May 24th, 2014 (Memorial Day weekend at North Fork Park)

Memorial day is always a fun and special day for us! We left Friday after work and car-pooled with Joe and Emily back to the ogden are to go camping near home at North Fork park. I grew up in the Ogden Valley and North Fork is vary familiar to me so it was like being home again. We had quite the crew with us as we joined Rachelle's family the Stoker's, as well as Emily's family the Johnson's Emily's friend Kaitlyn also came with us. It was nice to be able to talk and relax around the camp fire and then during the day to relax around the camp. Emily started feeling sick on saturday and so it was nice that her parent's home was so close. They stayed home through Monday. That Saturday we were joined by my Brothers David and Jason and his boys then on Sunday and Monday The rest of my Family came to join the camp. We did the Bicentennial Trail on Monday which is a short 4 mile scenic loop through the scrub oak and woods of the area. There is one river crossing which as always been my favorite part of the trail. This year the river was pretty swift do to mountain run off but we did make the cross safely even with kids and dogs.

Indian Joe asleep in the tent. It rained that first night (on Friday) but we were all dry! Thank you Sierra Designs! 

Kiana and Abby! We will miss you Abby! She will be heading to live with her mom in Maryland.

Rachelle and Kaitlyn

A morning climb up the side of the waterfall with Joe

I love my little sisters!

We spent a few hours back at my house in Eden working on a service project for our up coming trip to Guatemala. I will for sure post about that adventure when it comes!

Me Rachelle, and Mom and Dad Stoker on the trail

I love the Ogden Valley! You can just make out Pineview reservoir peaking out at center right of the photo.   

The River was pretty cold but fun to cross!

Kiana, Abby, Tiffany, Rachelle and my nephews Mason and Porter 

My Brother David and his daughter Charley 

 

May 17th, 2014 (Ding and Dang)

We made it back to Goblin Valley again with our friends Joe and Emily Johnson along with Taylor and Meckenzie Dietz. We also had Christian Sawyer and Hilario Mendoza, and Jamie Slade from the UVU telefund along with us. This time around we made a successful assault on Ding and Dang! It was a thrilling experience and a hike that I would do again in a heartbeat. There was a fair bit of scrambling involved, and given that it had previously rained within the week the standing water at the bottom of the canyon in areas reached mid thigh. most cases allowed us to traverse above the water by bracing yourself above and taking small steps. Going down Dang was more difficult than ascending Ding. There were some areas where ledges dropped 15 feet or so and the only way down was to either use the bracing technique or to back climb down. We didn't have rope which would have been useful in some areas but was not completely necessary. Anyways this was a great 5 miler very similar in how the hike flows to the nearby Little Wild Horse/ Bell Canyon, but offering more excitement with a shorter distance. This was a great adventure! May I also mention that we are getting pretty good a Dutch oven out-door cooking as well! At the Adventure gear expo we found a neat treasure which is a handy lid lifter that work quite well.

This was one spot where we had to use the rope that was already there. It was just a 20 ft webbing tow cable which helped in lowing yourself down over a small four ft ledge. 

I think we all became pretty good at playing spider man in this canyon!

Chacos from left to right: Emily, Joe, Rachelle, Me! 

May 10th (Mothers Day Weekend)

I have some catching up to do here. I will write quickly about each week and post them separately. To Start off with Rachelle and I had the opportunity to visit the Adventure Gear Expo in Sandy on May 10th. We Arrived close to noon and needed to be at Tiffany's soccer game at 4 PM so we only got to spent a couple of hours but it was still fun. I got to talk to to some good people about prospective internship opportunities. That is what occupied our day on that weekend but still worth it.

I learned how to start a fire using a bow drill! Didn't succeed, but got the methodology down.

Rachelle had fun learning to balance on a slack line. 

Crazy Arms!

Rachelle and her sisters went to Zumba with their ant Britney in Brigham City for mothers day:)

