AdventureTaco - turbodb's build and adventures

Yeah can always come up through Beef Basin and then up to the Confluence and go out the visitor center side and skip the Squeeze. Or just go up to the confluence then back out the south again.

 

Thanks. Sounds like a plan coming from Monticello. We can be real adventurous and go out Lockhart to Chicken Corners.

 

If your going from Monticello there are a dozen ways to get to beef basin from Monticello on dirt over Cedar Mesa.

You won't have issue's on Lockhart. Mostly a long bumpy scenic drive. Super cool though.

 

Not true. Like most of the trails out there, it's getting rougher. I would not consider the north end of that trail to be a bumpy scenic drive by any means.

 

I would. Like a few ledge spots and that's it. I don't remember it being difficult at all, just long. I ran it in Igor with just sliders and 33s. Nothing else.

The canyon is the only "hard" part and its not even that hard. Plus they will be going down so will be super easy with long travel trucks.

 

Yeah-yeah!

 

Ruining Around Utah 3 - Stymied by Snow in Beef Basin
March 26, 2019.

Bobby Jo camp couldn't have provided a more pleasant place for us to sleep for the night - temperatures just right and only a light breeze to keep the air moving around within the tent.

Having hit the sack relatively early, I'd been sure to set my alarm for sunrise - hopeful for just a few clouds, I was keen to catch the needles silhouetted in the morning light.

As I climbed up onto one of the house-sized rocks around camp, it was clear that we were going to have a great day, but I wasn't sure what sunrise would bring - not many clouds in the sky to catch the light.

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Of course, the most dramatic sunrises always have a tendency to take me by surprise, and so as I sat above camp enjoying the new day, the color started creeping up above the horizon.

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Pretty soon, it was clear that I was in for quite the show - the yellows turning to orange and the oranges to pink and purple - the deep blue morning sky, a perfect backdrop for the canvas.

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Eventually the entire sky was covered in a soft light, the sun now high enough to illuminate camp below, and to start bringing out the color in some of the needles to our west.

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I hung out a while longer as I heard a few zippers and some rustling from camp - Brett and Heather (@BossFoss and @MrsFoss) who are also relatively early risers, having enjoyed the colorful display from the comfort of their cozy sleeping bags.

Eventually I decided that a bit more exploration was in order. It turns out that besides Bobby Jo camp, another site - Horsehoof camp - departs the main road less than 100 feet away, and Monte (@Blackdawg) had mentioned the night before that it had a nice overlook of the needles. Unfortunately, unlike Bobby Jo, it had very little flat ground, making it less ideal for our rigs. As I strolled along towards the site, it was clear that though we hadn't seen any wildlife beyond lizards and spiders, we weren't the only ones out here - deer tracks abundant along the road.

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When I finally reached Horsehoof, the view really was spectacular. This would definitely have been a great place to camp as a single vehicle, or in a ground tent - and a good place to remember for a future trip. On this night, a single - nearly stock - Nissan Pathfinder was parked in camp, it's occupants just starting to stir and take in their surroundings on this new day.

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Not wanting to disturb them, I turned around and headed back the way I'd come, my stomach reminding me that it was getting on breakfast time as I spotted Brent (@PcBuilder14) in the distance, his camera out and clicking away.

We all enjoyed our breakfasts in the morning sun - cereal for me, hot oatmeal for Brett and Heather, Donettes for Monte and Devin (@MissBlackdawg), and bacon and eggs for Brent. And once again, we lazied around - the pace of this trip more relaxed, and something I think we all appreciated more than we thought we would.

As we lounged around, talk eventually turned to the day's agenda - the plan was to continue west into Beef Basin, but that assumed that we'd make it through Bobby's Hole - a hill climb that the park ranger had warned us could be impassable, despite work that the local Jeep club had done before winter in order to try and slow down some of the erosion. From there, the plan was to visit a couple of Native American Indian ruins in Beef Basin before continuing south where we had a few options depending on the road conditions.

In the end, we realized that we couldn't really make any plans until we discovered what lay ahead - knowing that whatever that was, one thing was certain - we were likely to enjoy ourselves no matter what.

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On our way - and travelling a section of road that we'd traversed three times already on the west end of the park - we made (and had) a good time, Brent commenting that, "Even though we've done this section before, I feel like there's always some rock or obstacle I didn't remember."

