A few new items at West Jordan

It is quite some time from February until May. It must have gotten busy. It also may have something to do with issues uploading photographs, which kills enthusiasm to post somewhat.
Here are some highlights.....
March ..... We took one or two more showshoe trips and then got busy elsewhere.
April ..(14..)... Both of the ancient ones drove to Phoenix to see Joshua, Julie and the boys. G-Mom C. wanted to try out the Flagstaff route. Not too bad in spring, and shorter. The Phoenix folk mysteriously had pictures of G-Mom but GDadson actually was there briefly before heading back to SLC by air.

April ..(29)... there was a startling incident in downtown SLC in which the venerable Blue 96 GMC Safari van was suddenly rendered unusable. After 13 years of reliable transport, the owners were thrown abruptly into making other arrangements. Images of the crunched car would probably be too depressing, though I do have a profusion thereof, but I shall refrain for the time being.

May ...(3)... A suitable substitute was located at an interesting registered vendor near downtown SLC -- yet another instance of like model, so we are contentedly situated once again in a 2000 GMC Safari for the time being. I would post images of the new bird, but I am being lazy.
The seller is a sibling business of one of the local Airport shuttle franchises and they have operated the Astro/Safari platform for several years. It was interesting to deal with a fellow fleet operator - we just never thought of ourselves as "Fleet operators". Hmmm.

Official Vehicle Fleet color update: The official Clark fleet exterior color seems to have shifted from BLUE to SILVER ... and taken several other vehicles with it... to wit...
Melissa replaced her Blue 96 Tracker with a Silver (2005?)Tracker, following her recent total loss collision.
Only the 2002 Venture (LA family maintenance vehicle) remains Blue.

May ... (19) ... MomBeing recently brokered yet another arrangement for an updated (2003) Ford Windstar and it was, by coincidence also ..... Silver (or variant called Pewter)

May ...(18-22)... Dadson visited HK Systems Milwaukee WI office to get some pertinent technical info in preparation for an upcoming refit project at the brewery of yore at Columbus, OH, whence he is also headed on 18-22 June.

That's all for now unless I think of something else

West Jordan plays in snow at Brighton - Milly section

This will not have pictures. It was to have been short as well. So much for short.
More snow hiking since the last post and probably more after this one as we continue to rope people in by making foot equipment appear at the correct times. All the trips so far have been at Brighton Ski Resort, Big Cottonwood Canyon, east of Sandy, UT. That is all we dare to do right now - I am not sure what we would be into risk-wise right now if we went off into remote territory, and concern about risk tends to diminish the fun. Maybe someday. This really is all about how not to be CRABBY about everything but a little slice of summer. By doing outdoor stuff during more of the year, we reduce the likelihood that Dadson will be quite so crabby about other activities in the summer. The only time that is not really usable for outdoor now is the spring when the snow is horribly inconsistent and therefore totally in the way of non-snow foot travel.
I will now stop right here and make a couple of correlations of Summer vs Winter place names... Ready? OK

• There are actually two sections at Brighton: Millicent and Majestic
• Majestic section is the big main area served by the Majestic, Crest, Explorer Lift system
• Majestic section adjoins the Lake Mary/Martha/Catherine basin and also SnakeCreek and Clayton
• Mt Majestic in Winter is Clayton Peak in Summer
• The unsused Lift equipment above the Lake Mary Trail in Summer belongs to the Crest Lift and run system
• The Crest Lift area is what we now call the Freeway.
• There actually is a traverse run called Lower Mary. I think that is the one we use to get to Dog lake.
• The Crest Lift goes to the Snake Creek Pass area except that the skiers do not call it that.
• The whole SHE-BANG is lighted at night and much used
• The Millicent section is the side area adjacent to the NorthWest of the parking lot, aka the Twin Lake basin
• Mt Millicent and Mt Evergreen are the same in Summer and Winter
• Since Twin Lakes is covered in snow it is out of area boundary and not identified to skiers
• The Twin Lakes trail is the main Millicent ski run system, covered with 6-8 feet of snow
• The Area is NOT lighted at night and so closes at dusk for skiing.

