Semiannual blog post

Dear internet,

I'm not dead, and to prove it, here's a quick update on what I've been up to for the last few months.

Love,
Bruce

My sister Kristy got back from her mission to Texas in December (after being away for a year and a half), and we flew her down to visit us. We spent a day in San Francisco, including a few rides on the trolley. We (Karren and I) also decided to never go to Fisherman's Wharf again. It's just a noisy tourist trap.

We've been trying to eat better, and one facet of that has been making (and happily eating!) honey wheat bread. The bread maker doesn't handle it well, so we do it the old fashioned way: kneading it by hand.

Karren's friends Erin and Ty came to San Francisco on vacation, and we met up with them at Ghirardelli Square for some yummy ice cream and chocolate. I've heard a lot about them, so it was fun to meet them (On our way there, Karren and I wore the smittens that my sister-in-law Amanda made for us for Christmas. They're mittens: one for each person, and then one big one with two openings so that you hand hold hands. :)

I gave Karren Zubbles (colored bubbles) for Christmas, so we had fun playing with them one afternoon.

Karren chopped off the end of her finger. She called me at work one day asking when I was coming home. I said "in about 30 minutes", and she said, "Do you think you can come right now? I chopped off the end of my finger. Don't worry; I think it's still attached." I came home, and we ended up going to urgent care because it wouldn't quit bleeding. The culprit: butternut squash. (And, for the record, the end of her finger was not still attached, as you can see in the picture below.) She got mostly skin, and her finger healed up four weeks to the day after the cut.

We went on a bike ride along the coast in Monterey for Karren's birthday, and then went people watching in Carmel-by-the-Sea. The Pebble Beach golf tournament was in full swing, so there were lots of rich people hanging around. (Also, lots of Ferraris: we saw three of these on the same street.)

We went hiking in Sunol Wilderness area (by Pleasanton, in the East Bay) a couple Saturdays ago. It was really pretty, and we saw cows, squirrels, lots of turtles, and some poppies.

While we were there, Karren had her first up-close bovine experience:

This past weekend we flew to Utah and drove to Idaho to visit my grandparents, whom Karren hadn't yet met. On the way (ok, out of the way) we picked up Kristy. We also visited some aunts and uncles while we were there. We drove back down to Salt Lake City yesterday and had lunch with my aunts and uncles and David and Shanna. It was fun to see everyone, but we were really glad to be home to sleep in our own bed last night.

Karren and I are settling into married life, and it's been wonderful so far. We're looking forward to many more adventures together.

Timpanogos

This weekend I had two invitations to go on cool trips: one to Zion, and one to Jackson Hole. I turned both of them down, however, because my team (the Double E's) had our intramural volleyball championship game on Friday night. I've never been on a champion intramural team, and I didn't want to be driving somewhere while my team played without me.

We were undefeated, and it was a double-elimination tournament, so we only had to win one of two matches to win the tournament (and more importantly, get a t-shirt!). Sadly, we lost the first match, 2–0. Even more sadly, and despite our excellent fan support, we lost the first game of the next tournament. During the second game, we were up 24–22, with possession, and it looked like we might pull through. We blew it, though, and—saddest of all—ended up losing the game 27–25. That was the end of the road, and there were no t-shirts for us at the end of it. We were probably doomed from the start, though, since we were a team of nerdy electrical engineers. It's a miracle we made it as far as we did. :)


Since I had some free time on Saturday, I decided to hike Mount Timpanogos. I needed some time to think and ponder, and I wanted to see the fall leaves before they were all gone. The last time I had been on top of Mount Timpanogos was as a freshman in September 2000. I made an attempt last year, but we had to turn around before the summit.

I went solo, partly so that I could go fast, and partly because I couldn't find anyone to come with me on short notice. Rather than taking the familiar Aspen Grove route, I decided on the Timpooneke route, which starts in American Fork Canyon.

I started late (for me), leaving the trailhead around 7:50 a.m. I made it to Scout Falls in 30 minutes, a large meadow half an hour later, and Timpanogos Basin two hours into the hike. An hour later I was at the saddle, and 40 minutes later (just over 3.5 hours into the hike), I was on top. The trails were icy and snow-covered for about 2/3 of the way.

