Ilanarama!

Finally, the fourth and last (and maybe best!) part of our spring 2024 vacation trips! As some of you know we used to live in Boulder (which is where Britt and I met, actually); we're still friends with quite a few people we knew in those days, and every once in a while they invite us on a trip, or vice versa. This time, they'd gotten reservations for a group campsite at Arches National Park in mid-May. We hadn't been to Arches for years (I was last there 15 years ago, and it had been even longer for Britt) so it seemed like a good excuse!

( Hiking among rocks with holes in them! Lots and lots of photos and blah blah! )

32 photos mostly of rocks with holes in them, no blah blah

Gathered in one place for your reading pleasure! (And also so I can easily revisit my trip.)

Italy vacation part 1: getting there, and days 1-3 Lakes of Lombardy cycling tour
Italy vacation part 2: days 4-6 of Lakes of Lombardy cycling tour
Italy vacation part 3: to and into the Dolomites - Trento and San Vigilio
Italy vacation part 4: Dolomites, San Vigilio to Sëlva di Val Gardena
Italy vacation part 5: Dolomites, Sëlva di Val Gardena to Ortisei, and home

All 177 photos (and one video) at Flickr, with captions but no narrative

The Pederü bus stop turned out to be at a solitary hotel/restaurant at the head of a valley. A road (with a few mountain bikers on it) switchbacked upward along the valley’s left side, and a trail (already beginning to fill with hikers) switchbacked upward along the valley’s left side. We shouldered our small packs, unfolded our hiking poles, stepped through the gate that kept the cows out of the hotel grounds, and started up the trail.



( Read more (and look at more pictures) )

For many years now we've been (usually) going on a backpack trip in our nearby wilderness area, the Weminuche, with a group of friends that varies from year to year around the same core. This year we planned a trip to Sunlight Basin, which Britt and I last hiked to in 2004 with our friends Rolfe and Kristen as part of an epic backpack on what is now called the "Kodiak High Route" (stupid name, Kodiak, in Colorado??). Many things had changed since then: a snowslide destroyed the third bridge on Vallecito Creek (the "Swinging Bridge") a few years later, and the Forest Service being allocated less money for trail maintenance meant that the old pack trail up Sunlight Creek - already starting to decline when we hiked it in 2004 - was completely abandoned and mostly replaced by use-trails following the most direct way (rather than the easiest way), with many fallen trees to climb over or go around.

It was a multi-generational group, with my husband Britt the oldest at 68, Shan's son Anish at 23, and the rest of us scattered in between. We set out on Sunday morning and after half an hour or so, crossed the wilderness boundary:



( Lots of photos and blah blah about our six days in the wilderness! )

The album of photos at Flickr, few captions, no blah blah

ETA: Shan made a video of this trip, and it's on YouTube! It's a combination of video he took and photos we all shared.

As I mentioned in my Canyonlands Half race report, Britt and I went out with another couple and rented a VRBO; while Chuck and I ran the race, Britt and Anita went hiking in the Canyonlands National Park's Island in the Sky district. Then on Sunday, the day after the race, we did a scenic drive, taking Sand Flats road from highway 191 south of Moab up into the La Sal mountains, then turning north to return to highway 128 (the road along the Colorado River we raced on) via Castle Valley. Along the way we did some short hikes, and then a longer one at the Fisher Towers, which is a popular rock climbing area. (The towers are impressive but the rock itself doesn't inspire confidence!) On Monday, we left early-ish and drove down to the Canyonlands National Park's Needles District to hike there, and visit Newspaper Rock (a rock with a lot of pre-Puebloan pictographs) before heading home.

A small photo album (14 photos) at Flickr, with captions.

(If nothing else you should look at the Hamburger Rocks photo - they really do look like hamburgers!)

Uh, oops, have I really not posted here in almost a year? (I guess the pandemic is a decent excuse.) Anyway, I wanted to share some photos and blahblahwords from a couple of weeks of vacationing we did in the second half of March, and yes, it was a pandemic-proof vacation, mostly spent in our camper van, but with five days in a VRBO in Scottsdale that we shared with some friends of ours who drove down just for that bit. (They, and we, are fully vaccinated, so we had no qualms at all!) We hiked and biked in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and back to Colorado - around the Four Corners!

Here is a teaser (from the Navajo Rocks trails north of Moab, looking east toward the La Sals):



We started out by driving about five hours south and east into New Mexico, past Albuquerque, to the Valley of Fires Recreation Area (BLM) near the town of Carizozo. This is the site of what's called Malpais Lava Flow; approximately 5,000 years ago, an eruption from vents in the surface of the ground created a lava flow 44 miles long, 4-6 miles wide and 160 feet thick. It's one of the youngest lava flows in the continental United States, and there's a small campground on an "island" in the middle - and we snagged a spot! ( Read more and see some photos! )

These plus more photos at Flickr (album of 36 pictures from our trip), no blah blah

Our original Thanksgiving plans had us moving into our new house, but if you've been reading this journal, you know that our move-in has been delayed until sometime in January. This left us with both a hole in our schedule, and some frustration, since we've been putting off vacationing in order to keep an eye on the building process. Because of this, Britt suggested we - go on vacation. And I had the perfect idea. During last year's Thanksgiving trip to Arizona, during which Britt and a couple of our friends rode a hard point-to-point trail while I car shuttled for them and did easier day rides, a real highlight was my solo day at the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. I had told Britt that someday we had to take a trip there together, so he could experience it as well - and so we decided to go to Scottsdale, Arizona, and stay in a hotel near the Preserve, and ride there and in other nearby areas. (Of which there are many. We rode and hiked in the two large connected areas on the east of this map, and also on the "Sonoran Loop" which is the furthest south part of the large area at the top-center of the map.) Spoiler alert: excellent decision.

I'd actually been up for camping, but Britt wanted to go full-vacation-mode and stay in a fancy resort. As it happens, Thanksgiving is still low season in Scottsdale - one of the waiters I spoke with said that it's really not that busy until Christmas - so we were able to get a decent deal at The Boulders. This is a lovely resort with two golf courses, but for us the main attraction was that it is only a few miles from a connector trail to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. (Well, that and the hot tub. And the four restaurants!) Also, the name is not a lie:



( Lots of photos! And me blathering on! )

In conclusion:



(40 photos - and I might add more - and no blah blah blah at Flickr. I haven't put captions on the photos yet, though, and...I might not get to it, be warned.)