Off the Beaten Path: Hikes, Backpacks, and Travels

Cabin Fever Dreaming: My Perfect Mountain Cabin

Posted on December 6, 2013 by westerner54

It’s 1000 degrees below zero. I had planned a little hike for this morning, but that ain’t gonna happen.

Instead, I’ve been sipping hot chocolate and daydreaming about the perfect little cabin I want to build….someday.

This isn’t it.

It turns out there are a few items that my dream cabin can’t be without.

1. A killer view. Lots of folks seem to love the cabins in the woods theme, but not me. I want open space, and sunrises and sunsets up to whazzoo. If my ship comes in big time, I’d go for a view like this:

But it’s more likely that my cabin would be built on a hilltop, in a spot like this:

2. After the view, the next most important thing is a porch. I’ve been to nice cabins that are porchless –

but in my dreams I’m sitting on a porch, having a glass of wine while I watching the setting sun.

Maybe like this one?

or one of these?

Or even a back porch, like this:

3. Of course, a nice kitchen area is important for preparing that nightly wine and cheese. One like this would do…

but my dream cabin has this one:

Or maybe I’ll go another direction altogether, with something like this:

4. Windows, of course. But they need to be like one of these:

5. The size, too, needs to be just right. Not too small…

Too cozy.

But no need to go overboard, either…

Although now that I think about it, I wouldn’t say no to a packer to haul in my wine and caviar.

6. Wine seems to be coming up quite regularly, doesn’t it? So my final requirement is actually pretty easy…wine and cheese at the end of a day spent in the out of doors.

How about when your ship comes in? What would your dream cabin be like?

Posted in Architecture, Life, Montana, Nature, Outdoors | Tagged dream cabin, Western cabins, Western Life | 14 Comments

The Land that Speaks to My Heart

Posted on December 3, 2013 by westerner54

Do you believe that we are meant to live in certain landscapes? That some places just feel like home, even if you didn’t grow up there?

I do. It’s one of the few things I really do believe. I’ve written about it before, but for me this is one of those truths that comes up again and again.

And for me, that landscape is the open spaces of the west. Eastern friends have told me that the big emptiness of Montana puts them on edge, but I find myself breathing a big sigh of relief when I return to this open, wild, windswept land.

Posted in Life, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography | Tagged land that feels like home, rural west, western landscape | 21 Comments

Government Trail to the Big Man Pictographs: Grand Gulch, Utah

Posted on November 22, 2013 by westerner54

It’s about a 10 mile roundtrip hike across Cedar Mesa, down into Grand Gulch, and up the gulch to the spectacular Big Man Pictographs. We’ve done it as a day trip, but it’s worth spending as much time as you can exploring Grand Gulch. We only had one extra night on our recent trip, so we decided to hike the three miles across the mesa and find a camp near the rim of the gulch so that we could spend more time exploring the canyon without heavy packs.

The Big Man Pictograph Panel is of the most evocative panels in Grand Gulch: how can you not look at these huge figures of a man and a woman looking out across the canyon and not imagine the story of their life in this gulch 1200 years ago?

The Government Trail is one of the shortest and easiest access routes into Grand Gulch. The trail crosses the mesa top, and reaches the canyon rim after 2.7 miles, and then it’s just about a 1/2 mile down to the bottom.

Cedar Mesa is wide open, big sky country, that’s for sure:

We reached the edge of the canyon, and met a couple of hikers on their way out who suggested a good campspot on a ledge about a third of the way down into the gulch. (Incidently, those were the only folks we saw for two days.)

We took their advice, and hiked down, hunting for a good spot to pitch the tent. As we were wandering around we looked up and discovered some faded petroglyphs right above our chosen spot. I love that.

From our campsite we could see a ruin high on the cliff on the other side of the gulch. Like nearly all the dwellings in the area, this one faces south, so it quickly gets the morning sun. The value of this was clear the next morning as I shivered in our shady spot and watched the sun quickly bathe the ruin across the way in warm light.

My coffee helped warm me up, and view was pretty dandy, but man, was it chilly!

But back to the object of our hike: the pictographs. We set up camp and headed up canyon to find them before it got dark. They’re a couple of miles up the canyon from the spot where the Government Trail hits the gulch. The hike itself is grand, along a cottonwood studded creek bottom surrounded by towering red cliffs.

