Visiting with Friends in the Greater Salt Lake Area

August 4, 2011, Golden Spike RV Park Brigham City, Utah.
Over the last few days, Joyce and I have had the opportunity to reconnect with friends that have settled in the Greater Salt Lake area.
I got in touch with my former high school buddy David Espinosa. We had gone to Layton High School together way back in 1977 and hadn't seen each other since. We both lived on Hill A.F.B. at the time, sons of military fathers. David's family settled in the area and he found work and his beautiful wife in the Greater Salt Lake area  while I moved away to Florida with my family.
David and his wife, Vickie met us at Golden Spike RV park and together we went out to dinner and got caught up.

David and Vickie Espinosa

After dinner, we went back to our place and poured over photos of our travels and had a good time getting to know each other. Afterwards we made plans to get together again later in the week.

David and I

Joyce connected with a former friend and co-worker from Florida, Cindy. Joyce and Cindy made plans for us to meet in the town of Eden. We drove to Eden traveling through some beautiful canyons and mountains to get to the valley town and the only restaurant in sight, Carlos and Harleys.

Cindy came with her boyfriend and we all had a great time catching up and discussing our travels. Cindy's boyfriend, Bill is a photographer and he showed us some spectacular photos on his I-Phone that he had uploaded. He had taken the photos throughout the region to include Yellowstone and Grand Teton N.P. and they were spectacular.

Joyce and Cindy

Yesterday evening, Joyce and I were invited to the Espinosa residence for an enchilada dinner. We had a wonderful dinner and got to meet David and Vickie's two daughters, Valerie and Melanie. We also met Valerie's husband and newborn baby Addyson. Melanie also introduced us to her boyfriend.

The Espinosa Family

David and his wife have a beautiful family and home and they certainly made us feel welcome. We look forward to staying in touch as we continue our journey.

Today we stayed around the campground and made preparations to move on tomorrow to Idaho. We are experiencing problems with our main A/C again as it occasionally trips its 20 amp breaker. Also the condenser fan motor is making a shrill noise.  I'm sure we will have to deal with all this sooner than later.

Hike in the Wasatch Mountains and Willard Peak

August 2, 2011, Golden Spike RV Park, Brigham City, Utah.
Today we decided to take a ride and hike up to Willard Peak.
Willard Peak is the highest peak in Weber County, and generally considered the northernmost peak in the Wasatch Mountains.
The start of the climb to Willard peak via 4x4 vehicle is via the town of Mantua. We drove to the small town just a few miles west of Brigham City and got on Willard Peak Road which became a dirt ATV 4x4 road at the base of the mountains. We took the rough washed out forest road up the mountains and stopped at about 7K feet.

We did about a 2 mile hike checking out the surrounding mountains and deciding if we wanted to press on further up the mountains on the rough road.

Across the valley we could see the peak that we thought was Willard Peak.

We could see part of the road that would take us there.

Jeep/ATV  Road

Perry Reservoir

Even though we weren't at the summit of the highest peak, the views were spectacular but hazy.

Pineview Reservoir in the distance.

We decided to press on up the road over the sharp rocks and ruts in the washed out narrow ATV/Jeep road.

The Jeep road we traveled in the distance.

We made to Willard Basin and thought we could hike to the peak from there.

We took off on another 2 mile hike up one of three ATV roads...

 Destination was the peak in the distance.

Gorgeous wild flowers.

As we grew closer, I stopped to talk to these two ATV riders who informed me that what I thought was Willard Peak actually was something else. We had been hiking in the wrong direction! Willard Peak was across another valley in the opposite direction.

We hiked back to Willard Basin and then decided to try and drive up the 4x4 road to the summit.

We made to about a mile from the summit when we came across this log in the road which prevented us from going any further due to the steep drop-off at the edge of road. So I was forced to do a multipoint turn with Joyce spotting me to get turned around.  

We should have hiked from this point but there was no where to park the Jeep and it was getting late. We were a bit tired from our two previous hikes so we turned around and headed back down the mountains.

The ride down was as rough as the ride up. We passed a few ATVs and motorcycles going up the mountains as we were coming down. We had a good time and gave the Jeep a workout. It needs a bath now but it looks good dirty!

Travel Day to Brigham Utah and Golden Spike RV Park

July 29, 2011 North Salt Lake City to Brigham City, Utah.

The last couple of days we did some very domestic things like shopping and cleaning. While walking the dogs last evening, we tried to put a finger on just what we didn't like about Pony Express RV Resort. We decided it was the sterile commercial feel created by the concrete sites, paved roads and lack of mature trees. Coupled with the fact that the sites are very close together with perhaps only 12ft. between the concrete driveways.
Anyway, today was a travel day. We were only traveling about 50 miles north to Brigham City and Golden Spike RV Park. After taking our time getting ready to go we finally got on the road around 10:00. We headed north on Interstate 15. I gotta tell ya, I-15 in Salt Lake City and the metropolitan areas is not a fun route. The road is rough with 4-5 lanes and traffic zipping everywhere and construction for miles and miles. The worst part for me is when I try to stay in the right lane, I suddenly find myself in an exit only lane as we round the next bend! Anyway, we made it safely!

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Golden Spike RV Park is not a large park. We were pleasantly surprised that we had a shady pull-thru site waiting for us. By early evening when I took the pictures, the sites around us had filled. The sites in the sun were the last to fill up.

Small grass field in front of our site

We were fortunate that the park allowed us to wash the rig. So I washed the Jeep, fifth wheel and the truck before the sites around us filled up.

The sites are gravel, the roads paved but there's lots of grass and mature trees. The power is good and so far at least, we like this park. We paid $201 for a week with 50 amp full hook-ups, strong WiFi and cable.