I ran into some interesting people on the hike. A few people weren't really prepared for the conditions, hiking without wind protection, or hiking in skater shoes. Timp in late October is a ballgame from Timp in early September. One guy was a trail runner, and he jogged all the way to the top, only stopping long enough for me to take his picture for him. There were also some hunters prowling around in their dashing bright orange outfits.

I had even more time to myself to think about things than I had planned, since I took a couple of detours on the way down. I had originally planned to glissade down the Timp glacier, but I hadn't looked at the map very carefully, and I didn't realize that the ridge traverse to the head of the snowfield was so long. I went a little over halfway there, but since some of the cliffs were getting sketchy, and since I was solo, I decided to play it safe and turn around, which cost me about an hour.

There's a wreckage of a B-25 bomber that crashed in on Timp the 50's not too far from Timpanogos Basin, and I had planned to check it out on the way back if I had time. I almost decided to skip it, since the trail to the area was unbroken, and breaking trail in snow by myself didn't sound so fun after an already long hike. However, my curiosity got the better of me, and I stashed my pack in some bushes and trudged off through the fluffy snow.

About half an hour later, I neared the area where the plane was supposed to be. My GPS said I was within 300 feet, but I realized that I was one cliff band too low. To get to the plane, I would have to hike up another 200 feet or so. That didn't sound appealing at all, and the snow was deep enough that I figured it might be buried anyway, so I decided to bag it and turn around.

The hike down was a lot easier since a lot of the morning's ice had turned to slush and mud, and I made good time. I was glad when I finally got out of the snow and could move faster, and the monotony of the hike down gave me the thinking time that I needed. There were still a few changing leaves at lower elevations, but the leaves along the trail were mostly dead and gone.

I decided to take the Alpine Loop road home, which goes back behind Timp from American Fork Canyon to Sundance and then Provo Canyon. The aspens were stunning along the road, with bright yellow leaves everywhere: on the trees, drifting through the air, and lining the ground, sometimes in bright piles along the sides of the road. If you're looking for a beautiful drive, head up there sometime in the next few days between about 4:00 p.m. and 5:30, when the sun is setting.

After my beautiful drive home, I did laundry and crashed. I think I'm even going to be sore, which I haven't been for quite a while. It was a good weekend. :)

Picture gallery

Best toilet ever

Look what I found today:


Bonus points if you can name where it is.

Weekend fun

It's been a really fun weekend, for a couple of reasons.

Yesterday I left work a little early and went with some friends to Muir Woods, across the Golden Gate Bridge just north of San Francisco. We hiked through a redwood forest for a while, enjoying our surroundings. We passed a couple on the trail and asked them to take our picture, which turned out to be a little more of an adventure than we had planned. The four of us went and sat on a fallen tree. About half a second after the guy took the picture, the log broke between me and Camille. She ended up on the ground, and we all ended up laughing. (Camille has some pictures on her blog.)

Despite our apparent excess weight, we still got dinner after in San Francisco. :)

Here's the second reason my weekend was fun (more pictures):

Stats: 13,000 feet, 50 seconds freefall, 3:30 gliding.

Half Dome

This weekend I hiked Half Dome in Yosemite National Park with my friend Tim. Since it's really popular on weekends, we decided to beat the crowds by hiking it at night. We left Palo Alto a little before 8:00 p.m., left the Yosemite parking lot at midnight, and made it to the top around 5 a.m.

This was my first time to Yosemite, and I was really impressed. The towering granite cliffs, the powerful rushing rivers, the delicate tiny flowers all reminded me of God's love for us. I feel really blessed to have gone, and I have a feeling that I'll be back in the future.

As you can see, the sunrise and the hike down were both amazing. You can see more pictures in the gallery.

3:16 a.m.: Sign at the junction of the John Muir Trail and the Half Dome trail. We had already hike almost seven miles at this point.

5:18 a.m.: waiting for sunrise

6:11 a.m.: the sun starts to poke up above the mountains.

6:15 a.m.: first glimpse of the whole sun. It had been hiding behind Clouds Rest (and then clouds, ironically) since sunrise officially started at 5:45. (Levels adjusted with iPhoto.)