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Soon, we were through the gate and back into BLM land - new ground in front of us and a great place to stretch our truck's legs with a bit of speed as we wound our way through the valley floor, canyon walls rising around us.

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But we couldn't stay in the valley forever - we had to get up and over the southern pass in order to enter Beef Basin - and Bobby's Hole was the gatekeeper to that stage of our adventure.

As we neared, it was clear that most of the work done by the Jeep club the fall before had been undone by nature - the trail rocky, and the water diversion mats tossed to the side. It looked <em>very</em> fun!

...and a bit interesting for a nearly-stock 3rd gen Tacoma.

Monte made his way up first - carefully picking a line over the rocks and up the ledges - Devin hopping out of the truck at one point to spot and capture one of the more exciting sections, that required him to re-evaluate his line, on camera.

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Next up was Brent. With lots of loose dirt, OEM tires, and a long wheel base, Brett and I looked on from below - curious to see how his truck handled this section of road.

As is often the case, his Tacoma impressed us all. With some spotting from Monte, he pointed his nose up and crawled up with little fanfare, the capability of his stock truck the perfect example of why I always tell people that they shouldn't wait to get out and see the sights - there's no need to "build" a rig to get through most of what you'll encounter in our vast land.

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Brett and Heather were up next, and it was fun watching the difference that - primarily different tires - can make. Clearly much happier in this terrain than the OEM tires, Brett made his way up the trail with little fanfare, a big grin on both his and Heather's faces as ledges passed beneath them.

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As Brett pulled into line at the top of the hill, I jogged back down to my truck - excited as usual when the trail requires a bit of attention. And, like the first three guys, I made it up unscathed - though I did stall once, "A little too trusting of the low gears, like Frank." Laughed Monte.

The low gears definitely are nice! ::

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Now entering Beef Basin, we were greeted with a spectacular view of the snow covered Henry Mountains in the distance - the red dirt of Canyonlands and the San Rafael Swell in the foreground. Hard to believe that we were at the base of those mountains just six months earlier, unable to cross them due to what might be the same snow we saw today!

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Noting this location as a great camp site if we were unable to make it over Bears Ears to our south, we pushed on - eager to see some ruins, our main attraction for the day.

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And, it wasn't long before we got our first glimpse. In fact, it was sooner than any of us expected - Monte just happening to spot a foundation that he hadn't marked on any of the maps.

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Mostly dilapidated, only the four corners seemed to be original - still, we wondered what it had been, and when it was originally built. We looked around for more structures - perhaps a grainery or something nearby - but found nothing. So it was back to the trucks to continue on.

As we did, Devin spotted another unmarked ruin off the side of the road, and with that, the competition was on. "Everyone needs to find one now." said Monte, laughing over the CB. "And marked sites don't count." piped in Brent.

In the end - and despite emphatic declarations of not really caring - we all spotted at least one ruin, the remainder of the day filled with stops to go explore.

Our next was a simple circular structure right next to the road. Missing any mud "mortar" between the stones, it was once again unclear if this one was original or had been rebuilt.

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But then we started getting into the good stuff. Further off the road, this ruin was barely visible - a great spot as we drove by - and was our first clue that some of these structures had been more than one story tall - though we couldn't tell exactly how the higher stories had worked, exactly.

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A few bits of pottery also present at this one.

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Across the valley, we spotted the Farm House Ruin, and headed over.

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One of the better known in the basin, a sign posted next to the ruin informed us:

This farmhouse shed more light on the multi-storied dwellings - a few wooden beams still present, which would have supported the second story floor.

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We looked around, admiring - eventually deciding that it was time to move on and find a spot for lunch - our route taking us around the perimeter of Beef Basin and into the shade of some trees at this point.

Perfect timing for some tasty sandwiches!

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Lunch consumed, we continued our counter-clockwise circumnavigation of Beef Basin. Ahead of us, we could see snow-covered mountains - our hopes that we'd be able to make it up and over, lower by the moment. We came to a stop - I thought to have a look and conversation, but soon it was clear that it was for another reason - there was a tree down over the road.

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Relatively small, Monte, Brett and I made quick work of rotating it 180° and off the road before continuing on. It wasn't long before another unmarked ruin was sighted off the road - this one the base of what appeared to be a tower.

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After hiking up the mountain side to check it out, we wondered together if this had been one in a series of towers used for some sort of communication. It's position seemingly perfect for such a use.

