How I Spent My Summer--Travelogue: Part IX

Trip #10--Wright Creek, Father and Sons Campout
Every year, the church hosts a Father and Sons Campout.  It is very important to my two youngest sons especially.  The campout is usually held in the spring, but for some scheduling reason we did it during the fall this year.  Both Rhys and Garrett asked several times during the summer if we had missed the Father and Sons Campout.

The last couple of years we have booked the camp at Wright Creek, which is owned by one of the local congregations of our church.  Wright Creek is about thirty miles away from town and cuts through Green Canyon.  The campground is peaceful, wooded and largely unimproved.  The campsites are nestled in a grove of aspen and stands of juniper.  The east wall of the canyon is dominated by hoodoos of welded tuff.  Hoodoos are erosion features, carved primarily by wind.  They tend to be wierd, otherworldly rounded boulders that don't appear to belong in the surrounding landscape.




Wright Creek



Aspen and Juniper



The Hoodoos



The moon over our campsite

I invited Nick to bring his boys and we all camped together.  Tyler couldn't come because he had to work and Connor didn't come because he is too young to be away from his mother for a night.  We arrived around 6, ate dinner and set up camp.  For some reason, and this is as it always is, my sleeping bag was over a large rock so I didn't sleep very well.  I spent most of the night adjusting and trying to find a comfortable spot on the rock.  There wasn't one.



The Gang

Nick and I got up with the sun on Saturday and went to the main gathering area and built a fire.  I like fire, and I like to build big ones.  The Bishop suggested that I build, "White Man Fires."  Not sure if I should have been insulted or complimented, but I took it as a compliment and everyone who huddled around it in the brisk morning air seemed to appreciate the warmth.

After that, I went around the campground taking pictures of pretty things while I waited for everyone else to arise.  While I was about, I saw some Oregon Grapes that were ripe.  I hadn't ever tried one, so I did this time and found it somewhat bitter, but with a surprisingly pleasant aftertaste.



Fall foliage in the mountains



Oregon grapes



Random aspen

After breakfast we struck camp and headed to the hoodoos.  One of the highlights of the Father and Son Campout at Wright Creek is to climb the hoodoos the next morning.  It doesn't require much technical climbing, but there are plenty of areas for scrambling.  Lots of crevices, caves and chimneys to explore.  It's something we enjoy doing.



Hoodoos



More hoodoos



Group shot on top of the hoodoos



Random hoodoo



The descent



The hardest part of the climb.  I had to fit through there

After the rock climbing, we split company with Nick and his boys and made our way home.  We stopped at the ruins of the Teton Dam.  The dam failed in 1976 and destroyed a goodly portion of several local communities.  The house we are living in was built in 1974 and survived the Teton Dam Flood.  Around here, time is measured in terms of "pre-flood" and "post-flood".



The boys at the dam

We had a great time.