You can’t see the pictographs from the trail, but you’ll see other hikers’ bootprints heading up to the right after a couple of miles. It’s a pretty good scramble to the ledge where the pictographs are, but once you’re there …. wowza.

There’s even an “official” BLM explanation of the panel tucked into an ammo box on the ledge:

Whoever did this wanted to be sure we didn’t miss the genitals. So take note, please.

Here’s the view the big man and woman have been looking at for hundreds of years:

Not too shabby, eh?

Posted in Adventure, Backpacking, Hiking, Outdoors, Southwest hikes | Tagged Big Man Pictographs, Government Trai Grand Gulch, Grand Gulch Primitive Area, southern Utah hikes | 17 Comments

Nature Abides

Posted on November 16, 2013 by westerner54

There’s little to love about November. I mean really, what’s to like about dark, gray, cold days that will only get colder and darker? And not even any snow to make things pretty to look at. Jeez.

However.

Nature abides. Like the Dude, Nature is always there. And like the Dude, it always puts a smile on my face.

Watching and looking for birds has given me great excuses to get out in the cold and damp these past few days, and I may be even starting to see the beauty in my least favorite month. It’s not July, but when I can watch critters like these, I can’t complain.

There were 28 Wood Ducks at a nearby pond yesterday. I’d never seen even one male Wood Duck, so to see a whole gaggle of them was incredible.

A couple of days ago I followed a pair of Bald Eagles around a lake as they stalked the coots and mallards and snow geese that were resting on their way south.

There were a few shorebirds still hanging out, as well. I think this is a Greater Yellowlegs, but I can’t really see his yellow legs to be sure.

A Common Loon had some important news to share.

I even saw a Great Horned Owl. He was not, however, willing to show his face in a photograph. See him there, behind the tree? That’s some good camouflage.

So I guess you’re OK after all, November.

Posted in Birding, Life, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Wildlife | Tagged Bald Eagle in flight, Greater Yellowlegs, November, The Dude, Wood Ducks | 11 Comments

Wild Goose Chasing

Posted on November 8, 2013 by westerner54

The snow geese are on the move. 35,000 of them landed at Freezout Lake over the past few days, and last night I heard them calling to each other as they flew over Helena, heading southwest. Just think: the birds in these pictures were in the Arctic not that long ago, and in March they’ll turn around and make the trek back after their winter in California.

Skein after skein of them flew over my head at Freezout yesterday, coasting in for a landing among thousands of their kin who were already on the lake.

The tundra swans are arriving too.

But it’s the thousands of snow geese that are the big story.

Posted in Birding, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Wildlife | Tagged Freezout Lake, Snow Geese, Snow Geese migration, Tundra Swans | 9 Comments

Moon House Ruins, Cedar Mesa, Utah

Posted on November 5, 2013 by westerner54

Just being out in nature is usually motivation enough to get me out on a hike, so I know I’d be willing to traipse around the canyons of southeastern Utah even if there weren’t cool ruins and rock art to be discovered around every bend.

But the possibility of discovering signs of the folks who lived here a thousand years ago pushes the hiking on Cedar Mesa to new heights.

Grand Gulch Primitive Area is chock-full of incredible ruins and art, and is stunningly beautiful as well. I’ve written earlier about my adventure of not falling into the canyon , and I’ll write a bit more about Grand Gulch in my next post.

Moon House Ruins is in one of the many other canyons that cut across Cedar Mesa: McLoyd Canyon. Moon House is one of the most interesting ruins on Cedar Mesa: the ruin is remarkably intact, with beautiful artistic details, and is one of the only ones I’ve seen that includes a sort of enclosed hallway in front of the living quarters.

It’s a fairly rough drive down Snowflat Road to the trailhead, and the hike into the canyon is fairly steep, although it’s not long – just about three miles. There is one difficult-ish spot where you need to climb down a little – not much, but I think I might have had a hard time getting back up over that little downclimb without a helping hand. But then again, I’m old. (Important note: the BLM has started requiring a permit to hike to Moon House, and they limit the number of people to 20 a day.)

The ruin complex is situated near a large hoodoo-like rock formation. These rocks feel spiritual to me, so it wouldn’t surprise me for the Anasazi to have the same reaction.

