Mapleton Canyon Ride - June 15 2013

This ride starts from the Whiting Campground up Mapleton Canyon in Utah County. You can use 400 N in Mapleton to get to the canyon. Drive to the end of the road in the campground and you'll be at the trail head for trail 006. The first few miles takes you up a creek bed, so be careful in high water times. After a while the trail splits off to the right (016 to Diamond Fork) and left (013 toward Hobble Creek Canyon). We were told by a local that the trail to Diamond fork is basically only one way since it's very hard to come back up it once you head down toward Diamond Fork. Sam and I took the left fork and went over to the intersection of 013 and 012. We'll spend another day exploring the other trails in the area.


The video I made for this one definitely has a double purpose.  Not only was it fun for me, hopefully it will help to drive more traffic to his motorcycle/ATV website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXO9SXAgrgg

American Fork Ride - 6/8/2013

 Sam and I went riding up American Fork Canyon.  We started the the Mill Canyon Staging area which is located just above Tibble Fork Res.  We took trail 040 up to the Mill Spring and then went west along the Ridge Trail (157) toward the main Alpine Loop road.  We then back tracked up 157 all the way up to the Dry Fork (198) connection.  We took Dry Fork Road and the main dirt road (085) all the way back to the truck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPGBD_7-U1Y

Mill Canyon Staging Area

Mt. Timp in the distance

Had a little fun here.  Watch the YouTube video to see how we got across it.

Arapeen Trail System - Memorial Day Weekend

On Memorial weekend I had a blast exploring the Arapeen Trail system up Mayfield Canyon on my dirtbike.  We camped from Thursday night through Monday at about noon.  The trails were amazing and the scenery was epic!  The meadows were filled with amazing green grass and flowers.  The aspen leaves were just coming in at the upper elevations, and a beautiful new green below.  I can't describe how beautiful it was. The image above shows my tracks from the GPS.  I ended up riding a few of the same trails over and over to get to and from camp.  I tried to hit all of the tracks that weren't too muddy/snowed over.  There were a couple of trails that I didn't have time to get to, but overall, I got a very good sense for the lower portion of the trail system.  I've got to go back soon and hit the rest of the trails.

Some of my favorites were the Pinchot Trail (2), and the Clear Creek ATV trail (22).  24 was also a very fun loop that you can get to from the 22 trail.  I couldn't get all the way up 23 because of some dead-fall trees in way. I used both sides of the 27 loop to get to and from camp and they are really fun as well.  26 was pretty fun but there was a section a little too loose and rocky for my old, worn out tire to get up with out having to walk the bike (not fun) up the hill for about 50 yards.

I tried to use the main road (12 mile canyon) to get to the Skyline, but it was snowed over about 2 miles above the upper Pinchot Staging area.  I also tried the 28 trail, but it got to snowy and muddy to keep going.  Looking at the map and my tracks though, I might have been up to the 21 section of that trail before I turned around.  Trail 25 goes down a little lower (to the west) and I didn't get on that one.  I'd like to go back and hit the upper portions later in the year.  It would also be great to explore the trails that are clustered around Manti Canyon.

Memorial Day 2013 - Mayfield Camping Trip

This weekend was epic!  We had a great camping spot and perfect weather.  We spend 4 nights in our toy hauler and had a great time.  Grandma Kathie joined us for the first couple of nights and then she went to her high school reunion.  Then, Grandpa Keith joined us for the last 2 nights.  I rode about 100 miles of the 2 track track Arapeen ATV trail system on my KTM 300 XC-W.  The rides were some of the best I've ever had.  I loved the beautiful scenery around what seemed like just about every turn.  It was truly amazing!  We stayed from Thursday night to Monday at about noon.  We even drove down the canyon after taking showers to attend sacrament meeting in Mayfield on Sunday Morning.  Here is a small sampling of some of the pictures I took.

April 13th - Vernon Camp

This weekend we pulled the trailer out near Vernon Res and had another over night camp.  Friday night was nice weather, but Saturday morning was pretty cold so we didn't stay very long.  When we were driving home, Kaylee asked if we could take a break from camping for a little while.  We had gone on overnight camps for 3 weeks in a row and she just wanted to play with her friends!  Good times.

April 5th - Diamond Fork Camp

While Karen was in Arizona helping her mom, I decided to take the kids camping up Diamond Fork.  While going up the Diamond Fork road I was worried that I'd hit a dead end and not be able to turn around, but it ended up not being a problem.  While we really missed not having Karen with us, we still had fun going on hikes, riding bikes and rolling Tonka trucks down a hill in our camp.

