Weekend Camping Trip

Friday evening we drove up Ogden Canyon, through Huntsville, and on to the "South Fork" campground to spend the night. South Fork is only one of a half a dozen national park campgrounds nestled within two and a half miles of each other in the canyon beyond Huntsville. The popularity of the area is understandable given its scenic canyon views, access to the creek running through the campgrounds, and proximity to nearby reservoirs.

To our dismay, a trailer was parked in our reserved campsite. Since no one was there and because he had no way of doing anything else about it, the camp host had us choose a different available campsite and gave us a couple free bundles of firewood for the hassle. We ended up in a larger double campsite near the creek. After setting up our stuff, we realized we had forgotten to bring the bread we needed for breakfast the next morning. So Nate drove back down to Huntsville while I tended the fire and monitored our food in the dutch oven.

While I waited for Nate to return, I noticed this young robin in the shrubbery by our campsite. His parents were watching over him and periodically flying in to feed him. It was fun to watch.

After Nate returned, we ate dinner. We had pizza baked in our dutch oven with carrot sticks and pineapple on the side. For dessert we had s'mores. Actually, we didn't start out with enough coals on the dutch oven, so our pizza took a very long time to cook. Since we were hungry and were running out of time, we ate our s'mores while our pizza was still baking.

Unfortunately, we slept pretty poorly that night. This was in part because we forgot to bring allergy medicine with us, and Nate's allergies became maddening. They kept him awake almost the whole night, and Nate's discomfort and movement kept me awake most of the night as well. As the first glow of the sun began to softly brighten the sky, and as the birds began to sing their morning duets, we somehow finally managed to drop off into a more settled sleep sometime between five and six. Then, since we were so tired, we ended up sleeping in longer than we had hoped and got a late start our our morning plans.









We made French toast for breakfast before picking up camp and heading further up the canyon to Causey Reservoir for our hike.

Causey Reservoir's shape is defined by the narrow valleys its water fills. It has three distinct arms: a north arm, an east arm, and a shorter south arm. We took the "Skull Crack Trail" which goes up along the east side of the south arm and then follows the east arm to its tip. It was a short easy trail that would be great for a beginner or inexperienced hiker (although I am not sure exactly how long it is since everything I have looked up about it lists a different length varying from 3.2 miles to 5.2 miles round trip).



















It was a scenic trail though and we obviously hit it while wildflowers in the area were in full bloom. We saw buckwheat, yarrow, arrow-leaf balsamroot, wild flax, Grey's desert parsely, prairie lupine, sticky geranium, steppe sweetpea, prairie star flower, bitterbrush, and many other flowers in bloom.


This picture was taken at the end of the trail looking back up into the reservoir. It was a beautiful spot, so we took a short break here before heading back. Near the waters edge there was a wet patch of ground that was very popular among the butterflies, as seen below.


So overall, despite some setbacks, we had a good time and enjoyed the trip, especially the scenery.