Dry Fork Trail, Weber River Drainage.

This my outdoor adventure blog, a place I can share my thoughts and adventures. My story starts late; as a child I went fishing a few times with my father. It was simply due to the fact he was not that into the outdoors. At least, that was the case after my parents divorce. I have always loved the outdoors and enjoyed camping and hiking. I didn't do as much hiking since I was a smoker and the two repel each other. I mostly camped and fished through out my twenties and into my mid thirties. It wasn't until my son Coltin came to me one day and asked to go onto an adventure that I really began seriously to contemplate hiking again and finally ridding myself of the poisons I was self-administering. On March 24th, 2009 I finally abandoned cigarettes and began my adventures with my son.

Our first adventure was to fish lake (the little one in the Weber drainage) and being a KSL classifieds junky I picked up a Alps Mountaineering Mystique 2 for $60, a Cabela's Divide backpack for around $80, a Coleman backpacking stove for $20, and a High Peak extreme pak 0 degree sleeping bag. This was my starting gear and I still have all of it. The Mystique 2 is still my primary tent simply because I have not upgraded it and it is the tent Coltin and I used on our first trip.

I had heard about this lake on a fishing forum (Utah Wildlife Network) I have been a member of when I began bird hunting back in 2007. I may go into this at a later time but right now I want to stick with backpacking. I did a little research and I began walking the Ogden river parkway to get into shape. After around two months of weekly five mile hikes Coltin and I hopped in my work truck and set out on our first adventure. We reached the trail head near Smith Moorehouse reservoir, we parked the truck, slung our packs and hit the trail. Within less than a mile we ran in to our first stream crossing and I for the life of me could not find away across. I searched for maybe 20 minutes and decided to head back to the first intersection and ran into a couple that planned on day hiking the same trail. They lead us to the crossing and we struggled to keep up with them. Man, was I out of shape and 20 years of smoking wasn't helping either. At that point I had only been smoke free for three months. After struggling for three hours we covered 3.5 miles and made it to Round lake. I can honestly say at that point in my life and after that brutal hike I was ready to quit backpacking and Hiking at that moment. I was done and decided Round was going to be our destination for the evening and set camp. We made a small fire and ate our Mountain house spaghetti dinner. Both of us got our feet wet and I managed to melt my sons boots trying to dry them out. For those of you that are not familiar with the area it is not too far as the crow flies ( I love that expression) from Chalk Creek near Echo reservoir. This is also an area that has had several Wolf sightings. I am very sure that I heard a wolf that night next to Round lake and I do not believe I slept very much at all. This was the farthest I had ever been with my boy in the back county and being 3.5 miles from help was a little unnerving. Coltin still remembers the frank conversation we had about what he should do if I was hurt or we encountered a large predator. In hind sight he was a little too young to be worrying about our safety being only nine years old, however he has become quite the outdoors man so I didn't harm him too much. The next morning took it's sweet time coming and the skies were overcast, it was drizzling rain and it was cold. I was able to fish a little at Round and caught a small cutthroat and my first Graying.

 

 

At the moment I hooked that Grayling I was again excited about backpacking; Coltin on the other hand was not. He did have fun, but wasn't a fan of the carrying a pack and hiking up wet river beds. Having achieved my Grayling goal and nursing my sore feet, I decided to forgo our trip to Fish Lake and head back home. Coltin was all for it! I honestly can say I am not sure which was worse the hike up to Round or the hike back down Dry fork (which is not an accurate description, by the way)! We made it safely to the truck and headed home. I was fulfilled and full of bravado for our next trip! The funny thing is Coltin has been on numerous and seriously challenging trips; none of which draw the same reaction as our Fish lake trip does!

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this first post as there will be more coming, I just have to drag them out of the cluttered and dusty, mind of mine.