Is this a sign of the apocalypse?

While searching Al Gore's invention for information on The Chosen One's Nobel Booby Prize, I ran across an article from Time about who should be awarded the Nobel Booby Prize and it's not a carbon-based life form. And the winner is........wait for it.......Nuk-lur Weapons!

I am somewhat shocked as I thought that Time was one of those left-leaning members of the MSM who are all for nuk-lure disarmament, etc. Maybe the apocalypse is on it way.

Anyway, it's nice to read something that makes sense from Time. I wonder what they put in the bong that they normally smoke.

El-ahrairah for the Nobel Peace Prize!

Since the Chosen One has now become the Chosen One Nobel Laureate for doing absolutely nothing, The Great El-ahrairah will nominate himself for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Having lowered he bar so low as to make actions meaningless, the Nobel Committee has made qualifying for the Peace Prize (hearby known as the Nobel Booby Prize) easy as converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. Come to think of it, everyone in the world is now eligible for the Booby Prize. See, Obama's Hope and Change (tm) in action.

From what I have read/heard, the deadline for submitting nominations for the Booby Prize is 1 February. That means that Booby Prize Obama was nominated a mere 10 days after taking office. Actually, it was probably some Obama suckup who nominated him, probably many months before the actual 1 February deadline. However, I would not be at all surprized if the Booby Prize committee decided to bend the rules and nominated him themselves much past the 1 February deadline since bending the rules to acomplish their objectives is something that you would expect from liberals.

Anyway, remember you heard it here first. El-ahrairah will win the Booby Prize in 2010!

Captain Holly's Hiking Blog: The End(?)

Back in early 2003, when I was an assistant Scoutmaster and had signed up to be Hiking merit badge counselor for our troop, I went out searching for a good sturdy pair of hiking boots to help me with my new calling. I went to Kirkham's in Salt Lake City and found this pair of Vasque boots on sale for something like $90.

They have turned out to be a bargain. Every hike in this blog has been completed with these boots, along with several others about which I haven't blogged. I would guess counting all my scouting expeditions, hunting, fishing and camping trips as well as hiking I have put about 400-500 miles on them. They are beginning to wear out but other than having to replace the laces they've never failed me.

It's only fitting then that I retire them at the same time I retire my hiking blog. No, I'm not going to give up hiking, but I am going to spend less time peakbagging and more time fishing and backpacking. When I was up in the Uintas earlier this summer I saw all sorts of wonderful opportunities to fish but was unable to do so because I had left my fishing gear behind in the interest of reducing weight.

While on that trip I decided that I had done most of the hikes I wanted to do when I got back into hiking a few years ago, and now it was time to do something else with my limited vacation time. That "something else" is more backpacking and fishing in the Uintas and less hiking just to climb a peak. As a result, if this blog does continue next year it will do so as "Captain Holly's Backpacking/Fishing Blog".

Just thought you'd like to know. Thanks for reading.

Hikeblogging: Wellsville Cone, Wellsville Mountains Wilderness Area, Wasatch-Cache NF

I did this hike on September 12, 2009.

Over the past four years I've planned on doing a late-season hike to the Wellsville Mountains but there always seemed to be something that would force me to cancel. This year I was determined to do it no matter what and I finally did.


The Wellsvilles are the steep mountain chain between Cache and Box Elder counties. Supposedly they are one of the steepest in the US, rising from valley floor to top and back in less than 6 miles. I can attest that they are indeed steep, having gotten several blisters from coming back down.

The overall distance from Coldwater Canyon/Maple Ridge trailhead east of Mendon to the summit is only about 3.5 miles, but I had to tack on an extra mile because the dirt road leading up the trailhead was so rough my car couldn't make it. A 4WD with high clearance is a necessity if you plan on going.


