Snow Camping at Jordanell Lake

Though I grew up enjoying the California outdoors, only a few times did I venture to sleep in them. So when Philip and I got married, I was eager to benefit from his backpacking and camping experience. My camping naivety made it easy for me to accept his suggestion to spend Valentine’s Day in the snow (most of my Utahan friends shivered at the thought of it).

On Valentine’s Day eve we set up camp in the dark, then enjoyed s’mores roasted over the awesome fire Philip built for us. We heard the falling snow brush against our tent the entire night and woke up to a very still and pristine morning. With hot chocolate in our bellies (thanks for the stove, Chip!), we set off on a snowshoeing adventure around the reservoir. There was no one around for miles, save a couple of ice fishers. You couldn’t beat the scene’s romance factor. Nice work, Philip!

Snowshoeing at Jordanell Lake

With spring (and hopefully warmer weather) approaching, I spend a lot of my free time thinking about all of the local adventures Utah and its surrounding states have to offer- Havasupai, the Narrows at Zion, the Tetons to name a few. I need to get back at Philip for the amazing trip he planned and would greatly appreciate any/all reader suggestions.

P.S. Thanks to Joby for the amazing Gorillapod. We couldn’t have taken these shots without it!

I’ve written about my adventures in geocaching recently. There’s a great article in the most recent version of The Costco Connection, which basically describes Geocaching, what it is, how it works and why it’s appealing. Click here to read the article about Geocaching.

Although we did only hit two caches, I did snag my first geocoin (see picture). Geocoins are cool and come in all different designs. This particular one, the redhanded geocoin, has a couple goals: travel to all 50 states, all countries and continents and then return to the US.

After looking at the travel log of this coin I see that it has traveled a total of 77 miles between Utah County and Salt Lake County. So, for my part, I will be taking this coin back east with me in a few weeks to plant it in a cache beyond the Utah state line.

Our second cache was a virtual cache. This is usually a non-traditional cache that has some sort of historical significance or is designed to educate. This one was a memorial to a fallen Utah Highway Patrol Agent. Interesting, but I have to admit, not as fun as finding a little box hidden with trinkets or goodies in it.

Although my second geocaching trip didn’t prove quite as fruitful on the cache side I did learn some valuable lessons about going geocaching and how to make the most of the outing.

So, as a beginner, here’re my 6 tips to get ready for a simple geocaching trip:

• Decide ahead of time the area you want to geocache in.
• Download the cache waypoints and then upload them into your GPS.
• Review the map and choose a couple waypoints as starting points.
• Review or print off the hints for starting waypoints.
• Charge your GPS receiver.
• Be sure to take water and snacks, if needed.

Doing these beforehand could save you an hour or two before you get going, or, in other words, you could find a handful of caches or just two!

So as a new geocacher I set out on an adventure (well, we were close to home and went in the car so maybe not much of an adventure, more of an outing) with my buddy, wilsontribe, and my son, little beldog. The great thing, for us men, is that with a GPS unit I don’t need to ask directions, just give me the coordinates and I can call in an airstrike anywhere in the world. Now, given we were staying local in Midvale, getting lost wasn’t a real concern. So after downloading some cache locations (hidden stashes are recorded on geocaching.com where one can download them and then sync the coordinates into the GPS unit to go out and find them), we set out to find our first cache.

Now, a little info here, caches come in all shapes and sizes, from full size treasure boxes, to 747-sized caches to micro caches — okay, I made up the 747-sized caches, but you get the point. This first one was a micro cache, think of it this way, you’re looking for a needle in a haystack anyways, a micro cache is the little round head of the needle in the haystack. Thanks to wilsontribe’s hawk-like eyes, we found our first cache. Once we opened it and signed the log we realized we had violated a very serious geocaching rule: You can’t sign the cache log using a username that doesn’t exist! Recognizing the error of our ways, we headed to Sean’s office and immediately got me signed up. We then went into the parking lot, spun ourselves three times and spit on the ground, hopefully breaking the curse of the geocaching gods!

We were off to a bumpy start, but on the good side, we did find a micro cache that was very well hidden. Off to cache 2, aptly named “one old Cat.” This was a tricky one, we parked the car and daringly headed out on foot. Not sure what we would find, our trusty GPS led us to a rusty old tractor — the “old Cat.” We were daring this time, all caches, when originally created online, include tips and even hints on how to find the cache. Remember, the fun here is in finding the caches, although you want it to be out of sight, a cache that requires a ditch digger is not what this is about. So we proceeded to search the Cat for a cache. We were coming up empty so we had to resort to look at the hint/spoiler, it said, “look in the back, don’t get your hands dirty.” What does that mean? I’d already dirtied myself by laying on the ground, so no point in heeding the advice to not dirty myself, nonetheless, we peeled our eyes for the little prize.

At this point you’d think we’d have found it, with six pairs of eyes and mine counting twice because I wear glasses, we were feeling a bit had. Then it happened, I found my first cache! this little guy was tricky to find, what made it worse the cache was the same color as the tractor’s fashionable rust colored paint job.

Needless to say this is a fun way to spend a Saturday. Geocaching is a global sport, started in Oregon, a fellow northwesterner, Geocaching is very much a niche outdoor sport. Although we haven’t yet and probably won’t venture into any remote wilderness locations searching for caches, they are literally planted all over the globe — where it is legal and accessible.

