AF Canyon Report

So this weekend was a blast. Perfect weather, beautiful scenery, good company, almost no bugs (a few flies) and some fun. The weekend started off a little rough but in the end was good. We headed out Sat. morning from my house at about 8 and stopped at Smiths in AF to buy some groceries. On the way up, my favorite cooler that Joey had borrowed (not really my favorite since it wouldn't hold an ice cube any better than a stove top) went flying out of his rig while on the semi and into the river. It was gone forever along with all the groceries his family had just bought. He somehow manages to save the lid and we met at Tibble Fork Reservoir where the Forest Service set up a check station making sure everyone was legal. The only open parking spot happen to be right in front of them. With at least 10 rangers on the the rampage there was no way Joey was getting away with anything. His rockcrawler wasn't licensed since he usually just threw on his dealer license. The ranger came over and told him she was going to have to shut him down. It just so happened be the same ranger that responded to my dog bite attack at Jordanelle Reservoir a year ago. She was nice and we caught up, but would not let anything slide. Luckily they sell a permit at Maverik, of all places, for nonresidents to license there OHV's. We went ahead of them and set up camp while they went back to town to buy more groceries and a permit. After they caught up with us we went and found a geocache that we had almost giving up on until Joey climbed a 10 feet tree stump and found it.

After doing some trail riding we went back to camp and decided to try and find some more geocaches. Just before we left we had a guy come by riding a motorcycle and said he had just jumped a bear and had chased it in our direction by accident. So we jumped into Cassi's 4 runner to find the other geocache and it was starting to get dark. We drove about a mile from camp when Cassi manged to rip a sidewall wall in her tire from a log she brushed up against. I thought- alright I will just have to change this tire quick before the bear gets us, cause it was getting dark fast. So I started looking through her 4 runner only to find the spot where all the tools are to change her tire, are gone. I started to panic a little inside since we were stranded with me , Amber, Cassi, Debi, 4 kids and 3 dogs. Amber offered to run back to camp and I thought, "Hey this might be my chance. The bear would get her quick and I would be freeeeee!" Lucky for her we are on good terms so there was no way I was letting her do that. Our only other option was to drive back to camp on the rocky road, on just a rim. We got back to camp and Joey reminded me of the SOS communication from hunters ed. that 3 shots fired would have got his attention to come help us. But we made it and I made some tools the next morning to lower Cassi's spare and change her tire. The next day after Cassi and Deb had left we headed up Miller Hill to visit the grave of George Tyng (click on his name to read his story)and Joey really got a kick out of the mines and we spent some time searching for gold and found another geocache.
The next morning we drove up Mineral basin and found a couple more geocaches with a bunch of good stuff in them and made it to the base of Snowbird before turning around. Coming back down I managed to smash my hub so its not shiny anymore as well as my exhaust and put a good sized dent in my rocker panel after hitting a rock on my slider and it flexed up denting my rocker panel. We then packed up looking forward to next time where we can explore more trails and find more Geocaches.

Hey-This is Amber, and Lew forgot a few things. A. We really wished that more of you could have came with us! It was a lot of fun. B. One of the great parts of the trip was the food! We had hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream, spaghetti with garlic bread, apple cobbler, hearty oatmeal pancakes, ham, cheese omelets, and some good sandwiches.
C. Little Ruby lost her first tooth!

We hope to see more of you soon!