Hiking, Moving, and Computer Woes

 

Once we moved on to Virgin, Utah last week, back in the land of a good Verizon connection, I had every intention of keeping the blog current. Unfortunately our Toshiba laptop had other ideas and it’s not a simple matter to publish the blog and photos from the iPad, so I am woefully behind again.

Luckily Allison and Mark did a great job of documenting our Hidden Canyon hike a few days ago, but the good photos Jim took are on the Toshiba which he is working on, so the only ones I have were taken by me with our old Cannon.

The two Jims on the edge. As precarious as this section looks, the ledge is quite wide and passable even without the chains. They are a nice addition, though.

Chains were definitely needed at this point. That is Mark waiting to see if Jim and Allison need help. I didn’t care for this part.

Laurelee taking a little breather.

This is a great hike once you get past the steep switchbacks, one which we had done twice before. On our two previous tries we didn’t get as far into the canyon when I came to places I was uncomfortable going over, but with our big group there was a bit of peer pressure so I pushed my limit until we finally got to a point at which I just couldn’t muster the courage to continue. I sure wish I had more guts, but once I get into that panic mode there is no getting over it.

This easy-to-miss arch is about a half mile into Hidden Canyon. Laurelee coaxed Jim to the top for a photo-op.

My stopping point, along with everyone else except Jim, Mark and Bobbie.

They continued on up this slippery slope, hiking with a couple of young foreign women whom Jim wanted to adopt.

Jim, Mark, Bobbie, Nina and Chantel.

Jim’s legs were quite sore the next day, so he stayed home to balance our accounts and locate a new campsite. We didn’t realize we were parked right smack dab in the middle of “Frog Town”, where a 25 hour mountain bike ride is taking place as I write this.

The rest of us of us were up for an easier hike that day, so we drove up Kolob Terrace Road to the Wildcat Canyon trailhead and hiked the Northgate Peaks trail. This is a nice level 2 mile trail to Lava Point overlook, but once there you can continue on to climb the Northgate peaks. Again, Allison posted some nice photos of the hike on her blog.

The gang up on the overlook.

Bobbie and I decided to climb up to the top of the East Northgate Peak. There is not a formal trail, but the easiest route is marked by cairns. It was a tough climb and I was a little concerned about coming back down.

A goofy selfie. We made it!

 

Nice views and coming back down was much easier than I thought it would be.

We had some excitement on the way home when Laurelee got to drive through a cattle drive. The young cowgirls kept yelling for us to stay right behind the horse, and we kept yelling, “Which horse?”, since there were at least four of them.

Laurelee kept her cool, and I was glad I wasn’t driving.

 

When we got back Jim took us over to look at a couple other campsites he found, and we all moved less than a mile away from our previous spot, on the other side of the river from the bike race.

This is also a great area to walk and ride bikes. I rode up to the LaVerkin Overlook. Nice views and endless places to camp, especially if you have a high clearance vehicle, unlike us.

 

Jim and Allison left yesterday for Vegas, so the previous evening we all enjoyed happy hour at our site, along with Mark and Bobbie, Debbie, Laurelee, and nearby neighbors Andy, James and Jan. I forgot to take pictures.

Our computer problems are yet to be solved. Jim has worked tirelessly now for almost three days trying to fix and restore it, but he isn’t done yet. We kept this old Acer computer which I am now using, but it has some issues like being a huge power hog. That isn’t a problem if we are plugged in, but it isn’t a good boondocking computer. We looked at Best Buy yesterday and may end up replacing the Toshiba if he is unable to get it working properly.

In between computer shopping and repair, Jim finally replaced the defective fuel filter in the generator yesterday and it has been running for a couple hours today with no gas leak so far. Fingers crossed!