The boys and I hopped in the Jeep and trekked up to Current Creek a couple weekends ago. We went up and over Guardsmens Pass from Big Cottonwood Canyon, and then up course up and over Lake Creek Summit, then down into Current Creek. We camped by the old group site down near the reservoir. We saw lots of deer, and some spectacular blue birds. On our way up the mountain the next morning my phone found service, I had a message form Mike and Lonnie. They were camped at the top of Buck Basin. We easily found them and spent the day riding the four wheeler and roasting brats and making smores. What a beautiful place!
Uncle Dan and I took the Jeep and Skulls (the Cruiser) out to the Five Mile Pass recreation area after work the other day. The area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The Pony Express passed through the area during 1860-1861. The area also was traveled by the stagecoach and pioneer families heading west for Nevada and California. Most of us are probably familiar with the area for either ATV/Motocross riding, and/or rabbit hunting. Dan took me to some of the old silver mines way up the canyons. All that remains are giant tailings piles, and big deep vertical mine shafts that have been closed with iron grates. When we were up on top of those mountains overlooking the desert valleys at sunset it was very breathtaking. If the view of the mountains and valleys didn’t take your breath away, a glance down the seemingly bottomless mine shafts would! The approximate gps coordinates of the area we were exploring are: 40° 16′ 40.01″ N 112° 11′ 37.45″ W. I have included some pictures of the tailings piles, and the mine shafts. Each shaft had an ID button on it, I have included a picture of that also. We had a blast!
Almost two years ago I emailed a picture of us Jeepin’ through Salt Creek in Canyonlands to Jp Magazine. I had found the great picture in Mom’s basement, and submitted it in response to a request for “vintage” Jeep photos. I just received my June issue of Jp magazine and was shocked to find my picture! It had been so long I had forgotten that I had sent it in. Here is the photo, and the caption I had submitted with it:
We have all been witnessing the quintessential signs of the beginning of spring/summer. April showers bringing May flowers, more time after work to kick the ball around with the boys because the sun is waiting for us to set, my neighbor parking their RV on their front lawn. And, perhaps the most defining, and definitely the most exciting, the Jeep going topless! We hope you are enjoying this great weather as much as we are!
We spent last weekend in Moab with Dan & Beth (Mo’s Aunt and Uncle, Dan is Craig’s youngest Brother). We spent the majority of our time crawling around two Jeep trails, Top of the World and Fins & Things. We have run portions of Fins & Things before, but this time ran the entire trail. We did test the claim that Kenny’s climb is as dangerously steep as it is cracked up to be. Whoa! The two pictures on the right are from the Fins & Things trail. That’s Dan’s heavily modified yellow Cruiser (Skulls). The Top of the World trail starts up the Colorado River 29 miles at the Historic Dewey Bridge, and quite literally takes you to the top of the world. We were off pavement for about 19 miles. Ten of those miles were easy going washed out somewhat graded dirt road, five were pretty deliberate low range travel. The last two miles to the top and the first two miles back down (an approximately 4 mile one way loop at the top) were insane! There were some very intimidating ascents and descents. When first approached I wasn’t sure ol’ red could make it. But, I’ve been rattling around in a Jeep for many many years and have a really could sense of where to point a Jeep to make it climb like a billy goat. The view was amazing! From the top you can view the South side of the Fisher Towers (the second picture from the left), usually viewed from the Colorado River (to the North). You can also see Fisher Valley, the La Sal Mountains, Castle Valley, and even all the way to Arches. If you look closely at the third picture you will notice we are perched nicely on an overhang! What a view, it is still giving me butterflies!
I know its August, but I found this great picture of the boys skiing last season at Alta on Mo’s blackberry. I had to share it with everyone! We are getting excited for the upcoming ski season, but are still thoroughly enjoying this great summer.
I really try to be a good father to my two boys. Give ’em mulligans in life and in golf. Play through my injuries while I’m being tag teamed in the living room during Wrestle Mania 2008. Be a great Soccer coach, example, and friend. But, compared with Dick Hoyt I may come a bit short.
Eighty five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars, all in the same day. Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? What has Rick done for his father? Not much, but save his life. This love story began in Winchester , Mass.
43 years ago Rick Was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain damaged and unable to control his limbs. “He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life;” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.” But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told.
“There’s nothing going on in his brain.” “Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed.
Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.”
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he Tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.”
That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, It felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”
And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
“No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially. In 1983 Team Hoyt ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?”
How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.
Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironman events in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? “No way,” he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992, only 35 minutes off the world Record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the century.”
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn’t been in such great shape,” one doctor told him, “you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.” So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend.
“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.”
We ran down to Moab this weekend for a quick trip. What a great time! We hiked to Delicate Arch Friday evening, the boys are great hikers. We saw some great stuff, a giant frog, a collared lizard, Ute Indian petroglyphs, and some beautiful scenery. We ran the Fins & Things Jeep trail on Saturday morning and had a blast! It is in the Sand Flats Recreation Area (SFRA), that is where the Slickrock bike trail is. We also played around on Baby Lion’s Back a little bit while we were in the SFRA. We stayed at the Moab KOA in one of the “Kampin Kabins”. It had a full bed and a bunk bed in it, and a swing on the porch, it was great! We really love exploring the desert. Here are some pictures, hope you enjoy them.
We just returned home from Disneyland! We had a great time! We flew from Salt Lake International to LAX on Tuesday morning (5/20/08), then caught the Disney bus which took us to the Disneyland Hotel. The whole setup they have there is, for lack of a better word, “magical”. From the hotels, to downtown Disney, to the parks, they make you feel like you are completely seperated from the rest of the world. Yet you are surrounded by one of the largest metropolitan cities in the world. We were at the Disneyland Hotel Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We spent Wednesday in Disneyland, and Thursday at the California Adventures park. We picked a great time to go, we didn’t have to wait in a single line! Friday we checked out and rented a car and drove to the Marriot at Manhattan Beach. We attempted to spend the day at the beach, but the weather turned cold on us so an afternoon at the beach turned into an hour at the beach. The boys still thought it was super cool. Saturday (5/24/08) we drove ourselves to LAX and flew home. We had a great time, good weather, great flights, it was a blast! Here are a handful of photos from the trip:
Tom, Jon & I grew up believing it existed, but others thought it was an urban legend. Tom & Jon’s dad (Parker Gay) is an MIT educated Geo-Physicist, and knew it “was up there somewhere”. Well Tom finally found it! Neff’s Canyon Cave, according to the USGS is the deepest cave in the US at 1,189 feet deep. Other non official sources (click HERE) state that the cave is the deepest in Utah, tenth deepest in the US at 1,165 feet deep. The cave is still not fully explored. Here are the exact coordinates of the Neff’s Canyon Cave.
GPS Coordinates:
Decimal Degrees
Lat: 40.671320, Long: -111.752770
Degrees, Minutes & Seconds
Lat: North 40 degrees 40′ 16.75″, Long: West 111 degrees 45′ 9.97″