So, we will spend the next week exploring the area and catching up with some friends.

Little Cottonwood Canyon Albion Meadow Trail Hike outside of Alta, Utah

July 27, 2011 Pony Express RV Resort, North Salt Lake City.
Well, the plan was to get up early and do a hike in the Wasatch Mountains outside of Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon. However, we got a late start and didn't get on the road till around 9:00 and then we got lost a bit before finding the road towards the ski resorts.
Little Cottonwood Canyon lies within the Wasatch-Cache National Forest along the eastern side of the Salt Lake Valley, roughly 15 miles fromSalt Lake City, Utah. The canyon is part of Granite, a CDP and “Community Council” designated by Salt Lake County. The canyon is a glacial trough ("U" shaped canyon), carved by an alpine glacier during the last ice age, 15,000 to 25,000 years ago. A number of rare and endemic plant species are found in the canyon's Albion Basin. Mountain goats inhabit the surrounding mountains.

Once we got on the right road it was a beautiful ride up a steep mountain road before reaching the ski resort area of Snow Bird and Alta.
Alta is a ski area located in the Wasatch Mountains, just east of Salt Lake City, Utah. With a skiable area of 2200 acres (8.9 km²), beginning at a base elevation of 8530 ft (2600 m) and rising to 10,550 ft (3216 m) for a vertical gain of 2020 ft (616 m). Alta is one of the oldest ski resorts in the country, opening its first lift in 1939.^[2] It has an average annual snowfall of 514 inches (1,306 cm).^[3] Alta is one of three remaining ski resorts in America that prohibits snowboarders, along with nearby competitor Deer Valley and Vermont's Mad River Glen.

We passed some very beautiful vacation homes on the way up the mountains.

Following our visitor guide, we were supposed to continue past Alta where the pavement ends and continue up a dirt road. However, the dirt road was still closed by the Forest Service because of snow pack. So, we parked and hoofed it up the road.

After the steep climb up the dirt road we came across our first trailhead, Albion Meadow trail so, we took it and came across this mound of snow/ice on the road.

We continued walking up the steep double track trail enjoying the beautiful mountains.

We were in search of wild flowers as according to our guide book they are in bloom at this time of year. We found some flowers but nothing like we had seen in Crested Butte a few weeks ago.

After walking a few miles at about 9-10000 ft. we decided to head on back stopping at a water fall off the trail.

We had a great time and promised ourselves that we will get out more in the future and hike more often. It's so peaceful and beautiful up in the mountains!

Travel Day to North Salt Lake City and Pony Express RV Resort

July 22, 2011. Green River Utah to North Salt Lake City.
We slept good and were ready to hit the road by 9:30. We expected to do about 190 miles today. The weather was clear and cool around 73 degrees as we got started.

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Leaving Green River, Utah we went west on I70 for about 6 miles before turning northwest on Hwy 191.

Hwy. 191

From Hwy. 191 we continued on Hwy. 6 entering some higher elevations and canyons.

Hwy. 6

The further north we traveled the more beautiful and green the scenery became.

Near Spanish Fork we jumped on I15 for about 30-40 miles of construction barricades and 4-6 lanes of crazy traffic. The speed limit through the construction was 55 mph but I think I was the only one traveling 55 or less. The picture below was the calm before the traffic storm!

I15 north of Spanish Fork

We had stopped in Spanish Fork to walk the dogs and have a quick lunch break. Subsequently, we arrived at Pony Express RV Resort around 2:00. The only staff we've seen were the two young women manning the desk in the office. They checked us in and then one of them lead us to our "premium site" B22. We paid over $260 for a week's stay.

Our site B22

By the end of the day (after these photos) the park was perhaps 90% full.

The street in front of our site

It's a new park perhaps only a few years old. It's nice however, there are a lot of semi-permanent construction workers and their trucks in the park including on both sides of us. This was more noticeable in the evening when they all began to return home to the RV park. The park's website states, "Pony Express RV Resort is, simply stated, an RV Resort for RVers. Built and managed to accommodate the vacation/leisure traveler, you won’t find yourself mingled with long-term residents...".  Well, I beg to differ with that statement!

Rear of site

The sites are really narrow with immature trees. We are lucky that our door side is shaded in the afternoon as the temps reached the mid 90's in the late afternoon.

Street at rear of our site

Overall, the park will suit us just fine. It's not our favorite type of park with all the concrete and pavement but it seems to be centrally located and has a bike trail adjacent to it that we will have to check out. Joyce made use of the pool already and reported back favorably!

We will spend at least a week in this park and do some exploring.

Overnight in Green River, Utah

July 21, 2011 Green River, Utah
We got up later than expected as it was chilly. Temps outside this morning in Gunnison were in the upper 40's overnight. It was 60 degrees inside our bedroom at 7:00, so we closed the windows and stayed in bed for another half hour.
We finally got hitched up and ready to roll by 9:30. The ride through the Curecanti National Recreation Area on Hwy. 50 was just beautiful. Unfortunately, we left the camera inside the fifth wheel and I didn't feel like pulling over to get it!

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The weather was clear and hot in the low 90's. We made it to Green River, Utah and Shady Acres RV Park off I-70 not far from the Colorado border. It's about 95 degrees outside as I write this.  The park is very large but there's only a handful of RVs including two next to us. I'm not sure why they would need so many sites. However, Arches National Park is only 60 miles away.  The Green River is about as muddy brown as any river I've seen. We paid $35 for our site with full hook-ups, WiFi and cable.

We are staying hitched so we can get an easy start in the morning, destination North Salt Lake City.