About a half mile in you come upon lovely Coldwater Lake, which in reality is a small pond about 75 feet long. But it is picturesque. From here the trail goes right up the mountainside and you gain about 2,000 feet in elevation over the next mile or so. Fortunately there are several switchbacks which makes it relatively easy. But because the trail isn't heavily used the brush has grown over the trail in a couple of different locations.



On top the views of both Cache Valley and Box Elder county are great. The trail then follows the ridge line south until reaching the top of Wellsville Cone which is 9,356 feet. The tallest peak in the chain is just a mile to the south and is about 20 feet higher.

On top there is a makeshift memorial to someone who died earlier this year, but it doesn't specify if he died up on top or on the trail, or if he just liked hiking to this mountain.

This picture of the road leading out from the trail head shows why this hike would be great for right about now. The lower elevations of the Wellsvilles are covered with groves of aspen and maple and are beautiful when the leaves turn. I probably should have waited a couple of weeks to hike it, but if I had failed to go when I had scheduled it I probably wouldn't have gone just as in previous years.

Hikeblogging: King's Peak, High Uintas Wilderness Area

A couple of weeks ago I completed what for local "peakbaggers" is the ultimate Utah hike: Climbing to the top of King's Peak, the highest mountain in the state.



The peak is located smack-dab in the middle of the High Uintas Wilderness Area, a 470,000-acre expanse of high mountains, forests, and lakes. Several trails lead to the top but the most popular by far is the Henry's Fork trailhead.

What makes the King's Peak hike so challenging are two factors: Distance, and elevation. The trail starts at about 9,500 above sea level, reaching 13,528 feet at the top of the peak. But for almost all of the roughly 30-mile hike one is above 10,000 feet in elevation.



Usually most hikers divide the trip up into 3 or 4 days. Some do it in two, while a few hard-core souls can make to the top and back to the trailhead within a single day. I was in the average group, taking three days. The first day I hiked in about 9 miles to my campsite. The trail going in goes through forest, but then opens up into wide alpine meadows. Thankfully, the slope is fairly gentle; had it been steeper I might not have enjoyed myself as much.



Finally I found a good campsite about a mile below Gunsight Pass in a nice meadow with a beautiful view.



The next morning, I got up and started up to Gunsight Pass.



Up close from the east side, King's Peak doesn't look very impressive, just a big pile of large Precambrian metamorphic rocks. From the Yellowstone river side on the west, however, the mountain face is about 4,000 feet high.



From on top, however, you can tell you're up high. Looking down at the Yellowstone drainage.



Looking east at the Uinta River drainage.


Looking south at South King's Peak, which at 13,512 is the second-highest point in the state. For years it was thought to be the highest -- the geographic survey marker for the area is on the top -- but more accurate readings showed it was slightly lower.

Overall, this was a great, if challenging, hike. The co-worker who was going with me pulled out at the last minute, so I completed it by myself. However, because it is so popular there were several people who climbed the peak at the same time I did, so I wasn't completely alone.

Conditioning is a must for this hike. I trained hard and the extra effort showed: I was able to make it to the top without having to take more than a couple of rest stops. Definitely one of the better hikes in Utah.

Hikeblogging: Box Elder Peak, Uinta National Forest (2nd attempt)

This hike was done on July 18, 2009.

My latest hike took me to Box Elder Peak, a relatively unknown and and less crowded mountain located between the much more popular hiking areas of Little Cottonwood Canyon and Mount Timpanogos. Last year I tried it but I ended up taking a wrong turn and getting lost for a little bit.


This year I started off at the Dry Creek trail head again and took the right turn. By mid-morning I had reached the ridge separating Dry Creek basin with that of the American Fork River. There I was treated to a spectacular view of the backside of Timpanogos, which is still covered with plenty of snow (obviously a result of Global Warming).



Box Elder Peak is only a mile and a half away at this point, but there is no maintained trail to the top and you have to follow game trails or find your own route. It's not that difficult, but it is very steep; you gain roughly 1,500 feet in elevation during the last mile. In that respect I found it to be much like my Twin Peaks hike.