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It was only a couple days later when we were at a different ruin that we found out that these actually were communication towers - fire and smoke signals used to communicate messages over long distances across the basin.

Now early afternoon, we continued on from ruin site to ruin site - some marked on our track, others ones that we happened to spot off the side of the road. Our day was literally "in ruins."

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And then, just as we were putting the last couple miles of Beef Basin behind us, we spotted something special - in the distance, a quarter-mile or so off the road - our first (and so far only) cliff dwelling, situated in a large cave.

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Excited, we parked our trucks on the road and set out cross-country. When we arrived, we were not disappointed. While the dwelling was definitely falling apart - it's walls propped up at least three times to keep them from falling down - it was in by far the best condition of any that we'd found so far, the mud mortar still largely intact. And it's view - definitely not too shabby.

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Having explored our last ruin for the day, it was finally time for our attempted exit out of Beef Basin via the Manti-Lasal National Forest to the south.

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With seemingly well-maintained roads and Monte in the lead, we covered ground quickly - quickly gaining elevation, our newfound height offering stunning views all around.

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And then without much warning at all, snow on the road. Right around 7000', we were still a good 1500' below our highest point. To say it wasn't looking good for us would be an understatement!

Hopeful that this would somehow turn out to be an anomalous patch of snow, we all got out and started walking up the road. The snowy, wet, muddy, slippery road. A road that - had we decided to continue up - could have ended badly for at least one of us. As such, we made the smart call to change plans.

After all, we'd started the day knowing that this might happen.

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And so, after backing out of the snow and getting turned around, we headed back the way we'd come. Back past several ruin sites, back towards the camp we'd spotted early in the day - the one with the view of the Henry Mountains.

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Along our way, we found one more ruin and despite the fact that it was late in the day, we pulled over to take a look. As it turned out, this was another multi-story dwelling - one that was likely another in the series of communication towers - and a very cool way to put a cap on our tour of Beef Basin's ruins.

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It was nearly 7:00pm when we finally arrived at camp. We were happy to get settled, but a little hesitant given the fact that the site was relatively exposed - if there was significant wind during the night, we would be subjected to it's full force. And the weather had been getting a bit more overcast over the course of the day.

But we were tired, and we decided to gamble on the fact that it'd stay relatively calm for the next 15 hours.

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As we all setup our tents, and as the fire ring was being built, there was suddenly a bit of a commotion. Turns out a lizard was hiding in the fire ring rocks. Lucky that we'd found it before lighting the fire, there was a lot of looking and not a lot of catching going on - something I was having none of.

So I headed over and - I think to everyone's surprise - picked it up. Flipping it over, identification was easy - this was a blue-belly. The strange thing was that it was very low energy - perhaps due to the temperature?

Pretty quickly, Heather wanted to hold it - sure that it would impress her little cousins So, we made the transfer. And boy, the smile on her face!

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The rest of the evening proceeded as the previous had. We made and ate dinner - this time as the light waned, a little later than we were used to, but still before pitch dark.

And then, as the last of the color left the sky, we gathered around the camp fire and once again enjoyed each other's company - discussions of the day's adventures and our new plans for the following day the most pressing topic we covered.

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With our direct route south unavailable, we knew it'd take a day or more for us to reroute around - we'd have to retrace all of our steps through The Needles and Elephant Hill - and that reroute would also include a lot of pavement as we made our way south.

Not ideal, but just part of the adventure.

Knowing we had to get a reasonably early start, we decided that a reasonably early bed time was prudent (and I think we all secretly appreciated it) and it was well before midnight when we all peeled off to our tents.

As I dozed off, the moon rising in the east, I hoped the weather would hold and the forecast we'd heard on the ham radio would not come to pass. None of us needed 25mph winds and a chance of snow...

 

think a few photos got knocked out of order there buddy but good times!

 

thx, fixed.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9We2XsVZfc

Great write up Awesome pics You should get published

 

Is it just me, or does this campsite look very familiar @Wishbone Runner @teamhypoxia

 

The one on the bottom looks very familiar but the top one seems to be missing significant amounts of terrain

 

I'm probably wrong, but was thinking it might be the same spot, although if so the pictures are taken in the exact opposite directions.

 

My photo was taken looking southwest.

 

Could be, were there pumas hanging nearby? That would be the dead give away.

 

I used to have them on the side too, but time did it's thing and I took them off. Back one is starting to peel as well

 

Think its a different spot. Ours was on the edge of a small cliff.

