Cala Boquer

We still have lots of details to add from our New Years trip through Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands- but in the meantime, I wanted to share a little hike we did yesterday! 

We took the bus about an hour North to Port de Pollenca.  We wandered around until we found the path to Cala Boquer.  The hike was only 2.9 Kilometers and pretty flat.  At the end of it was our own private beach!  It was cloudy so the blue in the sea didn't quite "pop" like it would on a sunny day- but we look forward to going back on a warmer/sunnier day!

 Chilling a little champagne in the cool water

 A very Spanish lunch

 

 A goat!

 

Happy February!

XO, Kelly & Will

Pollenca - Part I

Friday night we went to Pollenca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollença) a town at the north end of the island.  After this guy read the bus schedule wrong, we made it into town around 7pm.  We had booked a cheap hotel in the center of town.  Turns out, hotel rates drop significantly in November and we had this view overlooking Placa Mayor, the main square in the town.

 The next morning we explored around the town and met our roommates, Breck & Aleena, who had taken the bus from Palma that morning.

We went to hike this...

Which looks like this...

And involves lots of these...

At the top of the 900' climb is a small castle/church,

that has beautiful views of the surrounding hills and Mediterranean Sea.

There was a full picnic area on the back (north) side that had even better views of Port de Pollenca, the Med, and the Cap de Formentor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_de_Formentor).

Hiking Coal Creek

Wednesday morning Matt and I headed over to the Grand Mesa for a little bit of hiking on the Coal Creek Trail.

 The sun coming up at the trailhead.

The hike follows Coal Creek toward the top of the Mesa.  It is a very well maintained trail even with some areas that still had 6" of snow on the ground.  The trail also meanders through part of two different fires that occurred in the past three years.

 Matt is a forest firefighter, that's how I know these things.

We turned around after a couple miles and a bunch of climbing at the first place where the trail crossed Coal Creek.  There was a nice bridge and some huge Ponderosa Pines.

 See Matt at the base of the Pondo?

The view of the half-frozen Coal Creek from the bridge.

The climbing involved was a bit of a challenge but the trail is very well maintained and the views are totally worth it.  We also saw a couple elk and several deer out there.  Not bad for a couple hours on the trail.

Thursday Hike at Pollack Bench

Drunk on my successfull trip out to Rustler's Loop (twice!) at Kokopelli, I decided to stop on my way home and do a little hike.  It may have ended up being a tad longer than I meant for it to be though.

Otto's Trail

Saturday morning we went for a short little hike on Otto's Trail on the Monument.

 Kelly with spectacular use of the timer feature. 

Hiking Flume Canyon

Finishing up the Canyonlands Trip

 Done!

After finishing up our trip we headed into Moab and got burgers (which had been the main topoc of conversation for the second half of the trip) at the Moab Brewery.  Instead of heading home we decided we might as well camp in Moab another night. 

 It turns out finding a campsite at 6:30 on a Saturday night is pretty hard, but we eventually found an open site at Hittle Bottom with great views of Castle Valley and the La Sal mountains.

 Utah beer.

 Im tired.

 Sunset over Castle Valley.

Sunrise over Castle Valley.

Backpacking in Canyonlands NP - Day 1

 Kelly and Jen took Friday off work and we headed out of stormy Grand Junction down to Moab, Utah.  Our initial plan had been to hike Rattlesnake Arch here in town but that was scrubbed due to the weather.  We were going to hike around Upheaval Dome in Canyonlands, but that was scratched because there were no more backcountry passes available there.  So, we ended up hiking the Lathrop (Lay-throp) Trail down to the Colorado River.  Now, when we initaially planned to do the trip to Rattlesnake Arch, we decided that would be a good trip since its just 14 miles roundtrip and this was Jen and Eddies first backpacking trip.  Lathrop, on the other hand, is 22+ miles with 2700ish feet of elevation.  Surprise!!

 Heading out under cloudy skies.  It really wasn't too bad, the clouds kept it cool and we only got a drizzle of rain.  The first 2-3 miles of the trip was pretty flat and easy and everyone was feeling good.  Then...



We were headed down to the bend in the river down there, waaaay down there.

The big elevation change was a drop of over 1200 feet over 2 miles.  The trail was cut into a talus/scree/debris pile on the side of the mesa.

Still smiling!  We started up at the top of the mesa behind them, and still had 4 more miles to go.

After close to five hours we finally made it down to the river, set up camp, and had a great dinner of pita pizzas (thanks camp cook Kelly!).