Aprils Fools

For the last few weeks Jeff and I have wanted to get away from town and get the first northern camping trip of the year checked off our list.  As it always happens, the first weekend we'd planned didn't work out.  Luckily the second week did.  So on April first, we headed up Farmington canyon.  We left a little after dark because we had a few chores to get out of the way, but it was a short hike so we didn't mind much.  As it turns out, camp was a further up the canyon than we'd anticipated and when we began I didn't bring along all of my stuff, thinking it was a two minute hike and I could just run back to grab more.  Well it was more like a ten minute hike, which is still short, but not short enough for multiple trips.  We got to camp and soon had a small fire going.  I ran back down the trail to get the food, the whole time having that feeling of eyes staring me down, grabbed the rest of my gear, and tried to run back up, which didn't work, but at least I tried...  Eventually I did make it back up, without any mountain lion incident!  By this time Jeff had a great fire built up and I was able to eat dinner in just a few minutes.

After dinner we sat around the fire and talked for a while, having some laughs and taking in the clear night.  Eventually we decided it was getting late and we ought to think about sleep.  It was rather warm ( I was still in shorts) so we thought it'd be fun to sleep under the stars, and we did.  We crawled in our sleeping bags and took in the stars a little longer, slowly drifting off.  I woke up a few times in the night, but still had the best sleep I'd had in weeks, it was a perfect night.

I woke up early on Saturday morning and got to see an amazing sunrise, the direct sunlight didn't hit camp, but further up canyon it was blue skies with light, red clouds rolling in, absolute beauty.  I rolled over and went back to sleep.  The next time I opened my eyes, Jeff had just started the fire, what a champ.  I was able to get out of a warm sleeping bag and stand next to a warm fire.  We both had some oatmeal for breakfast and I made some nice hot apple cider as well. 

Packing up camp took about three minutes, and we hiked out, another adventure to remember!  But there was one problem with the trip, a GIANT problem...  We found so much garbage up the canyon, it was sickening.  There were countless beer and soda cans, many of them ripped apart by .22 rounds, along with targets, wrappers, and burned plastic.  We even came across live .22 rounds next to a fire pit and an old t.v. set!  It's disgusting how much trash has accumulated in the area, and it's ridiculous that no one cares enough to at least clean up after themselves.  Where anyone gets the idea that they can trash the world I don't know, and I'm happy to say I'll never know, because my friends and I will never be like that.  I've decided that I can and will do something about it.  I'm going to organize a clean up project to be done in the next few weeks.  While I may not get all of it, I'm going to get what I can, and I've got awesome friends that I know I can rely on to help me.  If anyone reading this wants to help, respond to this post and I'll let you know when it's going down.  Even if we only work for a few hours, we'll be doing something good for everyone.  I'm sure it'll just get trashed again, but if we don't try then we'll never know...