If you’re looking for something to do on the week-ends or another activity to spice up your vacations, take up Geocaching. My GPS unit cost around $80 on ebay (a real deal), but good ones are pretty easy to find and you can get a decent unit for under $100. Once you’ve got your GPS, create an account on Geocaching.com, you need to have a unique username that you’ll write on logs, and then get to searching. Search for caches close to where you live or where you’ll go searching, download them and then load them up to your GPS unit via EasyGPS or a similar program. (Remember, everytime you find a cache you not only sign the log, but also need to log your find online and leave a little message for the person who planted the cache.)

When Geocaching remember to be safe, have a good time and respect other geocachers and muggles. I’ll post more down the road.

Here’re some more pics:

little beldog and the small cache

The “old Cat”

This weekend was the 2008 Sprint U.S. Freestyle Championships at Deer Valley and Shelly was back in town. David and I were lucky to have met Shelly several months ago on a flight back from a client meeting. A couple months later, Shelly came to Utah for the Visa Freestyle International and I had chance to go to breakfast with her the Friday before competition.

The next day my wife, Debbie and I went to Deer Valley to watch Shelly compete, but an ill-timed exit from the chairlift made it so we missed watching Shelly win! (Deb and I were riding the chair down from the race course to get warm, didn’t have skis on and had to sprint out of the way of the chair and Deb didn’t quite make it. The chair hit her, knocking her to the ground. She felt a little loopy, so we went home.) David was there for Shelly’s win and has been meaning to blog about it for awhile.

This time Shelly was in Utah to compete for the national title in individual and dual moguls. She’s been the Duals National Champion for the last three years straight. Deer Valley’s Champion run, where the course was set, is one of Shelly’s favorites. It’s one of the steepest on the circuit, which makes it a very technical course with lots of speed.

At Saturday’s individual mogul competition Shelly did great. It was a U.S. Ski Team sweep with teammate, Emiko Torito winning the gold, Shelly captured Silver and Hannah Kearney took bronze.

Sunday I had a chance to watch Shelly in the dual moguls competition. I missed the morning’s qualifications, but when I arrived at the mountain I found out Shelly was the number one seed out of 16 competitors and was slated to ski first in the next round. Shelly would ski against the 16th seeded racer, Kristi Waring of Centennial, Colorado, and as the top seed, would get to choose which side of the course to ski, either the blue course on the left or the red course on the right. Both courses had rock hard bumps with about 2 to 3 inches of snow in the troughs (the course received a light dusting the night before and on and off during the day). Shelly chose the blue course.

I climbed up the left side of the course about 50 feet above the last jump with my camera. I was there during the final practice session before Shelly’s run. During practice, Shelly came slowly down the course memorizing each mogul. She was focused on winning this event.

At around 2:00 it was time for Shelly’s run. She looked very smooth and fast at the top, landed her first jump easily and was about 30 to 4o feet ahead of Waring. I got some good shots of Shelly as she went by. I stopped taking pictures just as she was about to go off the last jump.

Shelly did a beautiful iron cross backflip, got her skis back under her, but landed a little bit short. Less than a second later, her tips caught some loose snow, crossed just a little and she went down. The speed Shelly was carrying into the bottom section allowed her to pop right back up, like nothing happened, and cross the finish line – still about 30 to 40 feet ahead of Waring. It was up to the judges whether or not Shelly went on to the next round.

The judges assign points on how well the athletes do allocated between 50 percent turns and 25 percent jumps. They really wanted to give the win to Shelly. She is a crowd favorite, had improved a lot this year and this would be her fourth straight Duals National Championship, if she won.

It took a little longer than normal for the judges to tally up their points, but since Shelly landed a little short and fell in the last few moguls, she took a big hit in points and lost the round. Shelly couldn’t move on to the next round to defend her title.

I ran down the hill to see Shelly. When I got to the bottom, she was talking with her mom behind the announcers’ stage. She was upset about losing the run on such a simple mistake, but wasn’t overly angry or depressed. She was very gracious when I went up to speak with her.

Shelly’s a great athlete with a great heart and she loves skiing – all forms of skiing – not just moguls. Now that the mogul season is over, she wants to do some freeskiing with family and friends, and after that she’s off to compete in the 2008 Subaru Freeskiing World Championships in Alyeska, Alaska (It’s is not a mogul event. Shelly is a great all mountain skier as well).

The next day, Shelly and I had a chance to have lunch together. We talked about her skiing career, sponsorship issues, the Olympics (That’s her next big goal), her post U.S. Ski team career (possibly start a freeskiing clinic or become a guide for a couple years), and finally, her goal to be an elementary school teacher (besides being a competitor, she is also a student. All she has left to earn her teaching credential is her student teaching, which she will finish partially this year and next).

Shelly works hard. Ski industry sponsorship outside the team is difficult to come by (Industry sponsors pay into the U.S. Ski Team’s sponsorship pool and they often don’t have much left for the athletes individually. The U.S. Ski Team covers team members’ airfare and lodging). In the non-winter months and between races, team members need to cover their own living expenses, which can be tough if you’re trying to train, go to school and work at the same time.

If you are looking to or know of someone who wants to sponsor an Olympic athlete, a great woman who will have some great stories to tell her future elementary students, then Shelly’s the perfect person.

We look forward to helping Shelly in anyway we can and cheering her on.