6:17 a.m.: taking in the beauty. (Also adjusted.)

6:42 a.m.: heading back down the cables that protect the last 800 vertical feet of the Half Dome route. (Note to self: get a sweet purple shirt like that.)

6:51 a.m.: Tim just about to the bottom of the cables.

11:25 a.m.: rainbow and lush vegetation along the Mist Trail at the base of 240-foot Vernal Fall. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

11:26 a.m.: people on the Mist Trail. (Second note to self: make sure to take off shirt more often.)

11:29 a.m.: Vernal Fall.

Havasupai!

A couple of weekends ago I went to Havasupai, in the Grand Canyon. The opportunity came up at the last minute, and I jumped on it, since I've been wanting to go there for years. I wasn't disappointed. I think you can see why.

For more pictures, see:

• Gallery 1: hiking in
• Gallery 2: playing
• Gallery 3: hiking out

Havasu Canyon, with the amazing Colorado Plateau above.

Lots of people pay to have their gear packed in by mule, the same way that mail is delivered to Supai. Not us! We hiked the 10 miles in with 35-pound packs.

Lush meadow in the bottom of a dry desert.

Joel making the tricky climb down to the bottom of Mooney Falls. You have to climb some vertical rock (protected by chains) to get there.

Navajo Falls made me really excited.

120-foot Havasu Falls.

One of the many dogs running around.

How would you like to live here?

Sunset.

Scout troop.

End of a long hike out—well worth the trip!

The trip that wasn't

For almost three years now, two of my former roommates and I have been planning The Man Trip, to take place during summer 2008. The idea was to do something really manly (like smashing rocks together or grunting a lot) for a week or so. Erik couldn't make it (due to marriage and graduation and other grown up stuff), but Hyrum and I decided to go backpacking this week in the Trinity Alps in northern California. (You can read his account of our trip.)

Since internet access isn't something that normally comes with a weeklong backpacking trip in the middle of nowhere, you might be wondering how I'm writing this blog entry. Well, the truth is, our trip had some problems. Here's the main one:

(source)

Those little red flames are forest fires. The big red arrow is where we were planning to hike. You may notice a problem with that situation. We did too, actually, but we figured that there would be other nearby options if the fires were too bad where we were planning to go.

We set off last night on the five-hour drive from the Bay Area to Weaverville. I was amazed at the variety of crops that were grown along the highway: rice, corn, wheat, alfalfa, sunflowers, olives, fruit trees, grapes, and more. The sunset over the coast range as we were driving up I-5 was amazing, thanks to a thin layer of hazy smoke in the air.

That haze thickened as we got closer to our destination until it smelled like my car's air conditioning intake was ducted directly from a campfire. That was a little worrying. It was dark by the time we were nearing Weaverville, and at one point we saw a small forest fire blazing through the darkness not too far from the road. That was a little more worrying. We stayed the night in my car in the Long's Drug parking lot. (Word to the wise: don't try that at home, kids. It's not comfortable!).

When we got up in the morning, we headed straight for the Trinity-Shasta National Forest Ranger Station in Weaverville. We were hoping to hear that the fires were dying down and that the winds were blowing the smoke away from our intended route. What we actually heard was that the fires were near our route, they were growing, they were mostly uncontrolled, and the winds were blowing toward where we had planned to go. Uh oh.

As we drove around Weaverville, there were far more fire trucks than regular vehicles on the road. Here's a picture that I took:


The ranger there didn't really have any good suggestions for alternate routes, so we decided to find somewhere ourselves. During the next little while we:

• Tried to go to the Weaverville library to use the internet, only to discover that it didn't open until 1 p.m.
• Called the main Forest Service office in Redding and found out that the ranger who knew what was going on wouldn't be in for over an hour.
• Decided that the smoke was too thick in the Trinity Alps for us to hike there.
• Bought a map of California to help us look for other places to go.
• Made the hour-long drive to Redding.

Here's what the road looked like on the way out of town—and for those of you following along at home, that's not fog:

 

In Redding we:

• Talked to the ranger who supposedly knew what was going on and discovered that she wasn't as helpful as we had hoped.
  
• Tried to find internet access in Redding, only to find that the library had an insanely long wait, and the internet café's phone had been disconnected.
  
