Battle Creek Falls 4.0

Our first week back in Utah brought over 70 hours of work for Drew (I will say that the overtime pay is great, but the conspicuous lack of my favorite person in my days is plain old bad) and just as many hours of a combination of packing and cleaning and boredom for yours truly. This week, though, Drew has been getting off work at 3:30pm, leaving plenty of time in the evening for fun in the setting sun. So, yesterday, we decided to spend our evening of freedom hiking up Battle Creek Falls for the fourth time (see here and here for other trips). Although everything is incredibly dusty in Utah right now, resulting in a hazy hotness, the weather was great, especially as we neared the falls. Amber and Ben joined us, first for a delicious picnic, then a good hike to the falls, and finally s'mores by a campfire.

I learned something new and pretty cool in the wake of this hike. Many of the hardwood trees in the canyon were covered in enormous webs, and anywhere there were webs, the tree was completely defoliated. It was a mixture of creepy (like those Halloween decorations with too many fake webs) and fantastical (like those hairy trees that belong in Dr. Seuss' world). It turns out that these webs are home to the larval stages of fall webworms, which eventually morph into quite pretty moths. Unlike some nonnative defoliating insects around these parts, these guys are actually native throughout North America and, as far as scientists know, don't do any lasting harm to healthy trees. Good to know.

It was a great trip. I can hardly believe it, but I missed Utah this summer. Overlooking the dusty haze that has settled over the area lately, it is in fact beautiful here, and we're quite lucky to get to experience it for a little while.