Henry Mts. Gold Panning

Every year, my Dad comes out for a month-long visit.  And true to form, every year he has a new hobby.  Last year it was fly fishing, the year before that it was Jeeping -- this year, it's panning for gold!  This weekend everyone (including Dad's dog Rocko) loaded up into the Jeep with his gold pans, rock hammers, and the metal detector, then ventured out to the Henry Mountains to hit the mother lode.

Crescent Creek

Found a tiny nugget!

The Henry Mountains are known in Utah for their gold deposits.  The Henrys are an igneous lacolith -- a volcano that never quite burst through the surface.  Gold-bearing solutions deposited gold into rock deposits, but since gold is so tough, it sticks around after the rest of the rock erodes.  If the gold makes its way into a stream, you can pan for it.

We drove in towards the Henrys from the east on the Bull Creek Pass Byway.  It's about 21 miles south of Hanksville along SR 95.  After a quick stop at Little Egypt (AKA mini Goblin Valley,) we drove on 7.5 miles towards the public panning area in Crescent Creek.  Most of the placer gold in Utah is very fine-grained flour gold so it's pretty tough to find, but Dad managed to find a tiny nugget.  I putzed around with the metal detector, but only found rusty bullet cases and old barbed wire.

GOLDMASTER GMZ!

Rocko vs. Utah

Jeep!

Ladies and gentleman, I'm happy to present the newest addition to the Siefken/Perez family:

Yay!!!  How's that for the best wedding present ever?  It's a '98 Jeep Wrangler from my parents.  I feel like the other half of Utah just opened up for us, and I keep pawing through maps and oogling roads that we couldn't even try before.  For sure, we've covered some ground in our 2WD vehicles, but let's be honest -- there are soooooo many nasty dirt roads out here where you need 4WD.  Get ready for the adventures to kick up a notch!  This is going to be good.

Durango

Man, we’re nailing the winter adventures this year!  Usually I’m a huge wimp in the winter, and the weekend adventure momentum wanes as the days get cold and dark.  But not this year!  We’ve had some amazing snow, I bought a warm puffy coat, and we’ve managed to get outside almost every weekend.  Hells yeah!

This week, Jordan had a work meeting in Durango, CO, which luckily butted up again our days off.  We drove out a couple days early for a weekend of trains and cross-country skiing.  We visited Durango last summer and had a great time, but the town is really incredible during the winter.  The mountains are coated with thick, powdery snow, the skies are bluebird clear, and the historic downtown is full of great breweries and restaurants.  I’m sold -- Durango is awesome.

On Saturday we cheesed it up and rode the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gage Railroad.  It’s totally a dorky old-lady tourist trap and I loved it!  The DSNGR was constructed way back in 1882 to haul mine ores, mainly silver and gold, from the San Juan Mountains.  It twists and turns between steeps cliffs along the Animas River from Durango to the tiny mountain town of Silverton.  As the mines played out and the mining towns turned towards tourism, the route became a scenic passenger ride.  It was registered as a National Historic Landmark in the 1960s, and the 1920s locomotives used to pull the trains are still 100% coal-fired and steam-operated.  During the winter, the train runs 26 miles through the San Juan National Forest to the Cascade Canyon Wye.  It was a gorgeous, cheeseball winter wonderland.  We twisted along the icy green Animas River through a steep, snowy, pine-coated canyon.  Pretty, pretty.

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad

chugging through the San Juan National Forest

looking dooooown at the Animas River

We made it back to town for an epic dinner of sushi and dumplings at East by Southwest followed by beers at the Durango Brewery.  Sweetbabyjebus, this town has amazing food!  We had bubbly good wood-fired pizza at Fired Up Pizzeria and out-of-control breakfasts at the Durango Diner and Oscar's Cafe.  Seriously, we're talking life-changing hashbrowns with green chillies and cheese.  Green chillies are like the ketchup of Durango -- I need to find a vegetarian recipe, pronto!  So as much as I love Utah's red rocks, the remnant ex-Chicago-dweller in me really misses great food, real beer, and ornery nightlife.  Durango manages to perfectly nail the balance between fun outdoorsy activities and a real vibrant town culture.

beer from the Durango Brewer

On Sunday, we rented cross-country skis at the Ski Barn (great staff and supercheap $15 rentals,) and drove 18 miles north of Durango to Haviland Lake.  Jordan had cross-country skied before, but this was my first time.  After an awkward learning curve ('Why do my skis keep falling off?!!") we hit our stride.  Superfun!  It definitely takes more coordination than snowshoeing, but we could really zoom once we hit groomed trails and the frozen lake.  Well, we thought it was frozen.  We were feeling pretty badass as we glided across the snow-covered ice, until Jordan stopped:  "Wait.  It's getting kind of slushy," and we scooted back to shore.  Crisis averted.