Since you can see the ruins once you reach the canyon, there’s not much chance of getting lost on the way in, although people do seem to have a proclivity for setting up misleading cairns that seem to lead nowhere. We did, however, have some difficulty finding the trail back across the mesa-top on the way out…I think we were just not paying attention, and wandered too far along the canyon rim, but it took us some backtracking to find the trail. Not life-threatening by any means, but it was kind of a pain!

You can see the whole complex from across the canyon.

It’s impressive from afar, but once you get closer, you can see the details of the craftsmanship and the artwork. Sit there quietly and you can hear the mothers calling to each other, the children playing, men planning a hunting trip…it’s a ghostly and moving spot.

There is a lot to explore in McLoyd Canyon. Just a few hundred yards up canyon there are more ruins, including some with interesting “horsecollar” doorways.

Continue a bit further up canyon, and you reach a lovely oasis-like spring that is a perfect spot for a break if you visit on a hot day:

Posted in Adventure, Hiking, Outdoors, Southwest hikes, Travel | Tagged Anasazi Ruins, Cedar Mesa hikes, Grand Gulch Primitive Area, Moon House Ruin | 11 Comments

What’s The Best Campsite in Natural Bridges National Monument?

Posted on October 30, 2013 by westerner54

I know this has been a burning question for thousands of you out there.

Well, fret no more. I have the answer.

Campsite Number 4.

Here it is:

The best part? The view!

Another fine spot for my morning coffee.

There are only 13 sites at Natural Bridges, so you really can’t end up with a “bad” site. We arrived on the Friday before the Columbus Day holiday, and the state of Utah had just made a deal with the federal government to temporarily cover the cost of opening the National Parks in the state during the shutdown. Because of our lucky timing, there were only a couple of other campers sharing the campground with us that night.

Natural Bridges is a little nugget of a park, perfect for exploring in a few days. But it’s worth a longer stay, since its location on Cedar Mesa is right smack in the middle of hundreds of canyons that are chock full of fascinating Anasazi ruins.

And the night skies! Here’s a photo from the Park Service website, showing the incredible stars over Owachomo Bridge:

We sat around the fire and watched the Big Dipper circle around the North Star, imagining what the folks who lived on this mesa a thousand years ago would make of the shooting stars or the Milky Way.

The best way to see the park is to the hike the Loop Trail, an 8 1/2 mile trip that goes by all three bridges, beginning at the Sipapu Bridge trailhead.

Photographing the bridges was a challenge for me. The Sipapu Bridge looks tiny from the trailhead….see it there to the right of center in in this picture?

As you get closer you get a better sense of how massive these things are.

I tried a number of different angles, hoping to give a sense of what it feels like to stands under such a huge natural structure.

Somehow the bridges just don’t seem as impressive when you step back to get the whole thing in the picture.

There are ruins in the canyons you hike as well as bridges. It takes a bit of clambering to reach Horsecollar Ruins, but it’s worth it.

There are also some dandy petroglyphs on this mushroom shaped rock, to the right of the trail before you reach Owachomo Bridge.

The trail climbs out of the canyon at Owachomo Bridge and heads 2 miles across the mesa top back to the trailhead at Sipapu Bridge. You then get to go back to wonderful campsite number 4!

Posted in Camping, Hiking, Nature, Southwest hikes, Travel | Tagged camping in Natural Bridges, Natural Bridges hikes, Natural Bridges National Monument | 13 Comments

#yellowstonebeforetheshutdown

Posted on October 9, 2013 by westerner54

#really??!!!??

#getagrip

#areyoukiddingme?

OK. Just had to vent a little. Believe me, my lone Republican Congressman is hearing from me. Every day. And no, I’m not just mad because I can’t go to the national parks.

But I’ll spare you the rant.

Yellowstone the last weekend in September was as captivating as ever. It was cold, and windy, and spitting snow, but no one seemed to mind.

This guy, in particular, was oblivious to everything except the roots that he was tearing up:

He was totally unimpressed by the group photographing him from just a 150 feet away.

The bull elk that has corralled his harem at Mammoth Hot Springs was equally oblivious to the folks stalking him. He was just frantically trying to keep control of his ladies. They, of course, were oblivious to him.

He was obliging enough to carry on right outside the window of the Mammoth Springs Hotel. What luxury, to be able to watch his frantic herding from the warm lounge!

I did see him take on a few cars, and he even went after a giant one-ton pickup. The rangers have got to go nuts trying to keep folks from getting in his way.