And I'd figure you'd do what I did and rebuild the freaking shit fire ring that was there. So wouldn't think you'd been there haha

 

Definitely didn't see a plunge cut bench in the area

 

Ruining Around Utah 4 - Over-Under & Saving a Jeep
March 27, 2019.

Unlike basically every other night where wind and snow were possible in the forecast, this night turned out to be just as pleasant as the last , and when my alarm went off for sunrise, I was well-rested and ready to see what the day had in store.

I wasn't disappointed.

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And, I was lucky. After snapping a few photos around camp, a high cloud cover began to develop, and I took the cue to climb back into bed for a couple more hours of shut-eye. That turned out to be a great thing since - as we all got up, had breakfast, and got ready to go - the cloud cover was already burning off, another day of blue sky on order.

Just as we were about to go, the shadow of a contrail catching our eye.

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Back in our trucks and our path to the south blocked, we headed east - back the way we'd come - through Bobby's Hole and towards Elephant Hill. We had quite a few miles to cover, but we are all looking forward to it - the landscape something we could take in again and again.

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Back in Canyonlands, we made good time, knowing that we had a lot of ground to cover before we'd see new trail - the second half of Elephant Hill, the only bit we hadn't run when we came in a few days earlier. Still, as approached the needles, we did pause to take a quick photo here and there.

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And of course, whenever we can, we do our best to be good stewards of the environment - Monte (@Blackdawg) hopping out and carefully navigating around the desert crust to pick up a stray Mylar balloon.

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A seemingly small action - we'd all picked up stray trash on this trip - it turned out that we were all in for a surprise. We'll never know if it was his or Devin's (@MissBlackdawg) idea, but the strangest voice came over the CB a minute or so later. It was high-pitched and squeaky, and we could tell that Monte was as surprised as the rest of us when he informed us, "This helium is really stale. It tastes terrible. What was I thinking?"

LOL. I found myself wondering what he was planning to say before sucking in that stale air!

A good laugh all around, we continued on - eventually reaching SOB Hill - the only place where there'd been any paint left on the trail so far. Not sure if going up would be harder than coming down, I jogged up to capture each of our attempts at the ledge-y turn.

Monte was up first, making his way through with a bit of tire spin - the lack of lockers not causing him any real trouble.

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Brett and Heather (@BossFoss, @MrsFoss) were up next - a 3-point turn and strategic tire positioning making quick work of the situation.

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Brent (@PcBuilder14) followed suit - his longer 3rd gen needing a couple more pivots to clear the corner, but once again performing amazingly well for a stock Tacoma. Everyone should really take note as to how capable this truck is, right out of the showroom.

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I brought up the rear, taking a similar line to Brett, with a similar result. The truck performed admirably, though tight turns like this make it obvious that I need to do something with the placement of the remote resis for the new ADS coilovers - the 4Runner wheels bringing the tires inboard enough that they rub when I'm near full lock.

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And with that, we sped off - a nice little stretch of smooth, dusty trail leading us towards the Confluence Overlook and our turn back towards Elephant Hill.

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Now closer to that trail, someone - I don't recall who - asked why the trail was called Elephant Hill. None of us knew, but it got us all thinking - is there some elephant we should be seeing in the needles or hoodoos around us?

Not long after, Devin spotted this guy. Some internet research upon my return suggested that the trail is named either for the initial climb and descent or for a series of three elephants that can be seen in rock formations with the right lighting conditions, but I think this rock formation is quite clearly a better icon - a clearer elephant head+truck would be harder to find.

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Our last step before new ground was to head down the Silver Steps one more time. This is a fun section of trial that makes it's way over the slickrock and gets the trucks a little flexy-twisty. In fact, while I found this entire trail to be fun - and while there are definitely more challenging parts - I think this is the most enjoyable part. Plus, the views in front of you while you're there...

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And with that, we made the right-hand turn away from the Confluence Overlook, and onto the one-way return section of Elephant Hill - this section allowing us to avoid a traffic jam at the The Squeeze.

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Just as we started this section of trail, we heard Monte over the CB, "We've got a Jeep up ahead." It was obviously going the same direction we were, but it was going slow. A family of four, they had two occupants out of the Jeep spotting it over most of the trail - the driver taking it slow and steady.

