Fish Creek

We went out to look at some of the puebloan ruins in lower Fish Creek.  This was a nice one, very solidly built, with four symmetrical windows across the front.  Even better, the interior wall was plastered and painted:  The upper half was white-washed, while the bottom was left brown, giving the appearance of wainscoting.  I'm not sure I've seen that before.

Limed

We drove to the mouth of Lime Creek from the Valley of the Gods.  We hiked up canyon.  After about two or three miles, we were stopped by a dry-fall.  (It was dripping actually.)  We turned around and went back a half mile.  EDO wanted to try finding her way up the steep north-facing wall.  So, we sent VSO to the truck and started.  It was, as EDO said, "sketchy."  But we made it to the top.

Lime Creek above the water fall is beautiful:  Silent and pristine.  The access is difficult enough to keep it from being trashed.  We sat there and had a snack.  I looked at my watch.  It was 2:40p.  EDO said, "Oh, it is early."  "No," I replied, "with how far we have to go to get out of here, it is late."  I was, of course, correct.  We made it back to town by quarter to six.  Knowing when to turn around is the difference between the old man and the young hiker.

Needled

We parked at Elephant Hill, and all of us started down the trail to Chesler Park.  VSO made good progress but, with just one wing, she lacked the sure-footedness required for some of the steep icy sections.  Before dropping into Elephant Canyon, we turned her around.

When we cleared the ridge into Chesler, I asked EDO if she wanted to go back the way we had come, or try for a (longer) loop out toward Druid Arch and back through Elephant Canyon.  She, of course, picked the loop.  So we walked fast.  It was a long way, and the December days are short.  We wanted to be out of there by 4p and, at 3:50p, we slipped down the final ridge and into the Chev.

The Little Mermaids

We've been spending most of our days at The Gap.  Or, I should say, we've been going there every day.  Sometimes it is overcast, sometimes sunny.  Sometimes the wind blows and sometimes it snows.  When VSO comes, we keep it to two miles.  The clavicle she had (inadvertently) removed this summer is causing her a lot of shoulder pain.  When EDO comes, we keep it to three.  She has had some long-term pain in her left foot.  We thought it was simply a bruise back in October, and it seemed to go away, but now it is back.

After the Sunset

We've still been riding the bikes a lot.  Aside from one mid-September rain storm and a mid-November sleeting, we've had no moisture in southern Utah since . . . I don't know, maybe July?  So the mountain biking is still pretty good.  In fact, before the sun sets, you can almost ride in shorts and a t-shirt.  After that, though, the temperature drops quickly, sometimes by 20 degrees.  We got caught out there the other day, a couple of miles from the truck.  The sun went down and it immediately got dark.  I just about froze my fingers off.

Two-Hour Juniper

I went out to do some thinning the other day, and decided to start here.  The trouble was that the large Rocky Mountain juniper was so tangled up with the ponderosa pine that it took me an hour to put it on the ground:  Cutting it wasn't enough, I had to wedge it and finally lever it with the stem of a second tree.  Once down, it had so many big branches that it required another hour to lop and pile.  The two-hour juniper.

Cmas Tree 2017

Last year on this day, we cut a big tree in the snow.  We returned to the same general area today and cut another big tree, but without much snow.  Actually, the trees that we choose are tall, but the bottom half is often undesirable.  So, we cut them and use only the top half.  And, just in case anyone is worried, these are subalpine fir trees, a species one of my colleagues calls "devil weed," so cutting them is a good deed.