You ever just go to a place with one thing in mind, but somewhere along the way an unknown force compels you to continue putting one foot in front of the other and just keep on trucking?
Then let’s talk about one of my favorite areas to do some hiking in the Uintas. Loosely I’ve heard it referred to as the “Clyde Lake basin” or the “Divide Lake Basin” but essentially, it is a great ~5.75 mile round trip that brings you by 9 fish-able lakes with the option to hit about 8 more (some more fish-able than others), with backdrops being set by Mount Watson, “the Notch” and Bald Mountain.
Fishing basically consists of brook trout, but you will come across Rainbows, and even some Tiger and Brown trout depending on which lake you are at.
Shade graces the trails for a good portion of the time, an important aspect on those hot summer days, and there are more than enough “oh wow” spots to choose from for an impromptu watering stop, or, to just sort of take it all in.
How to get there:
Drive from Kamas up the Mirror Lake Highway, at mile marker #26, prepare to turn left for the Crystal Lake Trailhead.
From Crystal Lake Trailhead, take the Notch Mountain Trail to Wall Lake. This trail is next to the horse ramp in the parking area.
Start easy, head towards Wall Lake – after about a mile of nice easy rolling hills you will come across this larger Uinta lake (note, the fishing can be spotty due to it’s ease of access).
Look North from the lake, the depression in the mountains you see is called, The Notch. Continue on the trail towards The Notch, slowly climbing your way towards it. The trail will pass by a few unnamed lakes, giving you some switchbacks which lead to a cliff face , then bringing you to the feet of Hope Lake (roughly 2 miles in).
At about the 3 mile mark you arrive at The Notch. As soon as you arrive, head left along the mountain shelf, watching for cairns to guide you down to Clyde Lake. You can spot Clyde Lake to the West of said shelf with Mount Watson as it’s backdrop.
Once at Clyde, you may choose to go for a swim on a warm day – there are some great large flat rocks to lie on and dry off (or run down into the water). This nice basin also contains the three Divide Lakes (in high mosquito season you may want to skip checking them out as it’s a bit swampy and they can get thick and “buggy”)
After Clyde Lake the trail will turn south towards the next set of lakes: Watson, Linear, Petite and Cliff. Keep an eye out for cairns marking the way as at varying times of the year the trail may become muddled, or covered with some snow.
Once at Cliff lake, the trail will wind down towards Crystal Lake, and then back into the parking lot.
Some basics for you to know… Difficulty: Moderate Round-trip: 5.75 miles Hiking time: 4 to 5 hours Elevation gain: 903 ft.
Brief synopsis… Valhalla Rising is the story of a mute Norse warrior, enslaved by the clans of the Highlands*, he then finds his freedom and begins an odyssey of epic proportion, in the end, finding some light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
Perhaps I was under the wrong impression when I assumed this movie would be about Vikings while depicting large format battle scenes, I think I blame the printed materials I first came across: Well, I hope you can see why originally I thought there may be large battles after seeing the hordes of warriors on the original cover.
But, somewhere they made a change, likely it was done before hitting theaters in the USA:
The latter is closer to the movies feel; bleak, dark, almost empty. But allow me to elaborate, this film is in no way “empty” in a negative tense, but rather just full enough – in fact, it nearly over flows with visual beauty, and intense music (NOTE: I do not intend to refer to brutal fight scenes as visual beauty, rather the backdrops. It does pose quite a visual dilemma when faced with the brutality of certain scenes while being set to some of the most amazing landscapes on Earth).
In one scene a young boy, Are, fills us in on the origin of our hero …
“What’s your name” (speaking to One Eye)
“His name is One Eye”
“Where’s he from”
“He’s from Hell”
“Where’s Hell?”
“Across the sea…”
While the young boy appears to be of Viking decent, you never really are told, and while they appear to be surrounded by Scottish clans, you can only truly assume so much; which is something that I loved about this movie – you are told nothing, and left to analyze and conclude most everything on your own. I know that there are some of you that this concept will absolutely freak out, but, you are also more likely to dislike “artsy” type films. (Another strange dilemma; an artsy Scottish-Viking film?)
Via Wikipedia’s description of the movie, “… takes place in 1000 AD and follows a Norse warrior named One-Eye and a boy named Are as they travel with a band of Christian Vikings in pursuit of a Crusade. Instead they voyage west to North America.”
Important side note: don’t be fooled, this is indeed an “ART FILM”- the action is just enough to keep you frothing, but you aren’t going to see mega-battles created in CGI here. The films special effects really take place in the format of makeup and after effects (in terms of hue/color balancing- all done to the point of brilliance mind you).
In the end, this movie is one wild ride, after which I was consumed by it’s acts, meanings, music, backdrop, and history. While engaged in the act of watching it, I found myself moving closer to the television, as if that could somehow help me interpret my surroundings better; while the intensity of some scenes making it hard for me to sit still at times, had me moving all over the couch, or even standing up at one point and talking to myself.