Now for our outing narrative ----
We have now found out by trial and error what all the skiers probably know already - that the runs served by the Majestic (Quad), Crest, and Explorer Lifts are lighted at night. So by extension, the resort does not care that they have various people running around in those areas event until evening, and there are a lot of people so they cannot possibly keep track of them all and therefore, one is left alone to wander.
We say this because we had different results when we tried the Millicent area on this last trip. See above note regarding lack of lighting, hence no Night Skiing at Milly. Since there is no night skiing they close the mountain at 1700. By extension they appear to want to kick everyone off the mountain; We were not all that sure about the actual possibility of this close the mountain thing -- How does one do that? It is big, it is out of doors. it is on Forest Service territory, which is Public land ... It is .. well, A mountain, sort of. Apparently this kicking users off is meant to pass for this close the mountain thing , I surmise..... Also, staff at Millicent Base Lift station are what James describes as TERRITORIAL. So, in a word, we were nibbled to death by resort personnel at various intervals:
At the lift boarding area by lift operations people,
Near the top of the hill by ski patrol, and
by the hinting presence of a SnowCat with engine running further up.
We did get to Twin Lake dam. Mt Evergreen would have been too much risky snow due to slope or we would have done it.
The route was straight up the hill at a high angle and we toe kicked a whole lot. The cleats (actually called crampons by the MSR folks) were indispensable and imperative on this trip. It was a massive workout - it got James tired and that is saying something. It was nevertheless still very COOL in my view. By the time we got to the top, James was tired and weary of the nibbling (comments like "you have to go way over there on the unsafe snow away from our ski run", and "when I ski down there will be no one above me or you and you will be on your own" ("We hang round up here profusely in Summer, know our way round and are profusely equipped" says James), and finally "Rumble, rumble, rumble, putt, putt, humm, whirr - approximately the sound made by the SnowCat as its driver says nothing directly but hints by its presence for the walkers to GO AWAY so that the SnowCat can do whatever it is up there to do - we never found out - perhaps the run needed grooming.
So we touched the Dam, took a few camera shots (which we for some reason cannot upload, sorry) and got the heck down.
I originally projected that this post would be short in addition to not having pictures. Apparently I cannot write anything short, I guess. There nevertheless are no pictures.
And there it is... The endeavor convenes on the next Saturday with good weather....

West Jordan hikes in Snow - more

The latest development on the Snow hikes is that now a bunch - well 2 - more people were in on it ... Comprising all of our fair and capable siblings this time. This was a well received excursion from what we hear. We are much pleased with the killer low cost entailed in bringing it about. So ... on to some narrative.
Being slightly more limited on time we did not go all the way to our furthest point of prior exploration, but it was still pretty cool and afforded some time to experiment with the shoes. People like experimenting with the shoes. We went to (Brighton) Dog Lake, which is the next thing below Lake Mary.
Now for the pictures and explanatory text.
This is the crew at the aforementioned Dog Lake basin - soubriquet "Dog" - with the basin rim in the backgound. The way down out of here is immediately behind the folks through yonder low spot between the trees.

Thinking that a view of Dog basin and the bowl rim behind it might be of interest I turned 180 and shot the following...
Sorry if this looks cold, but it actually was a very pleasant day. We never go when it is bad weather anyway. And finally ..... Another shot of us - Melissa on camera in order to show DDadson ... I think we giggle about our moist noses (a euphemism as you suspect).

I had a picture posted here this was written, but it got deleted and I have not been able to get it back yet....

For now we have been going to Brighton - a ski area - which means we share our venue with the downhill folks - skiers and boarders - and have to be alert to the downhill traffic. We generally work our way up through the ski area to our target area just outside the main area but still in moderate avalanche control from the resort. We travel along the side of the main ski runs, which we now call "the freeway" and cross quickly as necessary. So our route to Mary is ..
Up the freeway for several intersections to the Dog turnoff. Hang a right up the wall to Dog (the toe cleats on the shoes are a big help). At Dog there is generally a whole bunch of yummy soft powder in the basin. Continue across Dog to the west, then up another wall to the top of the Mary hill. As an alternate, one can go a little further to the right after leaving Dog and go up the draw over to the Lake Mary Dam. That would be the route used by Joshua and friends back in the day. Owing to a minor issue with gear rentals, one of us was using the original homebrew shoes of yore. Worked pretty good until the Dog wall when I decided to remove them to avoid slipping back down hill. Of course, the Phoenix folk - Joshua anyway - have been there, done that and we hope it triggers a memory or two. Now the rest are all caught up on the fun... sort of.

