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Showing posts from 2017

Anderson Valley

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This past weekend Andy, the Dogs, and I went for a short afternoon hike in New Harmony called Anderson Valley. Located in the foothills of the Pine Valley Mountains, New Harmony is a little town just south of Cedar City.  The hike and town are across the freeway from Kolob Canyons, the northern, and mostly overlooked, part of Zion National Park. This led to some spectacular and unexpected views. The further you get from the freeway, the more awe-inspiring the view becomes. The Kolob Canyons are a hidden secret of Zion, all of the spectacular views without the three hour shuttle lines. After driving through little New Harmony, we found the trailhead and started off. We wove our way through the desert shrubs and up towards the mountain ridge, following fence lines and crossing over creeks. Glancing across the valley, the canyons of Zion opened like a book, allowing us to stand in our world of green shrubs and view the towering walls of pink and red.

What to keep?

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Here at SUU, I have become heavily involved in the outdoor recreation community on campus. This has introduced me to an extraordinary group of people. Rock climbers, ski bums and backpackers, mountaineers and canyoneers. Many of these people live out of vans, small apartments, crash on couches, and own very few possessions. We sacrifice the material objects to get to the far reaches of the desert and high peaks of the mountains. When beginning to minimize your possessions, the question you're told to ask yourself is “Does this bring me joy? Does it add to my life?” So with these pictures I wanted to explore why gear passed the test of what to keep. When condensing everything you own to fit into a single van, where was the line drawn? As I worked on this project, I began to see that these things were more than just things. They are tools, they open doors. Allow us to scale 100 foot walls of cliff, surf down a mountain, and survive for days in the wilderness.   I took the

Walking with Wildflowers

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This past summer I worked as an interpretation ranger intern at Cedar Breaks National Monument*. It was an inspiring adventure to work outdoors and introduce people to the monument. It is famous for it's natural amphitheater, which is home to a maze of rock structures called hoodoos. The amphitheater is over half a mile deep and is so steep that it is inaccessible from above. Here is a picture from the main view point of the park. You can see a portion of the amphitheater to the right. This is my friend Spencer, who worked with me this summer. We would hike into certain sections of the park to check for certain wildflowers and birds. Just a small perk to get private views of hidden canyons within the amphitheater ;) Even though most visitors come to Cedar Breaks for the view (or by accident, we're a rather small park) those who visit in late June through mid-July are in for a pleasant surprise. It's wildflower season!! Because Cedar Breaks is locat