Next time put it on your calendar yo

The voyage begins

The five of us* did a King's Peak trek over Labor Day as scheduled
*Lauren Ann Nelson Foulger(the blondie not pictured here), Uncle John, Linds, my dear old Dad, and I

My dad emailed me these nifty images of our trail mapped out and graphed. Thank you GPS and computer nerd Dad.
We started on the Utah via Wyoming side at the Henry's Fork Trail Head, spent first night in Painter Basin, hiked the peak then down Anderson Pass to Five Point Lake the second day, and out via Swasey's Hole exiting at the Hell's Canyon trail head.

It was a route none of us had done before, we thought we would mix it up and avoid the 20 some odd miles straight down hill via Yellow Stone Canyon to Swift Creek, yet as you can see on the graph above (I'm saying that in a nerdy math teacher kind of way if you didn't catch that) the second half of the trip was very up and down - so we earned our keep either way.







Luckily we had the dogs there to help clean out our dishes so we didn't have to wash them in the stream. So eco-friendly.
Poor Lauren thought hiking the peak would be this monumentous, perhaps even technical climb. Umm, no, it's a giant pile of rocks.

My dad (right) and his bro (my uncle) were the guides, kind of. My dad shouted out millages and elevations as we trekked along, as well as all sorts of great tips when we would listen. Poor chaps, hiking talk was about all of their lingo that we could hang with. Other wise they were talking about Molecular Biology or something - way too boring compared to our "what do you want to name your kids" chats.

My dad and uncle John both spent their summers in high school leading pack trips

(that's loading a string of horses with supplies and leading groups of people who wanted to be taken into the high uintas)

all over these mountains, so they had plenty of adventurous stories of being buried in snow and riding for 16 hours straight. They're tough old dudes.


Actually we nerded out over geological talks too. So many rocks. Lindsay's extensive U of U Geology education kept her plenty busy. I took pictures of the rocks because I was into their colors schemes. Lauren, well I don't think she nerded out at all. Sorry Lauren, I guess it runs in the family.
The last day about a mile before we were going to stop for lunch it dumped on us. Hail, lighting, and the like. Lauren got really sad, and I got really frumpy. That's right I hadn't even noticed that I had tucked my t-shirt into my rain pants, that were over my other pants. Sexiness on sexiness, what can I say. I try to keep it real in the woods.

Black mail shot that I promised myself I would blog

Wet dogs

Max (far right, wonder dog of the world) summited for the 6th time. That's more than any of us. Plus he's 13! Don't tell him that though, because I plan for him to live at least twice that long - so send him good vibes. Good dog Max.

Good old Drigg's (Paige's dog) carried his and Max's food. He's a sweet doofus dog. Love Drigg's.