I had a great BP trip with my dad this week end. We left SLC at about 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
We hit up a few geocaches up Spanish Fork Canyon before we got to the TH. The best part of caching was in an area that we didn't even find the cache. It had been muggled :( But it was in away cool area. There were tons of mountain lion tracks all over. You can read about the adventure here:http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...e-8bfef848bce9
We got to the trailhead at bout 6:30 and it was getting dark. There was snow all over but the air temp felt pretty warm. We didn't even get out our jackets of head lamps and were fine on the way up. The mmon was pretty bright on the white snow to light things up. I was curious about how much exercise we would get on the hike so I brought along my heart rate monitor. I burned 880 calories on the 1 hour and 25 minute hike up.
We were thinking it would be acold snowy camp because all along the trail was about 3 feet of snow. I have not seen that much snow in the area for years. when we got to the springs we were surprised to see that there was not much snow in the area...just a few inches on the north facing slopes in the canyon. we ended up setting up camp about 25 feet from the lower spring. It was also cool that there was no people around.
for dinner we had Wendy's chilli stuufed into Pita pockets. It was way tasty as food usually is when you are out packing.
After dinner and setting up camp we hit the springs. It was an awsome night to be up there. At this time there were no clouds and just a starry sky with bright sliver of a moon. The temps of the springs were in the low 90's. If you got too how you would just sit in away that your upper body was out of the water for afew minutes intil you cooled off. We felt the great satisfaction you get backpacking when you have a full stomach and camp has been all set up.
We were in there for about two hours and were feeling pretty tired. I started melting some snow for the next day with my stove. ( I was not feeling like pumping any of the sulpher laden water to drink)
We were just getting ready to hop into bed at about 10 when some BYU students cam up the trail. There was 3 girls and 2 guys. Because we were camped so close to them my dad and I decided to stay up until there were gone. I built a fire and we cooked up some marshmellows until they left 2 hours later.(Good thing we had been out of the hotsprings before the BYU kids got there. The girls would have seen something they hadn't before. :twisted: ..My dad and I didnt bother with swimsuits...one less thing to have to dry out overnight lol)
We slept pretty well that night. Although it was a clear sky when we went to bed, a storm blew in and dusted the gound with a little snow. I woke up at about 5:30 and had to take a leak. It was about 25 out and I was feeling abit cold. I decided to just go get in the hotsprings again. My dad joined me a bit later and we waited until it was light to take down camp. Breakfast was a big slug of gel and some water( we had some oatmeal but were just ready to get out of there) and we headed back down to the car.
I was very happy to have my trekking poles with me. It was pretty icey and I would have taken some spills without them. Snowshoes or skis would not have worked well on the ice either. The hike out took just over an hour and this time 640 calories burned.
On the drive out we saw a small group of elk high on a hill. it seemed like a fitting ending for a fun trip.
Here is alink to a geoache we have near the springs as well:http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...d-a2c97219961a