• Called almost every national forest and national park in the northern half of California and discovered that apparently the whole northern half of the state is on fire.
  
• Decided to go south to avoid the smoke so that we wouldn't have to drive home even further.
  

We finally decided to drive to Sacramento and go to REI to look at guide books and trail maps. I found a few options that looked pretty good in a guide book and asked Hyrum what he thought of them. He wisely said that he was trying to feel, not think. As I did the same, I felt the same thing that he did: that we should go home.

We had invested a lot of time, money, and planning into the trip, and going home felt a lot like like quitting—a decided un-Manly thing to do. However, we had prayed for guidance, and accepting and following that guidance was more important than following through with our own plans. We drove the couple of hours from Sacramento back through San Francisco and then to Palo Alto, stopping at In-N-Out for dinner.

I'm still disappointed that our plans didn't work out, but I think it's for the best. I've been on interstate trips for the last two weekends, so it's not like I'm hurting for vacation, and this week will give me some extra time to work and finish up some things that I've been putting off for a while (like writing blog entries about those trips). I know that I'll be blessed for following what I was prompted to do.

Our packs, all ready to go, will have to wait for another day. California fires: 1; us: 0.

San Rafael Swell and Buckley Mountain

I've had a couple recent outdoor adventures. I went camping with my family in the San Rafael Swell a couple of weeks ago and I had a blast. We hiked through some really cool canyons and had a fun time camping. If you're ever near Goblin Valley, definitely check out Crack Canyon. It's not as popular as Ding and Dang or Little Wildhorse, but the crack that it gets its name from is definitely worth hiking to. Crack Canyon can also be done in less time than the others I mentioned--a couple of hours should be enough. My sister's husband Evan wrote a blog post about our trip that goes into more detail.

Last Monday I made it to the top of Buckley Mountain with my friend John. We had both tried multiple times before to summit it without success, but we finally made it last week. The route we took was really cool: we went up Little Rock Canyon (near north Springville) and then followed a drainage up to the summits (Buckley has two). If you're ever looking for a great scenic hike to go on, think about Little Rock Canyon. It has huge towering cliffs, fun (but easy) rock scrambles, and a surprisingly decent trail for a canyon that supposedly doesn't have a trail. It's beautiful.

• San Rafael Swell pictures:
• Crack Canyon
• Ding and Dang Canyons
• Goblin Valley
• Horseshoe Canyon
  
• Traveling and camping (the random pictures that didn't fit anywhere else)
  
• Buckley Mountain pictures
  

Arches National Park

This weekend I went camping with the BYU Outdoor Adventure Club to the Moab area. We drove down on Friday night and camped on some barren BLM land outside of Arches National Park on Friday night. I slept under the stars, which were beautiful and bright against the dark desert sky.

On Saturday we went into the park and hiked through the Fiery Furnace with a ranger named Clay, who taught us the importance of cryptobiotic soil and the rare Canyonlands Biscuitroot. He also made sure that we didn't wander more than 10 feet away or jump off anything taller than 6 inches. I felt like I was in first grade.

Fin canyons in the Fiery Furnace

Everybody suck it in!

Skull Arch

Surprise Arch

After our guided hike we had only about an hour before we had to head back to Provo, but we really wanted to see the world famous Delicate Arch—after all, we were only a mile or so away. The park guide showed that it was a short drive away, with a three-mile round-trip hike to get to the arch. We decided to go as fast as we could.


We ran most of the way to the arch, whizzing by startled tourists on our way there. I got to the arch a little before the others, and it was amazing! The last little bit of the trail parallels a high sandstone wall, so you can't see the arch until you're right there.


After taking lots of pictures, we ran all the way back to the car. We made the whole round trip, including over 10 minutes of picture taking, in about 50 minutes. When we got back to the car we read in the park guide that it takes "2–3 hours". Maybe we should tell them to revise it to "1–3 hours" :).

We made great time back to Provo (3h20m from Arches NP to BYU campus). As we drove, the weather turned from a sunny 65º to a heavy snowstorm. My t-shirt and sandals felt pretty chilly when I stepped out of the car at home.

The trip was a lot of fun. I'm glad I went. As usual, I took lots of pictures.