(A few years ago a big elk rammed a car and ended up with a tail light on his antlers. There’s a great video of it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGuRBLuSD9Q )

The pronghorn males are working hard at keep their ladies together as well.

The bighorns and the bison aren’t getting all crazy quite yet, but it won’t be long. These guys are thinking about it.

Even when the weather isn’t cooperating, there’s plenty of beauty to be found.

Posted in Life, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Wildlife, Yellowstone | Tagged bighorn sheep, danged politicians, Yellowstone before the shutdown, Yellowstone grizzly, Yellowstone National Park | 12 Comments

Fall Beauties: Sandhill Cranes

Posted on September 30, 2013 by westerner54

I’ve been a bit obsessed with Sandhill Cranes this month. They arrive in Montana early each fall, and hang out in the wheat fields until they decide that the time has come to head south. Watching and listening as the cranes glide in for a landing to join the rest of the flock is the highlight of my day; it becomes one of those perfect moments when time stands still and I’m just totally there.

It’s pretty spectacular when the birds are gliding over my head against a brilliant blue sky,

but when I can catch their silhouettes against the golden light of an autumn sunset, well, that’s when the magic really happens.

Posted in Birding, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Wildlife | Tagged being in the moment, Sandhill crane migration, Sandhill cranes | 11 Comments

The Top Ten Outdoor Spots for A Morning Cup of Coffee

Posted on September 24, 2013 by westerner54

This change of seasons has got me feeling kind of blue…it’s gray and cold and drizzly outside and my morning hike on the mountain felt awfully close to work.

So I started thinking about some of the cozy everyday moments that make me happy. One of those is my first cup of coffee each morning. Sitting in my favorite chair, reading the paper and sipping a good strong cup of coffee is a grand way to start each day.

And when I’m outdoors with an incredible view in spread out before me, that wonderful ritual is even better.

The best of those outdoor spots? Here they are.

10. Sitting on the porch of Glacier’s Granite Park Chalet and looking for grizzly bears from your safe perch is definitely worth the effort of the hike in.

9. Hanging out on the shore of Bowman Lake in Glacier. If you’re joined by a handsome deer family, so much the better.

9.a. I just can’t leave the Bowman Lake area without including the Polebridge Mercantile: great coffee, great scones, and a charming spot to enjoy them.

8. Sipping coffee on the “porch” of an Anasazi ruin in Grand Gulch, Utah is pretty darned amazing. Add in some spring green cottonwoods and the charming trill of a canyon wren and your morning is perfect.

7. A campsite in Montana’s Gravelly Range that sits right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Madison Valley is up there as well.

6. Rivers are pretty wonderful spots to drink coffee and watch the morning world go by. There are oodles of choices, but I’ll give the number six spot to two of them: the Stillwater in south central Montana and the Missouri near the Gates of the Mountains.

5. Coffee in the Grand Canyon has got to be on anyone’s top ten. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack it when we hiked down the Tanner Trail earlier this year. Next time, I’m definitely having my morning coffee in this spot!

4. And Zion. Good lord, how to pick just one spot in Zion? But I’ll go with a spot high above the canyon on the East Rim.

3. Hogan Cabin has got to be my favorite Forest Service cabin, and coffee inside the cabin on a cold winter day makes for a pretty nice memory.

2. Just about anywhere in Yellowstone is a great spot for coffee – particularly since you could be joined by any number of critters.

1. And the best outdoor spot to have your morning coffee? It’s got to be on the wraparound walkway of the Medicine Point Lookout in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. The views are amazing, but the railing that provides a comfy footrest is what pushes this spot to number one.

How about you? Where’s your favorite spot for a cup of joe?

Posted in Food, Hiking, Life, Nature, Outdoors | Tagged best spots for coffee, best things in life, coffee in the outdoors, things that make me happy | 18 Comments

Off the Beaten Path: Hikes, Backpacks, and Travels

Cabin Fever Dreaming: My Perfect Mountain Cabin

The Land that Speaks to My Heart

Government Trail to the Big Man Pictographs: Grand Gulch, Utah

Nature Abides

Wild Goose Chasing

Moon House Ruins, Cedar Mesa, Utah

What’s The Best Campsite in Natural Bridges National Monument?

#yellowstonebeforetheshutdown

Fall Beauties: Sandhill Cranes

The Top Ten Outdoor Spots for A Morning Cup of Coffee

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