Utah Adventure Journal

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  Friday evening November 8th, 2013   Jewell and Kim were crushed into the backseat of my station wagon while Julia was snuggled up front. The rest of the car was bursting with boxes, gear and whatever else three ladies and a guy needed for a weekend of climbing and foolery. I’d offered to drive to […]

Salt Lake City, Utah September 2013   Chris Thomas stood awkwardly in the kitchen of his modest Sugarhouse home. “Okay,” he told me, “I’ll just do this in brackets.” He straightened his lean frame, turned his dark eyes and tilted his pronounced chin to the left. Moving his gaze toward me in small increments I snapped […]

I’m sure you’ve heard about the bark beetles wreaking havoc across the forests of North America. And that the beetles have been killing pine trees at historic levels. But how’s Utah weathering the storm? People have talked about massive kill-offs south in Dixie National Forest and about some preventative efforts near Fish Lake in central […]

Tucked deep within a secluded fold of sandstone on the west side of Zion National Park is one of the world’s largest arches. Kolob Arch has long been a quiet destination for those looking to get away from the crowds. Miles of washes, cascades, buttresses, trees, and flowers lead through a majestic desert landscape peppered […]

“Did you hear that? Sounded like rifle reports. Take!” Squinting my eyes in the November sun a rusted landscape fell south from a soaring buttress of sandstone. Peppered by juniper and pinion trees its numerous washes and draws fanned out like fingers. Above, the molted faces of Window Blind Butte, Assembly Hall and Bottleneck Peaks […]

  It snowed 8” overnight and the temperature at Snowbird Resort had plummeted. A biting wind swept across darkened ski runs, cutting through rises of pine. The low-lying clouds gave the slightest hint of the coming dawn. 7 AM at the tram base  some 30 men and women dressed in red jackets emblazed with the […]

On November 13, 2011, the mountains above Salt Lake experienced a heavy winter storm. Because the fall had been so dry, the snows from October had turned rotten. During the days prior strong winds scoured most of what remained, but not all. There were twelve human triggered avalanches reported in the Wasatch that day. Several […]

“Where do you think the moon will rise?” I asked. Seated on a boulder made of scarlet sandstone, above the Esplanade Trail, on the southern border of the Kanab Creek Wilderness, Rachel pointed to a spot on the southeast horizon. Scanning past a gaping gorge in the surrounding desert stone our eyes rapidly climbed the […]

  I never apologized to my dad before he passed away in August 1997. To say we didn’t get along during my teenage years would be putting it lightly. Before our troubles began, I recall working together on a project. Clumsily, I positioned a nut at the end of a bolt and started torqueing it […]

  The rain subsided at 4 AM August 14, 2011. By 5:30 the clouds broke, allowing a full moon to illuminate buttresses of green and red patina covered granite. Below them, tinted snowfields led to mounds of boulders. Between the talus were patches of rough grass covered in yellow blooms. Water trickled its way from […]

  March 2011, Grand Teton National Park Under a grey sky and through intermittent snow flurries, Charlie and I skinned up to and past the top of 25-Short, a 2,200-foot glade of pines on the Buck Mountain Massif. Our plan is to gain a ridge that divides the north and south forks of Avalanche Canyon […]