Beautiful, magical, breath-taking Utah. We arrived in this amazing state around mid afternoon, but again, after some exploring and stopping at a random Flying J for our first shower in 3 days- we didn't make it to our destination until about 3 in the morning. By that time it was pitch black, with thousands of stars above our heads but even with their light, we were pretty much in an everlasting void of space. We were a few hours South of Salt Lake City, where we'd stop and camp for the night. Our plan was to hit some hot springs in the middle of the mountains the next morning.
My little Ford Fiesta did pretty well considering it wasn't AWD, as we drove up a narrow canyon side to find a place to park for the night. We didn't have much visibility but to my left was Canyon wall and to our right it was pretty much a sudden drop to your death.. Haha pretty dramatic, but we were extremely high up there. It was nice knowing we weren't alone, as we spotted a bunch of deer grazing on the side of the road.
I don't have many pictures of this hike sadly. There was so much fairy tale like beauty around me that I felt it ridiculous to focus on taking pictures instead of taking in every single detail and smell of this place. Walking through it we had to scramble up extremely muddy hillsides, with views down to rivers half frozen half alive, flowing through the greenery. It literally screamed "Lord of the Rings" - and felt like I was in a separate dimension. No forest or mountain I had climbed previous to this, could be equal in comparison. The air here was SO different. So fresh and crisp, so specific to this place, so untouched by any type of pollution. I really don't know how to describe all I felt while here. There was a magic to this place that transcended everything I've ever known. It made me feel complete, as if I belonged to these lands. It completely stole my heart.
As we were hiking along, we began to hear a lot of distressed and angry barking high above us on the mountain side to our right. It would come and go, and we had no idea where specifically it was coming from as we neither heard nor saw anyone else in the distance. After some time it was still continuing in the same direction we were traveling, until I finally noticed it- something large and black running through the woods above us. I only caught glimpses of this blackness, but came to the conclusion it was the dog we kept hearing. Shortly afterwards, I saw this black animal begin to run down the mountain side towards us, and noticed then, that it was actually a black bear. I had never seen one in person, but immediately made out the shape and aspects even from a distance. It was getting closer, and all it had to do to reach us was cross a river towards the foot of the mountain we were hiking along.
We decided it would be wise to turn around and go the way we came, as we didn't know the bear's intentions or direction. We walked a bit quicker than usual, eager to make great distance between us and wherever that bear was now. I was coming around a corner when I immediately stopped dead in my tracks. I don't think my heart has ever raced so fast, but luckily, it was only a cute little hunting dog as seen in the pictures above. He had an interesting collar around his neck, that had a blinking tracking device attached to it. He followed us on our hike back, never escaping our view but always walking ahead to make sure the path was clear and safe. As we approached our campsite we ran into 3 other men who had 4 other tracking dogs with them. They told us they were trying to track down the black bear we saw, wanting to scare it off into the woods and away from any people traveling through.
In the end we weren't able to make it to the hot springs due to the black bear, but we had a beautiful and energizing early morning hike through the mountains. On our way to the car we found a preserved skull hanging from a tree, so we decided to keep it in remembrance of our adventures here. We got ourselves ready, and continued our travels into the PNW- our first stop being Portland, Oregon.
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