I would close by saying that this type of movie only comes along once in a long while. Rarely are Art, Film, Music, and Awesome built so seamlessly into one flowing body of work; and this body of work is Valhalla Rising.
RANDOM NOTES:
The film starts off with some brutal violence, but the hardest to stomach is in the first scene – entitled “Wrath“, after which, it tones down quite a bit.
Scene V: HELL – a borderline schizophrenic experience; the music really carries this pace as you begin to realize where the travelers are …
PLOT
“A mysterious mute Norse warrior named One-Eye is held captive up above in misty highlands. He is forced as a prisoner to be pitted against other criminals and mercilessly fight to the death. One-Eye continues to survive each fight, ruthlessly slaughtering his enemies by the numbers. While imprisoned, a young boy named Are tends to him regularly, bringing him food and water.
One-Eye is shown to have the ability to foresee events in his dreams.”
It’s never too early to get in shape for the upcoming snowboarding season. In fact, let me give you a “duh” moment here real quick: “Skiing and Snowboarding are two very physically demanding sports. So much so, a health and exercise expert says athletes should exercise or “get in shape” before hitting the slopes. 3 out of 1,000 Skiers and 7 out of 1,000 Snowboarders are injured on the slopes everyday. These experts also say the major reason behind these injuries is that people are out of shape when getting on their skis or boards for the first time this season.”
In essence, a huge part of being ready for the upcoming season is about working on your balance and flexibility. Balance really has so much to do with the quality of experience you will have on the slopes, after all, it is balance that allows you to go from heel to toe, switch edges without face-planting, and come off of a kicker without looking like a wild duck.
A good way to work on balance is to simply walk on a wall (I recommend a lower wall until you have attained some essence of balance, avoid a preseason injury here) – even railroad tracks are great (again, make sure there are no oncoming trains to deal with, safety people, safety!).
Keeping limber is as easy as stretching out on a daily basis, take 5-minutes to just stretch your body out from head to toe. This guy has some nice suggestions on creating a daily stretching routine:
Check out this guy’s basic suggestions for “what to do” to stay in shape:
But these two ladies show us some more “dialed in” things to focus on:
Does all of this work? Let’s put it to the test shall we?
“When we go and record I think no matter what our thoughts are in our heads at the moment, or the preconceived notions, it will be totally different when we are actually recording and we will be on some crazy path right in the middle of it.“—Carla Azar
iTunes, love it or think it’s the end of the beautiful era of local record stores it sure is convenient. Would I have purchased the new Autolux without it? As I’d only heard one song from the release on Salt Lake’s local independent station, KRCL, I don’t think I would’ve. Sure that lone jam, Census, whetted my appetite, but this was the bands first release since 2004, even deeper, it’s their sophomore release (everyone knows about sophomore slumps right?).
To start things off, my first listen through the album was mistakenly through the eyes of shuffle; while it was pleasant to hear what my Android thought was the right path through the album, I’m not sure it gave me the right vibe for the album. However, upon a second spot of listening, this time no shuffle, I found myself traveling through tunnels of sound – truly an enjoyable experience.
From the opening track of the album you immediately get vibes of something from a “Radiohead” universe which is followed up by blast of energy ala Sonic Youth; but the sound that you are entertained with is more than a knock off of their melodic inspirations, no, instead, you get a refreshing playlist of original material that seems to flow like an ocean wave.
While my favorite track from the album is still “Census”, I wouldn’t want to wrong “Headless Sky” by not giving it a shout out here either.
All in all it was a good $7.99 spent and I look forward to re-investigating their “freshman” release, Future Perfect.
Let’s get this party started right! It’s the week before Labor Day weekend and we need to get it started with a bang. After all, everyone knows that Tuesdays are the new Monday, right? Well, if you don’t you heard it hear first: Tuesdays are the new Mondays*.
Now kick back, put some headphones on, and take some time to jam to these classic hits from yesteryear (while you’re on the clock!):
Guns and Roses – Welcome to the Jungle
isn’t Axels hair dreamy?
AC DC – You Shook Me All Night Long:
did 80’s hair bands create a template for today’s hip-hop videos to follow? Beautiful woman: check, show off some cash: check.
Whitesnake – Here I go again:
see the comments above. Check, and check…
Maybe this is too much hair-metal, glam-rock for you, okay, I can dig that. How ’bout them ’90’s?
Stone Temple Pilots – Plush (unplugged on MTV):
remember how MTV used to do all these “cool” unplugged events? They even used to play music back in the day!
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit:
This takes me back to 8th grade… yes, I said 8th grade…
Post Script
*Tuesdays are the new Mondays: the reasoning behind this is that everyone’s bosses in cubicle-land tend to have meetings all day on Mondays thus backing them up and making it impossible to hand you work. Then, they arrive to work on Tuesday and “kick out some emails” handing you a pile of work (much of which may be pointless dribble that you’ve already handled on your Monday because you’re ahead of the game … well, you are ahead of the game and doing work on Mondays while the boss is away, right?
Well, I hope you can see why originally I thought there may be large battles after seeing the hordes of warriors on the original cover.
Touching the Awesome! 
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