Escalante - Fence to Scorpion

Escalante River - Memorial Day

We did the Escalante River for our big summer packraft and it was awesome.

First of all - big shout out to the people that participate in the Escalante river watershed partnership. This organization is doing a fantastic job restoring the river corridor.

http://escalanteriverwatershedpartnership.org/

We did the trip over 4 days starting @ Fence Canyon - which was a short hike down to the river.

The gage height was ~ 1.85 feet.

We spent night #1 @ 25 mile Wash @ a great camp spot on the upriver side of the wash.

Spent some time hiking up 25 mile wash and got a great shot of this colorful stream cut.

And pour over. We shared this area an incredible amount of birds and frogs. We saw a few strikingly yellow small songbirds. Please let us know if you know what these are. 

We spent another half day on the river and camped in lower Moody Canyon - which was a fantastic canyon with a running spring and tons of wildlife.

Lower Moody Formations

Pictured above w/ Dani is a what we believe to be a Red Spotted Toad. However, we are not 100% confident in our identification due to the fact that this toad does not show up on this cool website below

http://wildaboututah.org/the-call-of-springtime-utahs-frogs-and-toads/

Regardless of identification - the frogs in Moody Canyon were capable of projecting their small chirps into a chorus of sounds that reverberated off the walls and alcoves.

Looks down Lower Moody

 Back on the river - things became more rocky after the Moody's - and we had to wade several riffles.

We split from the river on the afternoon of Day 3 to exit via Scorpion Canyon.

Scorpion contained permanent water sources in the lower reaches and lots of 

 POISION IVY (disclaimer).

Some of these water holes contained "Speckled Dace" a native sucker fish species. Somehow they must have migrated up from the river during high water.

Dani climbs one of the large sand dunes in Scorpion

Further up things dried out - and we found much sand, alcoves, and the remnants of some Moqui Steps  as pictured here <https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Photo/detail/photoid/883494/> these formations are the remnants of ancient steps carved into the rock to facilitate travel in and out of canyons.

We are still working on our wildflower identification....

So during this float - we kept noticing that 6-8 inch diameter tree trunks were cut along the stream bank with smooth chain saw cuts. This was absurd to me because we were so isolated. Turns out that the Escalante Watershed Partnership has removed about 75% of the invasive Russian Olive from the river.

Note the lack of Russian Olive on the left bank! Very cool work by this organization. We are interested in helping to knock out the remaining 25%. You can read about the terrible effects of Russian Olive on the riprarian ecosystem and on recreation opportunities at their website.

Sometimes we skipped rocks. 20 + was my record. 

I've run out of things to say.... Enjoy the pictures

Introduction: BC Coast Range

We booked tickets to Seattle for an August trip to British Columbia around the beginning of the year. Originally, our plan was to do a sea kayaking adventure, but our recent packraft investment made us change our plans.

Dani looks out over the Squamish River on the Ashlu Bridge the morning after the rain.

Our former neighbors, Joe and Erika, not only let us borrow their awesome camper van, but provided airport pickup and drop off as well. We arrived @ SeaTac on Saturday morning and got breakfast in Edmonds - where we dropped Joe to ferry back to Port Angeles. Below is our road trip route:

Pictured below is the Squamish River valley - and one of the rivers that we would run in our packrafts. Our plan was to continue up the Squamish River to its confluence with the Elaho River - where we would turn NW and continue into the Coast Range on an old logging road. The upper stretches of the Elaho - Simms Creek and the Clendennig looked to be incredible packraft options. 

However, at the confluence we ran into a fire crew that let us know the entire area was on fire - and had been for some time. We audibled and chose to stick around the lower Squamish.

The Squamish River Valley is nestled between some incredible ranges. Almost all of the peaks are glaciated, and there are several large ice fields - such as the Pemberton Icefield that drain the basin. All the ice means that the river moves the most water in the summer when glacial melt is high.

It also means that the mountains are covered in cascading waterfalls in almost every direction.

Put in location - we were able to get a ride with one of the fire fighters after hiking the forest service road. I left my helmet in his car and had to speed hike the extra miles up to the fire camp to get it back before we could raft.

Camp

After exploring the Squamish - we headed up the Ashlu river. Pictured above and below the Ashlu has Class V+ sections that are popular with kayakers. We hoped that the upper basin would have a lower gradient and some better water for the packrafts.

Our trip up the Ashlu was short lived. The road became too narrow to travel by car long before we were able to reach the upper valley - so we set up camp in a nice remote spot and called it a day.

While up the Ashlu canyon we opted for a hike Tuesday morning to salvage the lack of runnable river. We started up the Sigurd Lake trail for about ~1500' to a small waterfall. The trail took us through some incredible old growth forest with some of the largest trees we've seen.

After the hike we spent about 3 hours floating down the Cheakamus River just outside of the town of Squamish. This urban trip was really great. We saw a lot of jumping salmon- and ran a good Class III rapid at our takeout by Fergie's Cafe.

We took the rafts out into the Howe Sound on our final morning for a nice relaxing paddle and saw a harbor seal. The plan was to then take the Sea to Sky Gondola up for a hike high in the mountains - but the $40/person prices and heavy smoke turned us towards Lighthouse Park - a historical park in an old growth forest just across the river from downtown Vancouver.

Long drive back to Seattle - should have stayed longer. Thanks again to Joe and Erika for letting us borrow the camper van and providing airport transportation. We owe you guys!

next time ..........

Garibaldi Lake > Upper Pitt River > Pitt River Hot Spring > Pinecone Lake > Mamquam FSR

Spring into Summer: Packrafts, Backpacking, and Dad's Moab Visit

July 4th 2015 - Dani with her new packraft "Bluebell" on the Snake River in Grand Teton NP.

We floated Pacific Creek to Deadman's Bar as a roadside adventure to make sure the boats would float before going into the real destination - The "Buffalo Fork".

Soda Springs - this is where our trip down the Buffalo would start. Soda Springs is about a 5 mile hike from the Turpin Meadow campground. From this location it is 5 miles on the North Fork of the Buffalo to the confluence with the South Fork - then 5 more miles back to Turpin Meadow.

We took a break so Dani could do some reading and I could fish.

View from our backcountry campsite. We spent one night camping before floating.

Nice easy meadow section of the North Fork - the closest gage on the Buffalo was running at 650 cfs. There were plenty of tricky low water maneuvers at this level on the North Fork. There is an incredible gorge section on the main Buffalo - with great Class III water.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wy/nwis/uv/?site_no=13011900&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060

 Tetons at sunset - last night before we returned to SLC.

 Over the last weekend of June - Tyler, Shane and I went backpacking in the Uintas. Link here for a better write-up of the trip:

https://kandtadventurizing.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/uintas-east-fork-bear-river/

We hiked to Priord Lake and did some fishing.

The trail crossed the river multiple times. It was about 9 miles from the TH to Priord.

On Day 3 - we hiked over "Yard Pass" into Allsop Basin back to the TH.

Lower Allsop Basin on the left fork of the East Fork of the Bear River.

My Dad finally got the pictures from Spring Break! which we spent together skiing in CO and biking and sightseeing in Moab. We took a aerial tour of Canyonlands NP - definitely worth it! and an incredible way to see the area.

Corona Arch

Arches National Park near the Window Arch.