Hiking at Brighton

Rather than try and go back and separate out each event that happened over the last two months, here’s a bunch of photos from that time.

The main reason I’ve missed so much is our camera had a series of unfortunate events… but we’ve got it back now so I’ve no longer got an excuse for not posting.

Chowin' in the Uintas - Ruth Lake campfire meal.

While we’ve done a lot of car camping this year, there’s always something a little different about packing it in. We did it once last year, and while it didn’t turn out to be the greatest of trips, we thought we’d try it again. The kids are another year older, and another year independent-er. This means, in outdoorsy terms, that Tory can walk on his own a lot farther.

It was a fun, spontaneous trip that the kids loved. I’m really glad they love the outdoors as much as mom and dad do.

Miners Day 2010 with the Moe/Hoffmans

While the rest of the world celebrates Labor Day, here in Park City we celebrate Miners Day. Even though most laborers in this town no longer mine.

When in Rome, do as the Popsicles.

Here’s a few images of Tegan wrestling with a popsicle. In the end she won, but that popsicle put up one heck of a fight.

Kari's excited to paddle 10,000+ CFS for the first time.

When Kari and I were living in Maine those many years ago we learned to whitewater kayak and have done it off and on since. In the last few years it’s been more off than on, so we’ve been very excited to meet some people recently who also love to paddle. They also have kids which makes it even that much more possible that we’d hang out and boat together. We all got together for a weekend up near Jackson to camp and paddle nearby rivers. Kari and I were very lucky to get to paddle the Snake together two days in a row. The photos aren’t great here, but you’ll see some sweet underwater shots. I’ll say it now, people don’t look all that good when photographed under water.

Tory collects rocks for chucking.

We make it up to the Uintas quite a bit every summer, this year a little later than usual due to our extended winter/lack of spring. We spent just one night and then hiked the next day. These hikes are still short, but I’m guessing in the next few years they’ll stretch out longer with some overnight hike ins.

Tegan the Wiggle Worm squirms with daddy-o. Yup there's more!

It’s finally summer here and that means the Mountain Town Music concerts are in fill swing. We’re pretty lucky here in Park City – there’s free concerts 3 or 4 days a week during the summer. This band was from South Carolina and were dang good! Shoulda bought a cd.

Tory takes a ride down the monster slide. Click for more.

Friday night found us at the Summit County fair, along with some Park City and Heber City friends. There were rides, games, snow cones, and corn dogs. Kari and I even got to ride the Zipper (still my favorite carney ride). This being our first Summit Co fair, I was struck by the fact that carney folk are the same everywhere. As usual, click above for more fair fun.

Tory takes it off trail. Click the pic for more of this schtick.

We always go to the Uintas to camp, because it’s relatively close, and so very woodsy-mountainsy. But we like to explore new places too, so we treked on up near Powder Mountain to a place that looked pretty good on the map. The bummer part is that lots of other people had that same crazy idea, and there was no room at the inn. So we drove around for a while, detouring at a road that read “National Forrest access.” To me, that means there’s probably lots of little roads here and there that one could pull off on and find a little spot to camp. Neeuuop.

Long boring story short we ended up back in the Uintas 4 hours later, and vowed never to try a new place again. At least not until next time.

We camped and hiked for the weekend with Michelle, Sam, and Soph, and had quite a nice time chllin’ in the woods. We even had to swat at some mosquitos, which I thought were extinct here in Utah. What? What’s that I don’t hear from my Minnesota friends?

Tory and Soph are starting to become real troopers in the field, both hiking most of the way there and back. I think we made it all of 3 miles in! Actually, I carried Tory most of the way back on my shoulders after he fell into the drink and soaked himself from the belly down.