West Jordan hikes in Snow - first cut

So ... Snow specifically, and the colder northern areas generally, have not been getting great reviews lately ....
Which is fine ... cold weather is not for everyone ...
Actually, our temperatures are more or less OK for this time of year and our roads are mostly clear...
Enough for us still to get up to see some pretty countryside with snow on it....
We have discovered that with a couple of key modifications to clothing, it actually is possible to ...
HIKE (using snowshoes) in the winter. We shall now show some recent shots of some of us trying this idea out....
These are all at Brighton Ski Resort. We have been up on 2 excursions so far (01/10 and 01/17) and there may be others - We can only HOPE. So, getting to the pictures....
First, we have to show the obligatory scene of the cars in the Lodge parking lot so here is a ....
Typical view of Brighton Lodge parking lot on a Saturday (2009.01.10) during ski season

We need to show something a little jazzier than cars though, so we now provide a preview of what it looked like from way up in the boonies on the 2nd and more extensive excursion; We had fun getting to where this was taken....
This (below) is the Brighton bowl, with Clayton Peak at the right, as viewed from the hill overlooking Lake Mary (9709')
Next we show some actual outing participants, with the lovely majestic snow country as a backdrop...
This one is Amanda with Lake Mary behind her - her typical pleased self in winter wear and correspondingly shod.

Having shown a participant at all the summit that was safe to visit (9709), it is time to put all this dignity in perspective.... To get where she is shown above, it becomes necessary to look as she is shown (below) one or more times ....... Amanda is shown here during the first trip - really our practice trip - somewhat less composed but still quite cheerful... (sort of like exercise barbie in re the mildly undignified pose but with way more clothing than just designer leg warmers and without the silly painted-on-plastic smirk) . Face-plants such as these result from crossing snowshoe tips or tails, having snow collapse under only one foot or from otherwise losing balance. But the snow is so soft and cuddly that she does not really mind all that much (check out the genuine smile of delight). This face-plant was actually deliberate for demonstration purposes, but there were others. You are all and severally more than welcome to try this yourselves on an occasion in the near future. But it is still a little tricky for you to try this at home ... not near enough snow is why.....So now an answer to the obvious question ..... What is this all about, anyway?? 'Tis a similar re-living of that first renowned trip in days of yore starring Joshua and the Varsity guys ..... 'Tis then further combined with the present day mantra "Dad wants to get some exercise and also be someplace interesting".... Hence, DDadson thought it would be a nice idea to go back up to the old haunt, but with new eager participants and with some variations of equipment which answered questions left hanging from earlier adventures. So, this time it was .... Amanda (the new people) and rented snowshoes with traction devices (the equipment) ...... We like the results so far, and it is still a farily cheap thrill. It also - in view of our typical reserve and temperament - beats screaming down hills out of control, possibly even maiming the self. You might be a Clark if ....... So, chalk this up as yet another way to ENJOY (rather than be bummed at) the frozen north country .... OK, so ... Snowshoe hiking is an acquired taste, and it took us all of 2 hours to acquire the taste. All this for a mere 3 hours of time on the hill plus some gear set up and take down. We like it.

OK, so .... BORING is just fine with us.

After all that talk of boredom, we should have known that life would get other than boring.
We believe we will go back to boring. It went like this.....
We were thinking seriously of sending Dad to Phoenix, a likely recent candidate being 5-8 December, but we just could not settle on the bookings. Now we know why it would not have worked all that well .....
On Friday morning West Jordan was informed of a vehicular traffic incident in Utah County.
The Geo Tracker did not do well against another large and sturdy GM product.
The Tracker is no longer operable and Melissa will eventually be in search of a replacement.
Melissa is OK on the whole (ambulatory), but is working through an eye injury sustained - ironically - from the safety features. For now, she is trying to rest quietly in West Jordan.
If one is inclined to make petitions to higher powers, now would be a good spot to join us in them.