My Motivational Hobbies

Camping in the forest under the large trees with the sounds of the wind, trees moving, fire cracking, crickets chirping, and maybe even some noises from a distant coyote howling, has to be my favorite place to be in this whole world. Today I am going to tell you about my top 3 sleeping arrangements for camping out in the woods.  #3 Popup Tent with a Sleeping Bag This is the traditional style of camping where you are still out in the wild and it gives you that outdoor sleeping feeling but you are just enclosed so you are protected from the outside bugs and weather if it isn't what you had hoped. Plus, if you had any foods that are sitting out then you might get a big furry visitor that loves going through camp to find some of that free food laying around. A tent will at least keep you hidden and protected from anything that enters camp at night.  #2 Swinging Away in a Hammock When you were a child, I'm sure one of the best ways to get you to sleep was rocking you b...

With summer time coming up, you need to start preparing for some of your outdoor camping trips, hikes, fishing trips, and whatever else you like doing in the woods. There are new things that are being invented and created every day that are there to inspire you to do and use whether its an idea or a product. I am going to share some ideas that I found cool that I would recommend using when you're out in the mountains.  Infinite Fire Builder Have you ever just wanted to sit back and enjoy the fire and not have to worry about getting up and finding wood to throw on the fire? Well there is a solution to that now! With this system that was created, you can load all of your firewood on the rack and as the wood burns into nothing, a new log slides down into the fire and will constantly stay lit with the never ending supply of wood. Now you will have plenty of time to sit back in your chair and enjoy your beverage and the sweet sounds of nature.  Bye, Bye Mosquitoes Ge...

During all of my free time I make sure to get outside and go for a hike with my best friend. Together, him and I have discovered many different paths and trails and we have both learned so much from each other. To me, he is my yellow side kick. He is always headed in the path that I want to take. He is full of energy and his love for the mountain is identical to the love I share with it as well. He enjoys the sticks thrown out into the middle of all of the bushes and trees so that he has to use every smarts that he has to sniff that thing out. The water breaks at the lookout points of our hikes is where we really grow that bond. Its just him and I hanging out like the best of friends and we wouldn't want to be doing anything else.  To him, I am his guidance. I lead the way and instruct him on where to go. He relies on me to give him his proper commands and signals to make sure I put him in the right direction. He sees me and knows that we are about to create new memorie...

This trip was definitely an interesting trip and some things happened that I can check off as a first. A friend of mine called and told me that he was going up the canyon for a quick fishing trip and that I should join him. Obviously I had to say yes. I was a pretty overcast day in the city that we live in but just up the mountain you could tell it had been raining pretty heavily. We decided to head up the mountain anyways because fish are always hungry and plus, what could a little rain do? We packed up our gear and loaded some extra rain clothes so we could keep fishing and stay dry. As we were driving up the canyon we noticed a bunch of cars were parked along the side of the highway and everyone was heading over towards a bridge that crossed a little stream that runs through the canyon. We were curious of what was going on so we decided to stop and see what was up. When we got to the bridge area where everyone was gathered, we could hear some talking about a flash flood that was...

People wait all year long for this time of year. It's almost May and that means the results of hunting applications here in Utah should start rolling in. Here in Utah you have to apply to obtain a tag to hunt a certain animal. Some hunts like bull elk and bighorn sheep are the hunts that people dream of getting a tag for because they are usually a once in a lifetime draw so people are always so anxious to find out their results. This year I applied for a mule deer tag and a once in a lifetime bull elk tag in southern Utah. The likelihood of me drawing out a mule deer tag is very high because they hand out so many tags each year for that hunt and people are usually almost guaranteed that tag. But for the elk hunt, that's a complete different story. I have been trying for 10 years to draw this elk tag and have been unsuccessful every time but the way the system works is if you don't draw out for that year then you receive a bonus point for your next years application a...

Its that time of year. The snow is melting and the ice is disappearing on the larger bodies of water here in Utah and you know what that means...fish are hungry! The spring time is my favorite time of the year. Its that time when I can wipe the dust off of my fly pole and clean up my waders so I can get back out on the waters to catch some amazing fish. This last weekend I traveled to Kolob Reservoir in Southern Utah to where all of the big fish come out to play. I was joined by my 4 college roommates as we prepared for an eventful day of fishing. The fun thing about Kolob this time of year is only artificial flies are allowed as bait for fishing so we are usually the only ones out on the lake because fly fishing is usually not as popular as other fishing techniques. As we arrived at the lake, we were quite disappointed because of the low water level. We hadn't heard of the repairs that the lake was undergoing before the winter hit so we were pretty upset when we saw that it wa...

Native Americans used to hunt down animals and gather food and resources everyday in order for their tribes to stay alive. Hunting animals wasn't something that they just did for fun. The animals that they harvested would provide food for families for several days and would make sure that people were healthy enough to continue on their everyday adventures. Today, the tradition is carried on by our generation so that we can get a healthy source of meat while also controlling the herd sizes of the animals. With me being a 1/4 Native American, I love carrying on the tradition of my ancestors and I will continue to do it for as long as I live. The Process There are strict rules when it comes to hunting specific animals. Each country, state, or city has its own guidelines that you must follow because it is a privilege that we get to harvest such great animals for the better. Here in Utah, I hunt Mule Deer and Elk. The time period to hunt those animals is in the Fall and that is beca...