Up on top the view of the Utah County area is great, and unlike the view from Timpanogos you pretty much have the mountain to yourself. The lack of a maintained trail and the difficulty of the hike makes crowds less likely.


The peak is actually a high point in the rim of a large "C" shaped basin which is full of mountain goats (they were too far away to get pictures). You can see some of the intense crumpling of the rocks on the other side.



Overall, it was a nice hike, good workout, but very difficult. The distance is about 12 miles overall and you go from 5,800 feet at the trail head to 11,101 feet at the top. That's not impossible but doing it on a hot summer day and having to trail-find both up and down the peak is not the easiest thing to do. Plus, the main trail is full of large rocks that make the hike down very tiring.

I'm glad I got it done, having failed last year, but I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.

Up Next: The Grandaddy of all Utah mountains, Kings Peak.

Keep your friends close......

..... and your enemies closer. In the same way that The Chosen One chose his primary Democratic rival for the presidency, Hilary Clinton, to be his Secretary of State, he has decided to remove yet another obstacle from his re-election bid in 2012 by naming Utah governor John Huntsman to be the new ambassador to China. However, unlike other political appointments, Gov. Huntsman is very qualified to be the ambassador, having served in Taiwan as a LDS missionary and speaking the language, having already served as the ambassador to Singapore and also having performed trade missions in China. Still, after hearing rumors of how much The Chosen One feared running against a "moderate" as Gov. Huntsman for president in 2012, it seems rather "convienent" that he would more or less remove Gov. Huntsman from the playing field in 2012. Can we expect that he will tap Gov. Romney to clean up the auto industry in the near future?

How to suck up to a president

Although the election is over, the MSM are still falling over themselves to see who can brown-nose The Chosen One the best. Our latest example is this puff-piece masquerating as serious journalism.

As the article goes on to say, now that the evil BusHitler has been banished to Texas, we should all be singing "Hallelujah" that The Chosen One is here to bless us with this wisdom, since he has soooooo much experience as a constitutional scholar. If that is the case, why will he pick someone who believes that they have a good=given right to become a legislator-for-life? I guess the "constitutional scholar" in him is like everything else about The Chosen One, unknown and inexperienced.

Beating the Church with Torture Memos

The SL Tribune's resident Mormon basher, Rebecca Walsh, is at it again. Not one to let any chance to bash the LDS Church go to waste, she is now going after the church because one of it's members was part of President Bush's legal team that authorized "torture". Of course, to make the story really work, she had to bring in a member of the LDS Church who didn't go along with "torturing" Iraqi prisoners. The member in questions decided to commit suicide instead of following the Evil BusHilter down the path of "torture".

To all this, the Great El-ahrairah says"Poppycock!". First of all, a very low-level interogator in Iraq wouldn't have been required or even asked to do anything remotely resembling what the lefties are screaming about as "torture". If she commited suicide, then is was for some other reason and to bring her up her name as someone who valiantly opposed the Evil BusHitler is ridiculous. As for the other member of the church who wrote the legal justification for "torture", I say we should give him a medal. He did what any true-blooded American would have done to defend his country, as opposed to all those anti-war, anti-American war protestors.

As for the Great El-ahrairah, I'll just paraphrase a saying from the Old West; "The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist." Whatever President Bush did to defend the United States against terrorists is fine by me. I'm all for the wanton killing and "torture" of any and all terrorists. If the loony left thinks that we are "torturing" terrorists, then we should run Gitmo like a gulag and take all the Korans and prayer rugs away from the inmates, force them to listen to speed metal music and make them all eat pork.

I think that some filmmaker should make a film of just Predator surveillance video showing terrorists being blown apart in Hellfire missle strikes. It might now win any awards, but it would make liberal heads explode 'cuz remember boys and girls, whenever a terrorists dies, Baby Jesus smiles and another angel gets his wings.