XC skis

On our way back to town, we stopped by Trimble Spa and Natural Hot Springs for a soak.  Trimble has two saunas and naturally heated mineral hot pools.  The water is rich in sulfate and calcium bicarbonate, and comes out of the ground at a toasty 123 degrees Fahrenheit (the pools hover between 104-111 degrees.)  Trimble's large pools aren't as pretty as the small, natural-looking tubs at Orvis, etc., but the water temperature was perfect.  Seriously, is there anything better than soaking in hot water after you've been running around in the cold all day?

Yet again, Durango gets an A++ rating.  It's a great, friendly town with loads of stuff to do in the summer and winter.  We'll be back!

Three Finger Canyon

The freeeeezing cold continues (low of negative 15!,) so it was pretty tough to convince ourselves to leave the house this morning.  We sucked it up in the afternoon for a quick trip to Three Finger Canyon.  Three Finger is located along the eastern edge of the San Rafael Reef, and it’s full of bizarre diagonal rock layers and loads of petroglyphs.

The approach is as cool as the canyon itself -- the San Rafael Reef is a wall of diagonal flatiron-shaped rocks in a cacophony of color and texture.  I see it every day on my drive to work, but it's always fun to get up close and explore the nooks and crannies.

San Rafael Reef just outside Three Finger Canyon 

The petroglyphs are just inside the canyon, to your right, on blackened Navajo sandstone.  Some of the rock art is actually on the slope leading up to the overhang, so make sure you watch where you step!  Look for a small, deep alcove and some cool tafoni (that rock that erodes like swiss-cheese.)

petroglyphs

three fingers!

tafoni erosion in the sandstone 

We hiked further back into the canyon and found a bunch of crazy rocks.  There was a sketchy old mine digging into a vein of what looked like malachite and petrified wood.  Really pretty.

petrified wood with iron?

The road to Three Finger Canyon is passable for most high-clearance 2WD vehicles, but it's sort of funky to find.  Drive west along I-70 past the Hanksville exit and the San Rafael River.  Right after the river you pull off the side of interstate onto a little dirt road.  It's weird -- there's no exit or turning lane.  Drive through the underpass, and start driving south as you skirt the eastern edge of the San Rafael Reef.

New Year's in Moab

Happy New Year!  Sweetbabyjebus, 2012 was a big one.  I always get cheesy and retrospective at the end of the year, especially since December 31 is my birthday.  So as I turned 29 and 2012 drew to a close, I scanned over this blog to relive some of my favorite adventures.  This has to be one of my best years out in Utah -- we did so much stuff!  Jordan and I got engaged and I bought a mountain bike.  We floated the San Juan River, explored the Black Hills, delved into the Black Canyon of the Gunnsion, backpacked Grand Gulch, ran a half marathon, rappelled the Goblin's Lair with my sister, etc., etc., etc.  Holy shit, I'm lucky.  Looking back on everything makes me realize how fortunate I am to live in such a cool place and be able to spend so much time exploring it.  Hells yeah!

Anyway, this New Year's Eve was the perfect end to a great year.  Shasta, my best friend from back home, finally came out to visit!  We had a blast.  I got to show her Goblin Valley, Dead Horse Point, Arches, and Canyonlands.  We ran around and took a bunch of pictures.  It's always fun to experience Utah through the eyes of someone who's never been here before and see things with a fresh perspective.

We hailed in the New Year with a bunch of friends at the infamous Woody's Tavern.  Huge success!

Dead Horse Point

Dead Horse Point

Canyonlands

New Year's Eve at Woody's

New Year's day @ Arches

Crystal Geyser

On the second day of Shasta's visit, we took a quick trip to check out Crystal Geyser.  Crystal Geyser is a rare example of a cold water geyser located along the banks of the Green River.  The geyser was created by an exploration well drilled in 1935 in an attempt to locate oil.  The ground water near the geyser has loads of dissolved carbon dioxide, which can create enough pressure to force groundwater to the surface in big eruptions up to 40 meters high!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the eruption.  Crystal Geyser is pretty unpredictable -- it can go off anywhere between every hour to 24+ hours!  Even though we weren't lucky enough to see an eruption, it was still a cool place to visit.  The area surrounding the geyser is covered in thick layers of an orange travertine mineral brought up by years of eruptions.

To get to the Crystal Geyser, take the east Green River exit (exit 164). Go south, then east (left) onto the frontage road that parallels the highway. After 2.2 miles, turn south (right) and continue 3.5 more miles to a junction. Go right, and travel about 0.5 miles to the geyser.

You can also access the geyser at the very beginning of a 3-day flatwater trip through Labyrinth Canyon like we did back in 2010.

Labyrinth Canyon kayak trip in 2012