Hiking

It's still officially winter, but hiking season has definitely begun. Two Saturdays ago we went hiking with some friends on Stansbury Island (it really hasn't been an island for about twenty years because the lake keeps dropping.) It was a beautiful day, no wind at all and the lake was almost a perfect mirror.


Looking across the lake towards Mount Ogden.


At a balmy 23 degrees, we felt like we were in the Caribbean!

Right in the middle of the island, about 900 feet above the lake with the "Capital Dome" behind us.

On Wednesday, Lance and I decided that after living in the city for fifteen years, it was time to climb Ensign Peak. Two days after Brigham Young entered the valley he climbed the peak to get a general survey of the valley.

Usually it would have been a spectacular view but the wind filled the valley with dust from the desert. This is looking right towards downtown.


Since there was such a strong wind to help us, we continued up to the next peak. The Ensign Peak monument is right below us.

Lance on top of the next peak with the Sessions Mountain behind him.

This Saturday we decided to just hop in the car and head west. We drove through Skull Valley, between the Stansbury and Cedar Mountains. Our first stop was at Horse Shoe Springs. The native American Indians, primarily the Goshutes, used to camp a lot in this area. (There used to be 20,000 Goshutes, now there are only around 500.)

Welcome to Iosepa! Iosepa was established by Joseph F. Smith for Hawaiian immigrants. They lived here from 1887 until 1917 when the Hawaiian Temple was built and they all went home. I think I would have gone back in 1888. All that is left is the cemetery.

While going through the desert we saw antelope, wild horses, fox, and thousands of sheep.

The Pony Express stop at Simpson Springs. We followed the route except for where it crosses the Dugway Proving Grounds; the second largest chemical and biological weapons dump in the world. Heck, with all of this already in our backyard, why not go ahead and add nuclear waste?

We really love the solitude and beauty of the desert. We were there for ten hours and saw only four other vehicles.

We found this old bus about half a mile off the road. Tourism in Salt Lake City has been about the same this winter. (Our friend, Lee, is the passenger.)

We also found some incredible hot springs. We aren't sure if they are geothermal or heated by nuclear waste.

Lance was the only one who got in the water. We didn't get here until sunset and with the sun gone it quickly became bitterly cold.

From the hot springs we continued west until we hit a paved road in Nevada, then we drove up to Wendover where we each played $1.00 in the slot machines. (We hope we didn't track too much mud through the casino, if we did our $3.00 donation should help clean it up.)