🏔️ Adventure Log #3: An Enchanted Summer
Catching up on summer events before some big upcoming adventures
This summer has been FLYING by, and I am incredibly delinquent on documenting and reflecting on it. In a few days, my schedule somehow gets even crazier, including a wedding back in Michigan, a road trip for my first 50 miler up in British Columbia, and a second road trip for my friend’s 50K out in Oregon... all in the next month and a half. So before all the madness starts, it’s time to catch up on some writing!
June in Colorado
In preparation for all the adventures I had planned, I finally decided to build out some better storage and more comfortable sleeping in the back of my Outback. After watching lots of YouTube videos, reading travel influencer blog posts, and drafting mock-ups for a design, I cobbled together1 a set-up that suited my needs.
My first opportunity to use the new build was toward the end of June, when I headed out to Colorado for a camping trip with one of my high school best friends Mikey! After over a year of living on opposite sides of the Rockies, our trip ideas finally made it out of our text messages, and we planned to camp and hike in Crested Butte, CO. The small ski town is about an 8 hour drive from Salt Lake, so I decided to break the drive up and make a stops along the way to do some more exploring.
The first stop was Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. This national park is small and less frequented, but the sheer cliffs and unique rock formations blew me away. Unfortunately, I arrived at the ranger station too late to secure a permit to descend to the bottom of the canyon, so I opted for a short run around the upper canyon and a spin on my bike along the edge of the rim to check out all the overlooks.
The next day, I met up with Mikey in town, and we explored the Crested Butte a bit before heading into a canyon to find a campsite. Crested Butte is nestled at the base of the town’s namesake 12,000 ft peak: Mt. Crested Butte. Beyond picking the town, we did very little planning beforehand2, and turns out the campsite we originally had planned on was still inaccessible due to unplowed and avalanche damaged roads. Luckily, there’s no shortage of campsites in the area and we found a nice spot surrounded by aspens and cliffs to set up camp, go for a short hike, cook up some dinner, and settle in for the night.
The next day, we decided to go check out Mt. Crested Butte and find some nearby hikes. It was opening day for mountain biking at the resort, so there were limited amount of hiking trails that we started moseying up. A few hours later, we reached the saddle of the mountain and hit some snow. As we were about to call it quits and turn around, we saw a group glissade down the slopes, stopping where we were. The informed us that the snow didn’t extend that much further, so long story short, we went from “let’s wander around and explore” to summiting.
All-in-all a very successful trip, despite the lack of planning. It was great to catch up with an old friend, check out some new national parks, and start the summer season strong with a 12,000 footer!
July in the Pacific Northwest
Back in April, one of my oldest friends, Annie sent me one of the most exciting texts I’ve gotten:
About 2 weeks before the planned date, in the midst inviting a new addition to my life, Ethan, I realized I had no idea what our logistics were going to be3. Luckily, Annie had done all the planning and we just needed to show up. The plan was to fly into Portland, drive up to Leavenworth (making a pit-stop at Mt. Rainier to stretch out our legs) where the Enchantments hike was, and then fly out of Seattle a few days later.
The Enchantments are in the Cascade mountains of Washington, and are one of the gems of the region. It’s a long route, roughly 18 miles one-way with over 5000 ft. of elevation gain. If you want to take your time soaking it all in and camping overnight, you need to be one of the lucky few to score in a lottery. We were not one of those lucky few, so we planned to thru-hike it.
Getting up at 4 AM and waking ourselves up with some Beyoncé, we dropped off our car at the end of the hike and took a shuttle to the start point. About 4 miles in, we were rewarded with the sight of our first lake of the day: Colchuck Lake.
From Colchuck Lake, we climbed up and over Aasgard Pass into the core Enchantments zone. Aasgard Pass is a thigh burning 2000+ ft elevation gain in less than a mile. But after the effort, we were rewarded with a myriad of lakes of all shades of blue, families of goats, cascading waterfalls and got to enjoy hours and hours of hiking, eating, glissading, and swimming. By the time we had trudged back to the car, we had logged about 19 miles, 5000 ft. of gain, and 7000 ft. of descent.
The next day, we drove to Seattle and spent a day in the city before flying back home to Utah. Taylor Swift’s concert was that weekend4, on top of a food festival and a Mariners game, so the city was extra busy5 and colorful. We met up with some of Ethan’s friends whose road trip plans put is in the same place at the same time. We spent the day exploring the city before an early flight home the next morning.
The Little Things at Home
In between all the adventures this summer, I somehow found time to soak in all the beauty of the Wasatch mountains back at home too. With the historical snowfall this winter, the resulting melt in the spring yielded the most incredible wildflower season. I found myself spending my evenings and weekends exploring new trails and enjoying wildflowers of all shapes and colors.
Most excitingly, I finally have evidence that meese6 are real! Brief backstory: everyone and their mother in Salt Lake seems to have had encounters with meese. One friend even had a moose wander through his front yard! But in the nearly 2 years I’ve lived in Salt Lake, despite the amount of time and miles I’ve spent in the mountains, they always seem to be able to avoid me.
Fast forward to July. I was getting one of my final long runs before my 50 miler in August, and I had decided to wander in the range of mountains between Big Cottonwood and Millcreek canyons. I was already 21 miles in and ready to conclude that meese are truly non-existent, given that I’d covered so much ground already. I had about 2 miles left to get back to my car and was feeling dejected when I ran into a group of hikers discussing the what the plural of “moose” was. I provided them the correct answer (obviously “meese”), and they mentioned there was a group of them up ahead.
Despite my legs being dead, I sprinted up ahead to hopefully catch a glimpse before they managed to elude me again, and there they were! 3 meese in the flesh! I kept my distance as they wandered up the mountain, and managed to snap a grainy photo. Definitely one of the highlights of my summer so far!
“Cobbled together” is generous… I had to do all sorts of janky modifications because of poor planning and measuring, including having to angle grind away the latch of the drawers for it to be able to close all the way
Turns out a lack of planning has been a bit of a theme this summer… no plans to get a permit ahead of time at Black Canyon, no campsite plans in town, and even the hikes we did were spur of the moment
Again, planning seems to be a weakness an opportunity for growth
It was painfully obvious who was attending the concert. Anyone with at least 1 of these 3 things were definitely concertgoers: (1) bedazzling and/or glitter (2) Clear purses and backpacks (2) cowboy boots.
Hotel rooms were going for $1,500+ a night! We luckily had some generous friends with a guest room who let us crash for the night.
Anyone who tries to tell you that the plural of “moose” is “moose” is a buzzkill and also just wrong.