Labor Day 2011

This is just about everyone who was at our annual Labor Day Mirror Lake picnic. The weather looked a little threatening on the way up, but it stayed nice the whole time we were there (and kept a lot of people away). We stayed from 11 to about 5. It started to rain just as we left. Dad, Janet, Jennifer, Stanton, and Chieko and I ate the usual hobo dinners. Of course I started the fire with one match, no paper, using the three essential ingredients to a campfire: fuel, oxygen, and patience. We started a second fire with no matches, just some warm coals from the first fire. The others all brought food they'd made at home. We also roasted some wonderful giant marshmallows and stuffed them with little Twix and Snickers bars that Nancy brought. Jordan and Madison were off catching a bunch of fish when we took this picture. And Jason and Julie (Julie's taking the picture), who brought two kayaks, headed up just after this to hike Bald Mountain.

Jason, Maddy, and Kaitlin.

Bald Mountain Goats

On Saturday, August 20, I made my annual climb up Bald Mountain from the summit of the Mirror Lake Highway. The trail is only about a mile and a half to the top, but it climbs from 10,700 feet to about 11,900 feet, and there isn't a lot of extra oxygen at those altitudes.It's really just spring up here. And it will probably be winter before summer arrives.

This is a pair of hikers nearing the summit of Bald Mountain. From here it's just one last climb, a narrow crossing, and up some tall rock steps to the top.

This is my favorite picture of the day. Five Utah Rocky Mountain goats were hanging out on the east-side ledges almost directly above Moosehorn Lake, which you can't see in this picture. What you can see in the background is Mirror Lake, and with good binoculars the goats could probably be seen from there. I assume this is the big-daddy goat, who gets first pick of ledges for his afternoon nap.

Looking west from near the top of Bald Mountain. The Uintas have 1,000 lakes and ponds, according to Wikipedia.

A bag of chips swells pretty big at almost 12,000 feet.

On the way down the trail, I see the goats are still lazying around the ledges.

A few thunderclouds were hanging around and blocking the sun from time to time (the only lightning I saw was on Hayden Peak, across the canyon). I waited until the sun poked out on the daddy goat while the Mirror Lake campground stayed in the shaded background to get this picture.

Tour of Utah, North America's Toughest Bicycle Stage Race

The Tour of Utah, called America's Toughest Stage Race, was held August 11 through 14. It is gaining a lot of respect, especially this year, among the world of bike racers. This race is followed by the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado, where Cadel Evans (Tour de Fance winner this year), George Hincapie, and Levi Leipheimer will race. Cadel Evans came to Snowbird to watch the final stage of the Tour of Utah.

On Saturday, Chieko and I wanted to walk around Cascade Springs off the Alpine Loop, but we also wanted to see the fourth stage circuit race making 11 loops around Capitol Hill.

I talked Chieko into going to Cascade Springs first. We ate lunch in the little gazebo along with several other people who thought they were going to have a picnic there, but Cascade Springs doesn't have accommodations for picnicking--to protect the vegetation and water. Then we took the dirt road over the mountain to Soldier Hollow, Midway, Heber and back to Salt Lake. We arrived in Salt Lake around 3:45 and figured the race would be over but decided to drive up to the capitol to see if we could see the podium ceremonies, or anything. We got off I-15 at 600 North and took the back way to the capitol, pulling right up to the finish line. I dropped off Chieko and then spotted a parking place just a few feet away.

So we stood right above the finish line. The racers did 11 loops up the hill, down City Creek Canyon and around the Avenues. I think they did about 90 miles total. We arrived at the finish line just in time to see that last two loops. This is the stage winner, Javier Alexis Acevedo Colle of the team Gobernacion Indeportes Antioquia.

Levi Leipheimer of Team Radio Shack finished the stage 30th but was still 23 seconds ahead of overall second-place Sergio Luis Henao to retain the Yellow Jersey.

On Sunday, I snuck out of a church meeting just a little early and headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon to watch the last climb of the last stage of the race, which started at Kimball Junction and ran through Park City, Kamas, Midway, Provo Canyon, Alpine Loop, American Fork Canyon, Traverse Ridge, and up to Snowbird. This is the race helicopter that fed live video to TV and online.

