White Pine Lake

This weekend I escaped to White Pine Lake in the mountains east of Logan. I think I needed this trip more than I needed the City of Rocks trip last weekend. I know I came back a lot more invigorated.
I'd only been to the lake once. It sits in a bowl about four miles north of Tony Grove Lake, and about 6 miles west of the main highway in Logan Canyon. Two mountains sit directly to the north (Mt. Gog) and south (Mt. Magog) of the lake, connected by an arc-shaped band of cliffs. Here's what the area looks like from Google Earth:

I left the parking lot at Tony Grove lake at about 6:45 a.m. yesterday, and arrived at the lake at about 8:38 a.m. I spent the day fishing, and totally getting skunked, napping, meditating, and photographing and just enjoying the gorgeous place I was in.
There were a lot more people and campsites there than I had thought there were, and hoped there would be (people have to camp in established camp sites at the lake). For much of the day yesterday I had to deal with hearing people in the campsite next to me shout at their dog, and other people who didn't know how to build a proper fire, and then put someone's fire out who left it smoldering and smoking. But after about 2 or 3, there were only 3 other groups beside myself, and it got a lot quieter and I was able to enjoy some silence. Once the light got half way decent I got my camera out and made some photographs:

I have to wonder if these cliffs have ever been climbed. There were about four or five real nice looking lines, with a lot of variety in the moves to get up the rock. The photograph doesn't really do them justice, but I had to photograph them anyways.

Mt Magog:

I like to photograph my camp sites when I'm out on the trail, and this time I thought it would be fun to make a self portrait out of it:

All in all, it was a great 29 hours in the woods that I wish hadn't had to end.

City of Rocks

This weekend I went to the City of Rocks and met up with my friend Renee for some rock climbing.
It was a trip 7 or so years ago to photograph in the City that got me into climbing in the first place. Now, 7 years later, I finally have come full circle. Though I only topped out 2 of the 3 climbs I went up, it was a really good trip. One that I needed, for many reasons which I won't bore you with here. This trip marked many firsts in my climbing experience: my first time really climbing on granite (I played around on a few boulders in Little Cottonwood Canyon when I lived in Salt Lake), my first crack climb, my first real liebacks, my first route that was more than 40 feet high, and my time playing around with placing trad gear (I have Renee and a guy in our group to thank for almost all of those achievements). It was an exhausting but highly rewarding trip, both physically, and photographically. Actually, the photographing was exhausting, but it was pretty successful. It'd been about 6 years since my last trip to the City, so it was good to be back. The geologic features eroded into the granite always amaze me.

This is probably my most favorite rock in the City, with perhaps one of the best looking lines to climb. I didn't get to climb that route this trip, but someday I'll climb it.