March 29th Mercer Canyon Camp

We pulled the trailer over to Merer Canyon for the and had our first camp of 2013.  We ended up across the road from the old Mercer Cemetery which was really cool to check out.   This was just a quick over night camp, but we had a bunch of fun together.

3/9/2013 - Ready for Spring

Technically this isn't the first time I've had the dirt bike out of the garage this year, but therein lies the magic of video because you can tell it anyway you can imagine it.  This project only took about 10 minutes to film and about 45 min of editing afterward.  It was a fun project to do on a Saturday that was too windy, muddy, and cold to get outdoors very much.  Enjoy the video.

3/2/13 Cherry Creek Ride

Today I went riding with Sam Oldham and a few of his cousins.  We rode near Cherry Creek, which is in the Little Sahara area.  It was quite muddy and snowy, so most of the ride was fighting the snow and mud, but we did find a dune area where we could play and have some fun.  I took the Nikon D600 with me in the backpack, along with the GoPro Hero 2 camera so that I could record some of the fun.  The guy doing the biggest hits in the video and still pics is Will Oldham.  The only footage of me in this video are the first person shots from the chest mounted GoPro.  We got beat to death fighting the mud and snow.  The ride started out pretty cold with the wind, so we were wearing a few extra layers.  By about noon, we were all pretty warm and sweating.  We were all covered in mud by the time it was all over.  It was quite a workout today!

1-1-2013 - 1K at the Bottoms

So... everyone knows that the best way to ring in a new year is to drag something about 36,000 inches away from the truck, then go back to the truck, and try to poke holes in it, right?  Of course you knew that.  Everyone does.  Hello 2013, meet my 308.  Hello paper, meet 2013 and my 308.  Well, now that we are all acquainted, Paper, could you be so kind as to run over there about 3000 feet and hold still for a little while? There is something that 308 and I would like to show 2013.  Thanks, that will be great!

Today Karen, Kaylee, Konnor, Kase, and Dad came to the bottoms to ride snowmobiles and shoot.  Even with the cold (about 20 degrees), I only needed 90 clicks of elevation on the Vortex PST scope (1/10th mil clicks).  The gun was Savage 308, and bullets were my handloads of 175gr. Sierra BTHP, being pushed by 45 grains of Hogden Varget, with CCI 200 primers (average 2750 fps).

Can you see the truck in the distance at 1000 yards? 

There was enough of a breeze that I was having a little difficulty with "windage" today.

6 Shots in the paper or on the cardboard. 5 of them were part of a 6 shot group about 10-12 inches across.

12/31/2012 - Sunset at the Bottoms

Tonight was the last blast of 2012.  One of the things we did to celebrate was drive down to the bottoms (Dad, Konnor and Me) to let Konnor shoot my .22 rifle for the first time.  I guess it was fitting that Grandpa was there because he's the one that gave the rifle to me, and he's the one that taught me how to shoot.  Things have a way of coming full circle like that sometimes.  While we were standing out on "The Point", it was beautiful!  Very fine snow crystals were floating down ever so gracefully. The sun was making them sparkle in a way almost too magical for the words I know to describe. There was a really peaceful calm, as is so often the case, when we are at The Bottoms in the winter time.

Dad, Konnor, and Me on the Point.  This was Konnor's first time shooting a rifle.  He's 4.5 years old.

One of the other things that we "re-learned" by looking at the GPS while we were there and then confirming using these photos and Google Earth... is that it's possible to shoot from near the entrance gate (my initial shooting position) to "Marble Hill" (Approx 1800 yards), and then over to a hill slightly to the right of Marble Hill, to a distance of 2000 yards.  Someday I would really like to accomplish hits at that distance.  Without knowing the topography really well, it's difficult to see just exactly where these land marks are, so I'll see about posting a picture later with an arrow showing where they are.  Just know that 1000 yards is a long way, and 2000 yards is even further.  In fact, from what I can tell, it's about twice as far. I think my mind just exploded.  "The Point" is a good midway point between the shooting position I'll take on the road, and the 2000 yard target area to the right of Marble Hill.  The Point will make a good spot to reach out to 1000 yards which I should be able to do tomorrow on 1/1/13.

Amazing Sunset with "The Point" and "Marble Hill" in the distance taken from the initial shooting position near the entrance to the bottoms.

Keep and Bear...

