The End is Only a New Beginning

October 17 Ends the 2020 Broads View Hiking Challenge

Sad the challenge it over. Melancholy as the days grow darker. Challenged by the day to day changes COVID 19 has brought to our lives. Excited for the coming of the winter hiking season and looking ahead to next year!

The summer hiking season has come to an abrupt halt. As I write this the outside temperature on October 26 is 14 degrees at 8:00 am in Ogden, Utah. Wow, time to get out the wool hat and gloves. 

For me, the hiking challenge offered an opportunity to set a goal and work to achieve it. I wanted to discover locations ignored by me in the past and at the same time slow my pace, look around and listen. Summer on the trails exceeded my expectations in many ways. I didn't reach huge summits or go extreme distances but that was okay. A sprained ankle in September required revisiting my final month of the challenge and that turned out to be a good thing!

I picked up trash on the trails along with dog poop left behind by un-informed hikers. I wrote thank you notes to public land managers and local trails organizations, and I donated money. My efforts reinforced how important these outdoor spaces are to my day-to-day life and the lives of my family and friends. 

I ended my challenge on October 17 at Winter's Grove Nature Trails in the Ogden Valley on the east side of Pineview Lake. The Greater Wasatch Broadband of Great Old Broads for Wilderness adopted this USFS trail last fall and have since fallen in love with its charm. 

Bright blue sky greeted Jan Larson (my Broadband co-leader) and I as we wandered along the path that bridges Hawkins Creek and then the north fork of the Ogden River. The towering cottonwood trees, willows and ash were showing off their multiple shades of yellow and orange as we wandered along the trail enjoying the spender this outdoor cathedral was offering. Soon they will be stripped of their leaves in preparation for another winter season. And that makes me happy. After all, the end is only a new beginning. Can't wait!  Barbara

Goals Provide Inspiration

DREAM BIG

"You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream," said novelist C.S. Lewis. I like that advice! Bruce Lee also said a goal is something to aim for, and I like that too. For me, setting a goal helps with my motivation and this year more than any other I needed that extra push.

As we near October 17 and the end of our Broads View hiking challenge, I'm reflecting on what I achieved and learned over the course of the summer. I learned that no matter where I hiked/biked I discovered something new. It didn't matter if it was on familiar ground or a brand new destination. I focused on slowing down and becoming a better listener. 

I listened to the sounds of nature, hearing for the first times the soft snap of cottonwood leaves as they left their home high in the trees and made their annual pilgrimage to the ground below. I volunteered on a trail project and discovered new friends who share my concerns for public lands. I traveled to new trails near my home that I never took the time to explore and found them to be delightful and worth a return trip. I wrote to trail organizations and thanked them for their efforts and I donated money to their cause.

On the second Saturday of October I will celebrate the summer of 2020, not on the summit of a favorite peak as I initially intended (since I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago and won't be ready to go far), but somewhere in the great outdoors, in a wild place and on public land. I am so grateful for the many individuals and organizations who are fighting to keep these lands in public hands and am happy to be part of that mission. Thank you Great Old Broads for Wilderness for all your hard work and dedication.

Michelle Obama said, "The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them." Let's all keep DREAMING BIG!

Checking Out a New Wilderness Area - Muddy Creek

 Utah’s New Muddy Creek Wilderness

Amy Brunvard

I want to give a shout out to the many, many activists who take time to write letters, call Congress, attend protests,  send money and do all the other work it takes to protect public lands wilderness.  Because of all that hard work, the Dingell Natural Resources Act of 2019  included the  Emery County Land Bill which, among other things,  added 663,000 acres in Utah’s San Rafael Swell to the National Wilderness Preservation System.  

This particular wilderness victory feels especially personal to me because the newly designated Muddy Creek Wilderness Area is one of my favorite places.  Muddy Creek lives up to its name. When my kids were little I used to sit all day by the creek while they gleefully coated themselves with the Greatest Mud on Earth. 

In the past, nearly every time I went to Muddy Creek, I’d encounter motor vehicles stuck in the mud.  For many years, Emery County put  Muddy Creek on maps as a jeep road encouraging vehicles to drive down the creek bed through the water and mud.   Muddy Creek became a poster-child for inappropriate RS2477 road claims (i.e.  a state-owned “highway” right of way crossing federal land). The misleading maps waylaid people who thought they could drive in a loop from Goblin Valley through the Swell.  They were chagrined to find out they’d have to backtrack 30 miles since the last five miles of “road” were usually wet and impassible.  Now that Muddy Creek is an official Wilderness Area, stuck jeeps shouldn’t be a problem any more. 