The lead riders are Sergio Luis Henao of the team Columbia and Levi Leipheimer of Team Radio Shack. Sergio needed to gain more than 23 seconds on Levi. He made several attacks on this mountain, which open a huge gap between these two and the rest of the racers, but he just could not shake Leipheimer. But we were cheering for Leipheimer, so all was good.

Levi Leipheimer, who would finish the Tour of Utah in the number-one spot with Sergio finishing number two.

On the left is Janez Brajkovic from Slovania. He is also on Team Radio Shack and finished the Tour of Utah number three overall.

At this point, Levi Leipheimer is looking back to see how close the next riders are. Although there are a few breakaway riders, the peloton is a full 22 minutes behind him and Sergio.

This is the peloton.

The peloton riders.

The next several pictures show the various stages of determination, desperation, and pain of the riders.

Some of the riders in the back were so exhausted, they had to hold on to their team cars.

These are the last two riders, but they still finished.

Fourth of July Weekend 2011

Jennifer cajoled us into going to the Grand Tetons and the Bar J Chuckwagon for the Fourth of July weekend or risk the guilt of not attending the "family reunion." Just kidding. Actually that was her strategy, but we wouldn't miss any excuse to go to the Tetons, Yellowstone and the Jackson Hole fireworks. Many of the Melvin Astle family collected at the Gros Ventre campground and in Teton Village. They included Melvin; Nancy and Cecil; Janet; Michael and Chieko; Paul, Cindy and Marcus; Jennifer and Stanton; Jamie, Brian, Kali, Caleb and Emi; Sara, Jared, Jackson, Tanner and Annie; Heather, Jason and Parker; and Tiffany, Mick, Addy and Owen. Did I miss anyone? Sorry.

The Tetons have a lot of snow for the first of July. When we saw the Gros Ventre River running very high and muddy, we worried that our trusty Gros Ventre campground might be flooded. It was open, but we arrived just in time on Friday afternoon for a choice of camp spots. The campground filled up quickly and stayed full over the entire weekend. The first time I've ever see that campground full.

Plenty of bison roamed the Tetons and Yellowstone.

This cow moose bedded right in the campground just a few feet from the camp spots across the road from us.

This baby moose was with her mother on an island in the fast-moving river along the Gros Ventre road.

We cooked Dutch oven for dinner on Friday night. Sara and Jared cooked a really good chicken-and-rice thing in two ovens. One turned out perfect. One was a little over-cooked. My bad, I think. I added a couple more coals near the end of the cooking because the original charcoal was looking pretty lame after an hour or so. The hardest thing with Dutch oven is trusting the number of charcoal briquettes you need to cook at a given temperature. It always feels like we should add more coals. Anyway, I love Dutch oven. I'm always amazed at how good the food is.

I thought I had taken a picture of Sara's chicken main course, but I guess I was too focused on my pineapple upside-down cake. So, sorry. No main course photos. I also forgot to bring brown sugar, so I mixed pure maple syrup with some ground-to-powder Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. The mix had a consistency close to brown sugar and actually worked just fine.

Here we are enjoying our dinner.

Tanner in the campground before the kids discovered the black dirt around the fire pits.

Emi.

Friday night's campfire with roasted giant marshmallows and s'mores (the kind with plain chocolate--someone brought Reese's Peanut Butter Cups on Saturday night, when we were at the Bar J).

Roasting marshmallows.

Breakfast on Saturday morning, or was this Sunday or Monday morning? I think we cooked pancakes, bacon and eggs on Saturday morning. There would have been a Coleman propane stove on the table end.

The bunch that was afraid of a few mosquitos ate breakfast inside the trailer.

On Saturday morning, if 11 a.m. is still considered morning, we hiked up to Phelps Lake, where the Rockefeller's JY Ranch that Chieko worked at in college used to sit. Today there is a small parking lot (it's small to limit the number of people), a nature preserve building and a 1-1/2-mile trail to Phelps Lake. Cecil said he hiked to Phelps Lake from the Idaho side through Death Canyon when he was a Boy Scout. (Cecil wasn't on this hike. He, Nancy and Dad drove to Jackson on Saturday and stayed in a Condo at Teton Village. Then they took 85-year-old Dad on the Alpine slide. Really.)

The Phelps Lake hike.

More hiking.

More hiking.

Sara, Jared, Jackson, Tanner and Annabelle at Phelps Lake.

What kind of birds are these on the lake? I think they're common mergansers.