July 6th, 2017 I was invited by a friend of mine that I made here at Southern Utah University to go fish at his families pond up on Cedar Mountain with a couple more of our friends. I had just gotten home from my weekend fishing trip at Boulder Mountain and I was still in the fishing mood so I had to accept his invite. It was a Thursday afternoon and I hurried home after work and grabbed my fishing gear and headed to his house so we could leave. Lucky for us, his families pond is only like and hour away from Cedar City so we had plenty of time to fish the evening up there. When we arrived we noticed that my friends uncle left his two paddle boats up there so we split up into teams of two and had a little fishing tournament. On my boat was my friends brother Jackson and myself. On the other boat were my two friends Mitch and Ty. I lucked out because Jackson is the ultimate fisherman and knew exactly where the fish were going to be so we knew right away we were going to win. Afte...

Some of my best friends and myself had been talking about going on a fishing trip somewhere in Utah for the longest time. There are many different places to fish in Utah but we wanted to go somewhere in the mountains that isn't heavily populated with people. We first started looking up best places to fish in Utah and there were a lot of known fishing lakes and rivers that we had heard of but we came across one that really stood out to us. There was a website that talked about Boulder Mountain , which is right in the center of Utah. It has over 80 different fishable lakes/ponds that you can hike to and each of them contain many different native species of fish. Without really knowing much about the area, we decided this was the place. Prepping for the Trip It was the 4th of July weekend and we all had work off so we decided that was the perfect weekend to head up to Boulder Mountain. We packed for 3 days of being in the outdoors and got enough food to feed all of us guys that wer...

Ever since I was a little kid, I enjoyed having sleepovers with my friends because I loved getting to hang out for a longer period of time than usual with the kids I was great friends with. Our sleepovers included games, jokes, and fun conversations. But for most people, those friendly sleepovers slightly faded away and are no longer a thing. Well not for me! I found out there is still a way I can have sleepovers with something that I love most, the outdoors. So let me tell you all about my camping experiences and what goes on at my campsites. What to Do While Camping Camping is something that I try to do all year long. I don't care what the weather has to say about it. Some of the things that I enjoy about camping is sitting under the campfire all night and talking with the people around me. So many funny stories and jokes are told around campfires and great memories are always made. Another thing that is great about camping is you're in the middle of nowhere usually whi...

One of the best things about Utah are the winter seasons that it has. Utah is considered to have some of the greatest snow on the earth and there are so many different activities to do in the snow here. There are 14 different ski resorts spread across the state that bring in thousands of visitors and locals a year. The most known ski resort in Southern Utah, where I'm from, is Brian Head Ski Resort . Brian Head is an amazing resort with over 10 different lifts that carry you around the mountain and it is one of the most affordable resorts in the state. Lucky for me, college students get a pretty large discount off season passes so I try to take advantage on that as much as possible.  Another fun thing that I like to get out and do in the winter is snowmobiling with my friends and family. We take a weekend off of work and head up Cedar Mountain and ride our machines through the fresh powder. It is such a rush because we will take the machines across a frozen lake and you ...

Living in Cedar City has been one of the greatest blessings ever. I am surrounded by some of the best outdoor scenery in the world. Every week I try to get out and go explore some of the areas around Cedar because it would be a waste to live in such a great area and not see what it has to offer. Every time I go out, there is always one thing that I bring along beside me… Meet one of my most favorite things in this whole world. My ENO Hammock. There’s nothing more relaxing than setting up my hammock and getting inside and swinging away to some great music while checking out some awesome views. And taking great pictures of course. My pure blue parachute material is a memory maker for sure. It helps that all of my roommates have hammocks too because we can go on “ hammocking ” trips whenever we want and that is basically just a camping trip where we go out adventuring for the day and find a place to crash and hang up our hammocks and tell jokes and just have a great time. ...

For my first blog, I thought I would share my experience of one of the most amazing hikes I have ever been on, The Subway at Zion National Park. Finding Out About Going I remember the day that my uncle called me and told me that he had purchased a permit to take my family on a hike in Zion that would take mostly all day. I was a pretty nervous at first because I had never heard of a hike in Zion that took that long and also because my uncle is known for "living life on the edge." He told me that it was a 9.5 mile hike that required swimming through deep pools of freezing water in slot canyons, rappelling from distances up to 30 feet, and hiking up and down steep canyons. Of course this sounded like a lot but I was all in because I love the outdoors.  Beginning the Hike There were two ways to start this hike, going from top to bottom or starting from the bottom and working your way to the top. Our permit was for the top to the bottom. We started around 6 am so we c...

Who am I? I am what people like to call an outdoor enthusiast because of how interested and involved I am with the outdoors. I have lived my whole life in Utah which provides some of the greatest outdoor opportunities in the world. Why do I do it? Utah has 5 national parks that each have incredible hikes and some of the best views that you can find in the western United States. One of the most visited national parks, Zion National Park , happens to only 20 minutes away from my hometown. There are over 75 lakes, not counting the natural lakes that you can find all over the Utah mountains, that include many different species of fish that are fishable. Utah is also known for its wildlife, housing some of the world’s greatest animals. If you take an early morning drive through one of Utah’s many canyons, you are almost guaranteed to see hundreds of elk feeding in a nearby meadow. I like to get away and explore what nature has to offer as much as possible because I am ...