Last weekend, Ryan and I went camping in Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest with a couple we became friends with this summer while in Hawaii! Ryan is a camping fanatic… On the other hand, I have a love-hate relationship with camping for sure. While I love the adventure of it, the healing aspect of being in nature, and the fun times with family and friends- I can never sleep well at all. Especially if the temperature (and my air mattress ;)) isn’t just right. So, when I heard the weather was going to hit 20 degrees at night, I was hoping for a rain-check. Fortunately, Ryan and our friends pushed me out of my comfort zone, and we went anyway.
Our Night Camping
Camping was a great mini-getaway. While we were only an hour from home, it felt great to get away, hang out and laugh with Ryan and friends, destress from the beginning of grad school, and to take in the mountain air away from civilization. We explored the area, fell a few times on a slackline, watched our dogs chase after rocks we threw, cooked dinner, and talked the night away. As the night progressed, the temperature became colder and colder, and we noticed the dog’s water was frozen! Luckily, we were layered in ski jackets and had a big bonfire going, so we were able to keep warm except for those brief moments peeing in the woods lol.
We gazed at the stars for a bit until our toes were about to freeze off, then we headed to sleep. Thankfully, I slept better than usual! (I just kept waking up to make sure Aspen was still alive with it being so cold haha) At one point she was sitting up, shivering so I re-covered her up in some blankets.
& Then Our Hike
The next morning, the sun warmed us up quickly. We drank some hot chocolate, toasted some blueberry bagels over the fire (which were delicious), and headed out to hike! We found a hike on the all trails map called Maple’s Box Canyon Trail in Moroni, Utah. It was a beautiful trail, similar to Southern Utah but so much closer! The rock was very unique in the canyon, which apparently attracted many rock climbers- more than I’d ever seen in my life!
The hike was a flat path through the canyon at first. Later, the hike turned into large boulders and we had to climb them, so it was definitely not dog-friendly. They did have ropes for us to use while climbing up the boulders though, which was very helpful. We all worked together to get each other, and the dogs up the boulders in one piece. In the end, there was a giant (30-40 foot I’d say) “water-fall” (at this time of year the water is just trickling), with ropes that you could use to rock climb and repel. Our dare-devil friend continued to climb while we watched safely at the bottom. (photo of that below)
We had a blast camping and hiking. I’m hoping we will go on some more adventures like this before the weather gets too cold!
Xoxo,
Kiersten