Yesterday morning, having the day off from work, I finally got out of bed at a decent time and got myself on a little hike. It is intolerable how few times I have gone hiking since I moved into Provo Canyon. (It’s also intolerable that, although I live yards away from the Provo River, I’ve never been fly fishing, but that’s another story. Somebody help me, please!)

I went to explore a nice little side fork into the cliffs on the North side of the canyon.

There is a mysterious parking lot on the north side of the canyon, across from what may or may not be called Upper Falls. I have never seen more than one car at a time parked in this lot, and for the most part it is a ghost lot. At some point I noticed a little trail running up the hillside through the grasses and into the cliffs, and I have always wanted to try it. I have no idea if the parking lot is designed as a trailhead for this trail, or as a viewing area for Upper Falls, and I have no idea if this fork or trail has a name. I know I could look at a USGS map and research the trail, but that would ruin much of the allure of my random morning excursion. Even having been there I’m not sure if I’m ready to let go of its unnamed status. I may not be living in this canyon forever, so I chose this as my first of (hopefully) many hikes since it is kind of a wild card excursion. It seemed the place I would be least likely to plan and drive back to hike if I no longer lived close to it, so it was an appropriate and easy place to start.

As it turned out, my hike didn’t last all that long. The canyon soon narrows into a creek bed surrounded by steep rock faces, and the creek still has a respectable amount of water rushing down it. Some of the rock walls were mossy and weeping. I’m no rock climber, and I hadn’t come prepared for going through much water, so eventually I chose to turn around. I didn’t really want to risk ruining my camera. That’s a good excuse, isn’t it? The shot at the top of this article is the view down the canyon from the point that I turned around. It would be fun to splash up the rest of this hike, and I might try it again in a month or two if we haven’t gotten snow yet, and see if the water flow has reduced, or maybe sooner were I to get some fancy hiking sandals. At any rate, I did take some pictures, as I am often wont to do, and a few of them will be popping up here on the Freez in the next couple of days.

I have a a whole list of hikes that I feel it would be unconscionable if I did not attempt while living in this beautiful area. The list includes a possible climb to Cascade Mountain and/or Provo Peak, but culminates with ascending Mt. Timpanogos, something I have never done. I mainly posted all of this for selfish reasons; I want to provide myself some accountability for these hikes. So, I hereby announce my plan to hike Timp sometime in the next month or two, before the snow arrives. So let it be written, so let it be done.

These collections of flowers just looked like they had little personalities to me, like a family portrait or something. The flowers and colors remind me of some of Van Gogh’s paintings, especially because his flowers always feel to me like they have so much personality.

I guess I kind of forgot that posting to my blog isn’t a major literary event, and maybe something is better than nothing at all.  It’s been rather too quiet lately here at the Freez.  To my credit, I did finally improvise a rudimentary, homemade masthead (see above), which debuts today.

So, in lieu of the fabulous pieces of writing the FroztFreez has remained virtually unknown for, I’m passing along a little summertime musical treat for everyone.  It sounds like ice cream trucks and carnival rides.  (I actually heard an ice cream truck driving through Vivian Park today and it made me want to listen to this song some more.)  It’s a great jam called “Walkabout,” a new collaboration between Atlas Sound (the solo project of Bradford Cox, lead singer for Deerhunter) and Noah Lennox (a.k.a. Panda Bear, a member of Animal Collective).  I predict it will make you smile and maybe bob your head.  I also predict it will eventually be used to sell Volkswagens and maybe mutual funds.  Since I like to say that Animal Collective are my favorite band, and I know that secretly Deerhunter are probably really my favorite band, it was certainly nice of these two guys from my two favorite bands to get together and make this track.  Just press play to hear it, and right click on the link below if you want to download the free track to have for yourself.

Walkabout – Atlas Sound with Noah Lennox

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It sounds like a hand-labeled cassette given to you by a friend, or found in an attic or an old drawer.

We have had a lot of rainy days lately around these parts.

It feels like it was recorded in a cabin in the mountains, a homespun recording with the tape hiss in the background to prove it.

It is filled with both simple folk songs and swirling psychedelic jams.

I pretty much live in a cabin in the mountains.

It is as likely to have been recorded four decades ago as four days ago.

With the exception of the giant eyeball UFO.

The songs of this album are full of pattering drums, dripping guitars, and falsetto harmonies. They make me think of the rain when I listen to them.

The cover art might as well be my own home canyon it looks so similar, all green-hued and overcast.

One of the best songs on the album is called “Rain on You,” and features the chorus, “Oh, how the days will rain on you.”

Um, Neil Young.

This is a great rainy day album.

See my pictures of South Fork from last week if you would like a comparison.

Last Saturday I drove up the South Fork Road after the rain and I took some pictures.

There is a very official-like feel to all of this. It is the last day of school and the first day of June. The teenagers are out in great numbers, toiling away at an incessant, diligent leisure. There is almost an urgency to their skateboarding, a purposefulness to their eating of breakfast burritos as they leave Molcasalsa and walk down the street, an expedience to their wandering around the park, a deep significance and poignancy to every kick of the hacky-sack. The weather could not be more appropriate: a hot, blue sky devoid of clouds; the slightest breeze. It feels as if all of it were intended to be filmed as a scene for a movie and these kids had been put up to it ahead of time, and I just happened to have wandered onto the set. There is a underlying fury to their recreation, as if they know that this time summer will only last a couple of days.

I, on the other hand, waste.

I did work on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that’s about it. No work, no play, just lump.

Tuesday I had a class of 1st graders who really weren’t that bad considering it’s the last week of school. I just had to keep dumping work on them, so that the potential riots percolating beneath the surface would not have the chance to bubble up to the top.

Wednesday was fun. I took a 2nd grade class at Eastwood at the last second because the teacher was too sick and couldn’t come. We walked as a whole 2nd grade a mile or so up Wasatch Blvd. to the bowling alley at Olympus Hills for a bowling field trip. I was so nervous at first that I would lose track of a kid or that some maniac driver would rip through as we were crossing a street, but soon I relaxed. The bowling itself was hilarious. The bumpers were up, of course, but even the light-weight balls are too heavy for most seven-year-olds. A number of kids developed what I would call a flopping method, where they would run forward with the bowling ball in both hands, hurling the ball onto the lane while simultaneously flopping themselves to the ground to prevent from crossing the line. Given the parameters of having the bumpers up, and having balls that are too heavy, it was a genius technique, and several boys were consistently getting spares and even strikes with this method by the close of the afternoon. I also loved how they started making up names for their bowling balls, such as “Meaty,” “Blaster,” and “Poo” (it was a brown ball). It was a slightly stressful but singularly fun day of substituting. I got to know the kids a lot better than I normally would have. It’s a lot nicer when you can just let them do what they do and be loud and themselves, rather than attempting to hold them down and keep everything under tight control. But now, finally, they are left to their own devices.