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They eventually found a place to pull over and we cruised by - our trucks making quick work of the terrain - and as we passed, we each stopped to chat with them for 30 seconds or so - just to say hi and thanks, and encourage them in their adventure. Turns out that they were in a rental Jeep, and here for the dad's birthday - the whole off-road experience, his birthday present!

Now that's cool.

As we left them to learn together and make their way along after us, I think we were all pretty sure that we'd stay far enough in front of them that we wouldn't see them the rest of the day. It's a good thing we didn't take a bet on that!

It wasn't long before we neared the end of the one-way section of trail, a climb up and out of the canyon the last bit before reaching the up-and-over section of trail that would spit us out at the parking lot.

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Of course, that up-and-over section was also the section that contained the switchbacks that require a forward - backward - forward approach given the tightness of the turns, and it was definitely a strange experience to see another truck backing up the trail in front of me as I was making my way up forward.

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Of course, we all made it up reasonably quickly - the trail very steep, but with reasonably good grip for the rubber under our trucks. As we did, who did we see coming up the trail behind us?

Yep, you guessed it! Rental Jeep Family!

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Interested to see what would happen and make sure everything was OK, we decided to hang out while they navigated this section of trail - and it was a good thing that we did. Naturally, they started up the switchbacks forward...but then didn't pull forward at the first turn in order to back up the middle climb.

Yelling from their fan club (us) ensued - and after assuring them that we were in fact serious that they needed to back up one of the switchbacks - they were able to make their way up to the middle pad of the hill, the dad and daughter in the truck, the mom and son spotting.

But then, they reached the steep spot. The line here wasn't obvious - what looked right was in fact light in the traction department - and after several attempts and much wheel spin, it was clear that they were going to need a bit of help.

First, we suggested locking the rear differential - that would have solved everything. Unfortunately, neither they nor we had any idea where the switch to complete that task was - all of us reasonably oblivious to the internals of a modern Jeep. Instead, Monte helped spot the dad through a different line, and despite being a bit uncomfortable with the line (because it seemed wrong to someone without much experience), it popped the Jeep right up the trail.

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To say the family was thankful would have been an understatement. For all of us, I think it was a nice feeling - being out here, helping a family that was new to off-roading, seeing them have a great time learning and enjoying the outdoors.

We bid farewell once again, wishing them a great rest of their trip and - after a short wait for an unprepared Ford Excursion to turn around and beeline back to 2WD land on it's way up the first hill - headed down to the parking lot and ultimately the visitor center where we prepped our rigs for the miles of pavement we had ahead.

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All aired up, we got on the road and headed south - the time just after 1:00pm. Only one of us had been smart enough to make a sandwich while we had a few minutes of downtime and access to the beds of our trucks, and it wasn't me - though I was assured over the radio that we'd stop to eat somewhere around Blanding.

It was 2:15pm by the time we reached Blanding, and pulled into the local gas station to feed our trucks. Now hungry, I should have followed Heather's earlier example and simply made a sandwich while the rest of the crew restocked at the convenience store, but my brain must have been low on blood sugar because by the time I realized that's what I should have done, we were back on the road and headed towards dirt.

That transition though afforded me an opening. As we aired down, I quickly grabbed a few snacks and inhaled them - happy for the tire deflators I use, which not only seem to be fast compared to the other solutions I've seen, but also allow me to be reasonably inattentive while my tires reach their desired pressure.

With 17psi in our tires, we were now enjoying a plusher ride as we made our way north - back into the mountains - towards Over-Under Ruin, and eventually towards Bears Ears, where we hoped to camp for the night. We sped along, the road in good shape at this point - only a couple muddy water crossings slowing our pace.

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Normally for me, these would have been nothing but great fun, but I'd noticed on the first day of the trip that my passenger side CV boot had finally torn - just like the driver side had on our previous trip to Anza-Borrego. So far, we'd stayed out of water - a good thing - but there was no avoiding it here. I took it slow - hoping there was still enough grease in the joint to prevent too much water intrusion - and carried on. After-all, that'd seemed to have worked the last time, and at least I was familiar with the fix!

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It was 4:00pm when we reached the trailhead for Over-Under Ruin. "This one's really short." announced Monte - which was true, though he forgot to mention the 700-foot elevation drop in the half-mile or so to the site! Typical.

We weren't turning back, so we made our way down - the name of the site appropriate for what we saw as we crested the final ridge before dropping down into the canyon.