In order to celebrate Muddy Creek’s new Wilderness status, I went backpacking there  with another wilderness-loving friend and our teenagers.  From our camp, we did a day hike up to “The Chute” where the canyon narrows between dramatically high rock walls. This is the sweet spot of Muddy Creek, the place that all the guidebooks show in photos. The creek was hopping with little brown frogs, but the canyon was so quiet you could hear the whoosh of air under ravens’ wings.

Amy

Hiking Challenge - A Memorable Backpack by Di Allison

 Newbies from Texas Take a Backpack Trip

Will and I had arrived in Utah from flat land Texas the month before for his internship at U of U medical center and a medical student working with him asked if he wanted to backpack into the Uintah Primitive Area one long weekend. So we did. 

We rented packs from a sporting goods store in SLC, bought kapok filled sleeping bags with pictures of pine trees and deer on the material as well as a heavy pup tent with wooden poles. We loaded them and more up in our apartment, put the packs on, but I couldn’t stand up with mine on. I was 25 and buff! Will got ropes, white tube socks and big Kotex pads he stuffed in each tube sock and hitched me up with the contraption going over my head to pull forward with. Also we needed to create padding against the front of my body where the pack straps dug in. 

The next day we met up with the young med school couple whose pack set up looked considerably different than ours. About five hours into the hike toward our supposedly beautiful camping area beside a mountain lake in the Uintahs...I cried “uncle” and begged to be left under a large tree on the rock I and my pack had collapsed onto. My pleas of “I’ll be fine, just leave me alone!” went unheeded and I don’t remember the winning argument, but we all set off together once again. The area where we stopped was, indeed, beautiful with a lake nestled at the base of higher peaks. I remember Will caught a couple of small trout we cooked for dinner and a hike without packs the next day. 

My overall memory of it was positive, but I didn’t backpack again until 25 years later.  Maybe  the muscle memory was too pervasive. Then at my first Broads Board member meeting I attended as a new Board member Rose asked us to recall our first back packing trip and mine slowly emerged to the surface. Rose cracked up laughing and I remembered then that I had an ancient photo somewhere to prove it. Several years later I came across it and have meant to send it to her ever since. By the way, those are our heavy sleeping bags you can see across our shoulders and, of course, no comfy pads under them. Whatever!

Hiking Challenge Photo Contest - New Story

Amy has entered the Best Hat/Head Covering category and it's a beauty. Check out the hat and her fun story:

Year: 2015
Location: Fantasy Canyon, Utah
Whose in the photo: Amy Brunvand
Why it's a favorite: My friend Amanda and I went out to Fantasy Canyon on a whim because I saw it on a map.  We didn't know what we would find there and it turned out to be amazing and wonderful.  We took our kids who have known each other since they were infants, and they pretended they didn't want to go but they liked it when we got there.  I'm wearing a dark green wool hat that is at least 30 years old by now.  My friend Lori gave it to me after her dog ate my blue wool hat. There's a Norwegian enamel butterfly pin stuck in the hatband that I've had since I was 15 years old.   If you looked through my hiking photos you'd see a lot of this particular hat.  I especially like this photo because it looks like I have rocks sprouting out of my head, which is exactly what I was going for when I took it. 

Thanks for the Challenge!

 Thank you Old Broads for giving me motivation for my hiking challenge. I've done 11 hikes so far just in my area.  I've had some great company and seen luscious forest, however dry it is. I know my surroundings better an appreciate how close all the trails are.  I'm not done yet!

1- Lambs Canyon with Ann, 3.7 miles,

 2- Deer Crest Loop with Kristi ,4.35 Miles,

3- Solamere loop with Sue,  4.35 miles, 

4- The Avenues in Jeremy Ranch with Stephanie, 4.73 miles, 

5- Black Forest at PCMR using the lift to get up and down, 3.6 miles on top

6- Keystone Trail at PCMR with Kristi, Nina, 3.6 miles

7- Rob's Trail with Allison, 5.2 miles (she crashed on a root and we hobbled home)

8- Keyston to Guardsman summit with Kristi and Nina, 5.1 miles

9- Keystone to Shadow Lake with Kristi, 6.3 miles

10-Lambs Canyon with Joan, Donna and Joan 4 miles

11- Blood Lake with Kristi, Allison, and Christine 3 miles

My challenge was to hike with friends as a covid/social activity.  I haven't been able to do long  hikes in the past few years because of back issues.  I got that fixed and appreciate the Old Broads Challenge to get me out on the trail. In not done yet!