Meet the newest addition to my "close at hand" home defense...  7 shell capacity of 12 Gauge Double Ought Buck Shot.

Bedroom Arsenal: .308 Win. (Proven to 1000 yards), 12 Gauge Pump (close range), AR-15 (Mid-Range), .40 S&W (short range), 2 High Intensity Flash lights.

“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.” – George Washington

“You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” – Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” – Ben Franklin, 1759

“I like gun control. If there’s a gun around I want to be in control of it.” -Clint Eastwood

" … the right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.” – Martin Luther King

”One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”
~Thomas Jefferson

”The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”
~Alexander Hamilton

”The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.”
~James Earl Jones

”Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.”
- Unknown

”Make good scouts of yourselves, become good rifle shots so that if it becomes necessary that you defend your families and your country that you can do it.”
~Lord Baden-Powell

”To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
~George Washington

”An armed society is a polite society.”
~Robert Heinlein

”When seconds count between living or dying, the police are only minutes away.”
~Phillip Van Cleave

“There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”
~Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
-- Alexander Hamilton

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest.
-- From the Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
-- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court

"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.
-- Hitler, April 11 1942

"Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power."
-- Yoshimi Ishikawa

Reloading on the Bench I built in March

Back in March of this year, I build a heavy duty bench that I can use for reloading bullets and working on stuff in the basement.  Last night I finally got around to reloading my first batch here at my house.  For this round, I reloaded 308 bullets with 178 grain Hornady A-Max tips, CCI 200 Primers, and 45 grains of Hogden Varget powder. Here are some pics of the set up.

7/21/12 - Mill Canyon Trail Ride (AF Canyon)

 Lower Mill Canyon trail Head parking lot.

 

After the ride at Tibble Fork Reservoir

Lower Mill Canyon Trail Head

Tonight I decided to load the family up in the truck, along with the bike, and head out for a ride.  Konnor and I went camping (just the two of us) last week up above Silver Lake, and we discovered that there are trail heads for riding dirt bikes up near Tibble Fork Reservoir, so I decided to start my exploration of the AF Canyon trails from there. 

This picture shows the view from the Mill Canyon Spring.  It's about 5.5 miles up from the trail head. The ride up trail 040 was amazing.  It was awesome single track through thick pines and aspens.  Tons of tight switch-backs, roots, rocks, creeks, and steep hills.  It's definitely not a beginner trail.  A lot of it is intermediate, but there are a number of spots that are advanced riding while you weave your way up steeps slopes dodging tall rocks and roots, all the while making sure that you don't clip a handle bar on a tree!  It was tons of fun.  Once I got here, I pulled up the pdf map of the trails and noticed that I could catch up with trial 157, and then connect with 041 which would talk me back down to Tibble Fork Reservoir when Karen and the kids would be waiting. 

 Every so often you get signs like this letting you know where are

 Trails 157 and 041 proved to be just a beautiful, and just as fun.  I'd say they are both intermediate trials with elements of advanced sections mixed in.  Ironically, the only pictures I took were when the trial widened out, so you can't see how tight the single track is... you'll have to take my word for it.  All told, the ride ended up being a little over 11 miles and took me about an hour since I stopped to check the map a couple of times.  It was a really fun introduction into this massive trail system.  I know that there are trails that can take you all over the mountain and also up into the Alta/Snowbird area.  I can't wait to check more of this mountain out.

7/13/12 - Konnor and I Camping on Friday the 13th

Even though I knew it was going to rain, I really wanted to get out camping.  Karen had a "cul-de-sac reunion" that she went to with Kaylee and Kase, but Konnor and I went in search of a camp spot up American Fork Canyon.  We didn't have a ton of time to check out different spots, but we ended up about a mile or so above Silver Lake Reservoir.  It rained on us while we were driving up, and the rain continued till a little while after we had the tent set up.  It's a decent camping area that we found.  It's unimproved but it must be a favorite spot for many people because it's quite well used with lots of pull out spots along a creek leading into Silver Lake below.  In the tent, we watched a movie on the iPad after getting back from the "Bear Hunt" that Konnor wanted to go on.  We had donuts for breakfast and had some more fun in the creek hunting for cool rocks.  On the way down the mountain, I found one of the trail heads for riding dirt bikes in the area.  It will be a blast to get back up here for more camping and dirt biking.

6/13/2012 - Because I Can

 Need I say more?  The target was set up for 60 yard shots from the backyard, but then I figured this shot might be fun from about 65... and 3 stories up... from the master bedroom.