What the heck are these caterpillars? I think they're eastern tent caterpillars.

On Saturday night we made our pilgrimage to the Bar J Wranglers' chuck-wagon dinner and show. Jamie's, Sara's and Tiffany's groups stayed in the camp, swam in the pollywog pond near Kelly and made peanut-butter-cup s'mores, because their kids are too small to enjoy the show. Jackson chose to go with us to the Bar J, which he really enjoyed, especially "Granny."

On Sunday three cars headed to Yellowstone. (Us, with the Austins; Sara's group; and Jennifer with her mom and the Blacks, who split up to get Jennifer's and Sara's cars into the park free with their Senior Passes. Chieko finally qualified for her pass this year, too. Hooray for getting senior.)

Tanner and Stanton became best friends. Here they are heading to see Old Faithful do its thing.

Here's the crowd waiting for Old Faithful.

And there it goes.

This spring at Midway Geyser Basin is on the cover of the Yellowstone Newspaper this year.

Also at Midway.

Next we headed to Canyon to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone falls with more water than we've ever seen pouring over the brink.

This is the brink of the upper falls.

This is looking upstream right at the brink.

I think this is Hayden Valley. We wouldn't normally stop to look at elk, but people were sitting here with lawn chairs and spotting scopes. Apparently there is a pack of wolves that lives here and comes out from time to time to hunt and play. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to sit for a few hours until they showed, but Brian and I agreed that next time we'll bring our chairs and a book.

I didn't take this picture, but I did see this same view just past Jackson Lake Lodge on the way back to the campground. Apparently the speed limit didn't go back to 45 after we passed the lodge. Yes, I got pulled over for doing 45 in a 35 zone. And I had been carefully setting my cruise control so I din't go over the speed limit on every road from home and all through Yellowstone. The ranger lady let me off with a verbal warning and a lecture about all the bison and other wildlife that get hit along this road.

On Monday morning (July 4th), Jamie, Jared and I got up at 5 a.m. and drove in Jared's car, where he'd slept all night with Annie, to the cabin up the road that goes to Slide Lake above Kelly. The skies were threatening rain, but the Tetons were clear, and there was a clear spot to the east for the sun to shine through. However, just before the sun poked through, the clouds moved in from the south. Still, I like the pink clouds and reflection on the mountain snow, which is usually mostly melted by this time of year. We didn't get a lot of pictures or any classic shots, but I really like what we got.

Oooo, where are we going next?

I don't know, but it sounds exciting!

We decided to visit Lower Slide Lake on Monday. This lake was formed when the mountain above Kelly gave way in a wet 1925 spring and dammed the Gros Ventre (pronounced groh-vahnt) river.

Caleb on the rubble that forms the dam to the lake.

The girls on the hike.

In the distance you can see what is a massive hole in the side of the mountain where the mud, rocks and trees slid from. In the foreground is some of the rubble that came down and blocked the river.

The dam partially gave way after a couple years, dropping the lake 60 feet and killing six people in Kelly.

Hiking to the bottom of the dam to check out the brown muddy runoff water in what is normally a clear lake.

Janet on the dam.

Jackson with his patriotic hat on the Fourth of July.

Emi and Jackson on the dam.

The roudies figuring where they can skip rocks near the boat dock.

Brian skipping stones.

Caleb skipping stones.

After the slide, we headed to Jackson Lake Lodge, where Jamie worked for a summer. This is taken from the top of Lunch Tree Hill.

Kali taking a picture.

Emi, Jackson, Caleb and Kali.

Enjoying the view of the meadow and mountains.

On Monday night--it is the Fourth of July, remember--we headed to the base of the Snow King ski run for the fireworks. Paul's and Jason's families came early and saved spots on the ball field for our blankets. A whole lot of fireworks pictures follow. If you get tired of looking at them, keep in mind that there are a few pictures of the Tetons and Jenny Lake at the end of this blog.

Tuesday morning. Chieko on the trail to our traditional beach on Jenny Lake, where my mom and dad used to sit in their camp chairs while we swam in the cold lake.

With the spring so late this year and the water so high, there was no beach, but Jackson and Tanner wanted to skip rocks.

They had fun.

Jackson, Tanner and the Tetons with a lot of snow for July. Sara, Jared and Annie went home on Monday, so these cute guys stayed with us until Tuesday.

Tanner took this picture.

The end. We're on our way home.