Necessary Outing

Monday dawned bright and early.  My bedroom window faces east and I love waking up to the sun streaming through my window as it peaks its way over the Confusion Range into Snake Valley.  Nothing better than having your body in rhythm with the earth and the sun. 

In the past forty-eight hours there have been some significant occurrences that have caused a lot of stress for me.  The catalyst for this was thrown into the equation Sunday night and Monday, a day  hike (and I mean all day) was in order.  I was up at 6:30 with the sun, breakfast made, day-pack packed, and nothing was going to stop me.  I grabbed my new trekking poles for their first real voyage and was off. 

I walked from my house, down an old Forest Service access road, to Baker Creek Rd.  I then walked up the road to the Baker Creek Trailhead.  From there, I headed up the South Fork Baker Trail, connected with the Timber Creek, back to the trailhead, then back down Baker Creek Rd and the access road for a nice 13-ish mile loop.  The lighter red is from my house to the trailhead, the darker red are the trails I took.

 

The following are some pictures from the trail.  Hooray for getting out and exploring.  Heading up the road, looking down the Baker Creek drainage.  That's the Mt. Moriah wilderness area peaking up in the distance.

It was freezing.  Literally.  I ran into quite a few patches of snow.  When I started the sun was up and the wind was blowing off the cloud cover the lower you were in the valley.  The higher up I went the colder it got.  The wind at one point was absolutely raw.  My hands still haven't forgiven me.

This was at the first intersection.  I could either go north to the Baker Lake trail or continue towards Timber Creek.  There's still snow and it's cold so it's not that green at this elevation yet. Everything still has that smashed all winter by snow look.

This was the second intersection at South Fork and Timber Creek.  There is this long valley that swoops downward from east to west, only to have Pyramid Peak rise from it.  Spectacular!  My hands were so frozen at this point I was amazed my joints worked to remove my camera from my bag, let alone depress my finger to take the picture.

I had a big mug of hot chocolate when I got home and took a very satisfying nap.  While the catalyst is still working its magic and rapidly accelerating the stressful equation, brief reprieves such as this hike (and my May Ensign) help a lot.  It's good to be back in the basin!