On April 11th, 2014 Rachelle and I set of on another excellent adventure. Friday was spent in great anticipation for the exciting weekend to come. The 6 hours that I was required to work seemed to dawdle along for forever! I was finally freed from the torture at 6 PM when I hurried home to help Rachelle finish the packing which always seems to take longer than previously would be expected. After finally stuffing the trunk of our Mazda almost to capasity we headed over to the provo transit station to pick up Rachelle's sisters Kiana and Tiffany along with Kiana's friend Abby. (As a side note for future expeditions it will be helpful to have some sort of roof rack to store gear, thus allowing for more passenger room).  From there we skipped over to our good friend's apartment for a quick bite to eat complements of Emily Johnson. We offered a prayer for safety in our travels and over the weekend. My brother Drew also met up with the entourage at that time. We ate a nicely cooked meal of chicken and rice with a bit of gravy. Needless to say, it was delicious. After the meal we we piled into to cars, our Mazda and Drew's Honda Civic and made one more stop to get my nephew Grant and to fill up with gas. It is a good thing that we did too because Drew decided he better check the oil in his car and discovered that there was hardly any oil left! He quickly purchased quart and made the remedy. At about 8 PM we finally set of to our destination to Goblin Valley Utah! The 2 1/2 hour drive down near Hanksville was interesting, but you will have to ask me in person why. Upon arrival at the what Drew and I have dubbed "The Outskirts of Goblin Valley" we traveled just west of the ranger station on Wild Horse Rd for about 2 miles then turned south on a dirt rd to the campsite. My Parents along with my brother Adam and his family and my sister Janene with her kids. We got the tent set up and then went into my parents trailer to enjoy some chips and guacamole that Rachelle had made. It was fun to talk with my Mom and Joe and Emily. We were also entertained by one of Joe's "Joe Show" performances after he had been sleeping in the car. He had been holding the eggs and as he was getting out of the car he moved the eggs so that they started to fall and broke a few of them. He began to shout "The babies!" as the eggs fell. Quite entertaining. Staturday was spent in the mostly in the valley but we did attempt to hike Ding and Dang which is a fun slot canyon hike in the San Rafael wash. Here are pictures of the adventures:

We didn't make it to the ding and dang trail head due to the fact that I had never done that hike and Rachelle hadn't done it in something like 10 years, we did wander up into the higher mountains and found some exciting things. 

This photo is a grand example of the food chain in the desert. Its a little hard to see, but a snake is eating a lizard in the brush. 

Our good friends Joe and Emily Johnson were so fun. We were glad to have them along!

Tiffany is so funny, after coming back home she told the events of our trip in an indian accent without once breaking character. She is awesome!

Playing in the Valley was pretty fun! We played sardines and later got out PVC pipe guns and marshmallows for a little marshmallow war!

Grant was fun to have with us. He is an amazing hider for sardines!

I tried to do a head stand on the rocks. 

This is the "Birth Canal". Its a fun cave that is found toward the back wall of Goblin Valley you exit the cave through a roof opening. 

Cleaning up on Sunday morning. All of the rest of the family left after the hike on Saturday and took the trailer with them but we had a tent for everyone to pile into. Good thing too because it rained and stormed through most of Saturday night.

Here is an update over the last few weeks: We did a few fun hikes I will go in chronologic order here. On March 22nd we had a lot of fun with Rachelle's Sisters and a couple of their friends as we hiked in Ogden, Ut up at waterfall canyon. We thought that we would be hiking in the dark as we came down because of our late start, but actually we were able to make the trip in good time! We started at about 6 PM and got down off the mountain at around 7:40 PM. this is a 3 mile hike round trip but its fairly steep. The waterfall was not running really strong as much of the high mountain snow has not yet melted, but was a good spray. We started at the 29th street trailhead and muscled up to the waterfall in about 40 minutes. We took one break at the first bridge when the trail starts to narrow. We  free climbed up the rock face 15 feet and took some pictures. Up at the top Kiana and her friend Abby climbed up the snow pile at the bottom of the waterfall and and got a bit wet. It was fun!

Here is the crew! Kiana and her friend Abby, Tiff and her friend Makayla and Rachelle and I

Rachelle and I at the top of the free climb:)

They got pretty wet!

This was a great pic.

The sunset was Awesome!

This is from up on the rock

Next was last week, March 29th. Rachelle had homework that she wanted to get done but this is what happened. My brothers and I were actually considering climbing the west face of Timpanogos. Its a rigorous 10 mile round trip with 55 degree pitch slopes and lots of snow. The route is called "Everest Ridge" named from climbers practicing on the slope for an Everest assent. We would have used crampons and ice-axes. We had been planning on making trip for a few months, but we received fresh snow on the mountain on the previous day. We were in limbo on weather to make the attempt with the added avalanche risk or not until the night before when we decided to postpone the attempt until conditions are better. However, my great friend C.J., my brother Drew, and I did make the 6 mile round trip up to Squaw peak as a minor substitute.  Although it wasn't the strenuous climb we had in mind for Timp, we did have fun climbing up the mud/snowy squaw peak trail!

I particularly like the expression on C.J.'s face!

Overlooking Provo and Utah lake form Squaw peak

We started this hike at about 6:30 AM and made it back down at around 11:30 AM which gave us plenty of time to Join C.J. and Emily for another adventure....

Festival of Color!

Neither Rachelle or I had been to the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple It was a good time. (Please remember to close you're mouth!)