been out in the plains states and I have heard it is pretty flat which is not the country I'm used to. It should be an interesting trip even if the scenery might be a little boring. We will see about that...

Walking in the rain!

Well, I woke up to rain Saturday and decided that walking was the only option for doing anything outdoors. After taking my time in the morning I left Logan about 11:00 and headed up the canyon to a place that Krista and Curtis had taken us to go hike the Crimson trail on Mother's Day. There is a trail that goes along the river so since it was pouring down rain when I got there, I put my rain gear on and took off with a sandwich and apple in my pocket. Before long the rain stopped and the sun even tried to come out and I was able to take this flower picture with the fresh rain drops on it.


I just sauntered along taking my time and enjoying the smells and watching fish swimming in the river. I didn't go all that far and came back to the truck and thought I might drive up canyon to Logan Cave.

Logan Cave is an interesting sight with a stream coming out of the mouth of it but the Forest Service has it gated and posted that the area is closed to protect some bat that lives there. It seems that no matter where you go on public land now days there is either some restriction due to some endangered species or a closure to protect people from themselves. I can understand the desire to save the environment and I actually support that idea to a degree, but the folks who make these rules carry it to extremes and in effect are closing our public lands to the public which I don't agree with. Recently an old mine site in Death Valley called Keane Wonder Mine was closed to the public due to some perceived danger and luckily I had the fortune to see it before it was closed and low and behold I made it without hurting myself. To tell the truth, you'd have to be an idiot to hurt yourself there and then you'd deserve what you got for being stupid. But that's the mentality of the land management people in this country currently and like it or not, they have the power. Go figure!

Temple Fork Sawmill site

My second bike ride today took me up a rough trail to the Temple Fork Sawmill site. It was built in 1877 and burned down in 1886. They used the lumber locally and now there are no roads going to it and just a really overgrown trail to get in there. Since everything is so green and lush right now, it was a beautiful ride, especially coming back down.



This first picture I took looking up the drainage where the mill site is.

The 3rd picture I took on the hill looking over the mill site. I tried to approximate the location where the picture from the plaque was taken since I like before and after photo's and I had a before picture to go by. The hill side was really grown over and getting around in the brush made it difficult to take a picture from.

I'm guessing that I had to ride around a mile and a half to get to the mill site on that primitive trail and there were many places where the water was running down the trail and I had to walk my bike through those. All in all this has been a very wonderful day and the kind of trail bike riding I was hoping to be able to do down here. This is probably the last day I will have a chance to ride anyway since the rain is supposed to return tomorrow and Curtis and I might go hiking instead and then the next day Karen and Krista come back from Alaska.

Sunny day... for a change!

After a week of mostly rain and mud, today turned out to be a jewel. It was sunny most of the day, warm and most of all... dry! I decided to try and ride my bike up to this big old Juniper tree that they have dated and identified by name. The trail guide I have been using all week says this trail is used by lots of mountain bikers and I could see why. It's almost totally uphill from the start, but the many switchbacks make it mostly a gentle grade and very rideable. I ran into a few hikers on the ride and one other biker but there weren't too many people up there.

The tree in question is indeed a huge one and the plaque at the tree says it dates about 3200 years old but my trail guide says 1200 years so who knows? For me it was more about the ride on a really nice day than it was to see another old juniper tree. Over the years as a firefighter I have seen many huge old junipers mostly on fire from a lightning strike so this tree was not all that special to me. The best thing though was that it was a beautiful day and when I got back to my truck I just wasn't ready to call it a day so I headed up canyon to the Temple Fork Sawmill site.

Tony Grove Lake

Today bike riding was out of the question due to the incessant rain. It was pouring when I left town this morning so I decided to drive up to Tony Grove Lake and take a walk around the lake with my rain gear on, which is exactly what I did. It wasn't cold but it was raining steady the whole walk. I had the whole place to myself, as you might imagine, so that was a good thing. I also had to stay on the main trails since the ground everywhere else was water logged and quite soft.

Both of these lake pictures are of Tony Grove Lake.

After I got around the lake I drove down the hill and decided to go up to Bear Lake. I really didn't want to drive all the way to Bear Lake so I stopped at the scenic overlook and took a picture or 2 from there but it was too overcast and the pictures didn't suit me so I'm not posting them. Bear Lake is a pretty large one that spans the Utah Idaho border in the north east corner of Utah. At least I got a view of it from the top of the hill and maybe I'll go down and check it out sometime in the future when I have Karen with me.

On the way back down the hill I stopped at several places and checked them out for places to go tomorrow or the next day.
One of those places was Ricks Spring. Right next to the road is this really cool looking spring just bubbling out of the ground. The water is real clear but the signs there tell that the water from this spring actually comes out of the Logan River. No matter where it comes from it's pretty interesting to see this huge amount of water coming out of the ground.

So the rain let up for the afternoon and maybe tomorrow I will be able to ride my bike again. That would be nice but nevertheless I have had a nice time lately just exploring the country side, even if some of it has been done on foot.

Wind Cave

It started off today raining so I decided to go for a hike instead of bike riding. Wind Cave was the closest short trail I could take and stay fairly close in to escape the rain if it got bad. As luck would have it there were only a few rain drops when I first started out and it didn't rain again the rest of the day.

This hike is 1.3 miles one way and not a steep climb. Today it was pretty wet and my legs got wet but my raincoat kept the wet branches from soaking me along the trail.


The fog and overcast conditions gave the canyon a really cool look so I took plenty of pictures. It wasn't cold and even though things were so wet and a little muddy, it was a very nice day and a change from bike riding. Not that I needed a change from bike riding mind you, I sure haven't gotten tired of that yet but riding on muddy roads and trails was not what I wanted to do today. Maybe tomorrow.

Ephraims Grave

I had a nice day riding up to Ephraims Gave site. This is a place where a giant grizzly bear was killed back in 1923. The plaque says the stone I'm sitting next to was the height of the bear while standing upright, 9ft 11 in. As I was riding along I kept thinking about how grizzly's used to roam this country. I got to see a cow moose as I was coming down the road toward this place too which was a nice treat considering I have seen many moose tracks, some of them really fresh.

This first picture I took while coming back down the road as some ominous black clouds were rolling in. My truck is parked way down below, 5 or 6 miles away and I had to race down the hill to try and get out ahead of the rain showers. Needless to say I didn't make it and got a little wet in the last mile or so. It was all good though since most of the day it was sunny and warm.

One of the cool things along the way was the fact that there were many different types of wildflowers blooming. I still don't know the names of any of them except for the mule ear which has bright yellow flowers. Mule ear is so common where I came from that I didn't bother trying to take any pictures of it. It was till nice to see and contrasted with the deep greens.