The Hall Family » Utah

Unwinding At Grandaddy

Jayce — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:47:27 +0000

I live in Utah. I love camping. With that said, some people find it strange that until this weekend, I’d never been to the Uintahs. Of course, I didn’t grow up here, and just now have had the chance to really get out a bit more. So this weekend my neighbor and I headed out to the Uintah mountains to the Grandaddy Basin.

The hike out, over Hades Pass, was 4 miles, and I had been told quite difficult. Well, not really. Was a lot easier than expected, which let us spend a bit of extra time finding a great camping spot. We had heard the area was a popular spot, so we were a bit worried about seeing too many people, especially on a holiday weekend. Instead we were pleased to have only about 4 groups total in the area, which led to an overall very private weekend.

The Grandaddy basin is quite a nice area. After leaving the oppressive Utah summer heat it felt great to be surrounded by trees, and numerous lakes and ponds. Spending time wandering in the forests I couldn’t help but keep finding nice water pools and meadows. Nights were brisk, another enjoyable thing, but the fishing was extremely slow for various reasons.

As a geek, it’s extremely nice to be able to completely just get away, to spend a weekend scrounging around in the dirt, and just having fun. I’ll definitely be heading back to this area, and hopefully bringing my family as the kids get a little older. There are lots of fish (normally biting), lots of big and tiny lakes, short hikes, easy distance. It’s just a great location.

Grandaddy Lake Photos
Grandaddy Lake Picasa Gallery

And now a word from our sponsors

Jayce — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:05:15 +0000

The following message just came in from one of my teams’ sponsors, Special Ops Paintball (Spec Ops). This company has done a lot for paintball in general, and huge amounts for the sport in Utah.

Several months ago, Spec Ops bought land in Tooele County that it
planned to use as a commercial paintball field. The Spec Ops property
is over seven hundred (700) acres, and Spec Ops is exploring the
possibility of developing a destination paintball field that would be
the finest scenario paintball field west of the Mississippi.
Unfortunately, the neighbors have petitioned Tooele County to ban ALL
paintball fields unless they are located in commercially zoned areas.
If the proposed amendment passes, not only will it scuttle Spec Ops
plans for the existing land, but it might just keep all paintball
fields out of Tooele County.

The Tooele County Commission is holding a public hearing on the
proposed amendment to limit paintball in Tooele County. The public
hearing will be held on August 21, 2007 at 3:00 p.m. in the City of
Tooele at 47 South Main Street. This is your chance to be heard by the
Tooele County Commissioners, the very people that will vote on whether
or not to limit your access to paintball. Since it is a public hearing,
anyone can attend the meeting and tell the Tooele County Commission
just what they think about limited access to paintball fields. So if
you’d like to keep paintball thriving here in Utah, we suggest that
you turn up at the public hearing and voice your support.

We hope to see you there!

Special Ops Paintball

This news is just scary. A similar thing happened a couple of years ago in Saratoga Springs, when city commissioners rezoned the land just to shut down Showdown, Pegleg paintball’s field. With that action they forced a up-and-coming business to give up major assets, and they also shut down Utah Valley’s only paintball field. Will Tooele join with other cities such as Draper to shut down paintball, either simply as recreation, or as a business? Face it people, paintball is now the second largest “extreme” sport in the nation, it’s big business. The only reason I’ve ever been to Tooele is for paintball. I’ve seen mock-ups of some of the plans for the Tooele field, and believe me, they are telling the truth about it being the finest scenario field around. Given the chance to build this field, people truly will come not only from across the state, but absolutely the country, just to play this field. Don’t be idiots Tooele, this would be a huge boon to your city and county. Don’t mess this up.

Utah Open Source Discounts

Jayce — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:20:43 +0000

Yes, the registration is now running on the Utah Open Source Conference. This is a great opportunity to learn and network with all the Utah area Business and Technology folks, so make sure you sign up.

If you are interested in going, and a member of the Provo Linux Users Group, then contact me (jason) at plug.org to receive your discount code. And yes, it’s a *really* good deal with the code.

A Jaunt up Timp

Jayce — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 04:41:21 +0000

So last week I got a call asking for some help with our scouts. Apparently the adults talked the older boys into hiking up Timp. Not being one to turn down an opportunity to camp, I jumped on the chance.

True to form the kids wound up deciding not to camp as my neighbor and I were ready to go. But that wouldn’t stop us. So Jamison and I headed up AF canyon and just kept driving until we found a spot to pitch our tents and sack out for the night. A few minutes of scrounging turned up plenty of firewood, and we had quite the enjoyable evening.

The next morning we quickly packed up, and headed to the Timpooneke trailhead. Following the example from the day before, what was supposed to be a large group that they needed help with turned out to be only 2 kids, which left us oh so dissapointed .

For anybody who hasn’t hiked the Timpooneke, It’s quite a bear. At
a little over 6 miles, with some amazing elevation, it is not a simple
hike. Add to that the remnants of our late snowstorms, and it was a
very strenuous journey. But the views were to die for, and the water
was running over the various falls at full height.

The sad thing is, after reaching the top, and looking out towards my house, we saw the large fire out at Cedar Fort (the town just past us). Then after getting back, we learned of an 11-year old boy who was killed that night on the same trail, by a black bear. For us however, the day was fun, and a great workout. The views were excellent, and it was fun to be the ‘old guy’ dragging a couple of priest-aged kids up the mountain.

Pictures are available via my Timp Hike Gallery or by clicking on the embedded picasaweb slideshow (only has highlights)