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These two caves part of a larger series of ruins built into the cliff-side, apparently used by Native Americans as hunting and ceremonial dwellings. We quickly scampered up the first cave we came to - excited to see what it had in store.

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The cave housed the ruin of a granary, several pictographs and petroglyphs, and a few shards of ancient pottery. And, while not in amazing shape, these were definitely in better shape than those we'd seen in Beef Basin the day before so we spent some time poking around and checking everything out thoroughly.

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And then, we had a choice to make - up-canyon to Over-Under, or down-canyon to another cave with more ruins? Full of anticipation for Over-Under, we chose up-canyon, Brett and Heather watching from above as we followed the faint trail to the caves.

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Only the "under" ruin of the Over-Under is accessible today, and we spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how access had originally been gained to the"over." In the end, we decided that perhaps a rope ladder had been the main meas of access, and we made a mental note to bring our own 75' extension ladder the next time we were in the area.

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We poked our head in and around the ruin for a while longer, wondering what each of the small rooms had been used for - each of them seemingly only large enough for a child - and we got our first look at a well-preserved "second story." We'd seen the wooden beams that supported this story in Beef Basin the day before, but here in the cave, things were much better preserved. On the beams, layers of leaves and bark formed the base of the floor - keeping it from falling down on the occupants below. Then, more rocks and mud on top of that created a solid floor. Solid construction that's sort-of lasted hundreds of years.

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Cognizant of the time - and the fact that we had a "short" 700' climb back to our trucks - we decided that we'd better get going, deciding to skip the other caves - something that would nag at us later - what if that last cave had been the coolest?!

By the time we got back it was nearly 5:30pm and we had some decisions to make. The plan had been to visit another ruin site - Lewis Lodge - and then camp somewhere around Bears Ears - but with only a couple hours of light left, we weren't sure we were going to make it.

In retrospect, the light shouldn't have been our main concern - the view telling us that perhaps something else would cut our plans short.

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Oblivious to the obvious, we forged ahead - the trail continuing up into the mountains, our speed high to make the best time we could. For some reason, I was leading at this point - I think perhaps that Monte's tablet had stopped working or something - and pretty soon it became clear that our time crunch wasn't going to be due to visiting another ruin. It was going to be due to having to backtrack again, our route through the Manti-Lasal Forest to Bears Ears blocked once again by snow.

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Our evaluation here was quick, the conclusion the same as the previous day - with another 1500' of elevation to gain - and slippery, snow-covered mud on the road - there was no way that this was happening. So we got the trucks flipped around and high-tailed it back the way we'd come - all the way to Blanding, and back onto the highway.

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Having decided not to air back up, our hour-or-so drive into a headwind towards Natural Bridges National Monument made me realize how much the truck really does prefer 40psi over 17psi when travelling at speeds over about 35mph - it was a slog! We stopped only once along the way at a road-side "ruin," it's construction amazingly modern - colored concrete between the stones, bits of metal embedded into the floors.

"Reinforced ruins." Made us all glad that we'd gotten to see the real thing several times already, as we wondered how many people saw these and nothing else.

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As sun got lower on the horizon, we decided it was time to find camp. Luckily for us, Monte and I had been here just a few months earlier and knew of a couple roads with dispersed camping that we could take advantage of. Of course, our first choice was already taken, but after splitting up and searching around, we made our way to a perfectly nice spot - Bears Ears rising above us in the distance.

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Positioned in camp, we got everything deployed and dinners made in our now-normal timely fashion, the sky going through it's magical transition above us.

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Monte had a fire going in no time, and as we all gathered around to eat what we'd prepared, we marveled at what we'd seen and commiserated about what we'd missed - snow having kept us from what was supposed to be one of the coolest ruins on the trip - Lewis Lodge. Oh well, just another reason to return!

Conversation soon turned to our plans for the next day - our last full day together - and one where we planned to do something we'd wanted to do the last time we were in this area - hike down into Natural Bridges National Monument to get up close and personal with some of the spectacular geology it had to share.

It was going to be another long hike - 8 miles if we believed our "guide." And for some reason we did, despite the evidence to the contrary on the trip so far, none of us quick enough to put two and two together - perhaps the sunset distracting us from what should have been obvious...

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Not that it would have mattered - we loved the adventure. We sat around the camp fire enjoying each others company and eyeing Brent's smores for a couple hours before finally calling it a night, excited to see what the next day would bring, not knowing that it would be more than we could have ever expected.

 

Hey, I offered multiple times!