Camping Season

Hey readers, it’s that time of year again – CAMPING SEASON! If you’re like me, you look forward to the crisp, fresh air you can only get outside. It’s heating up here in Utah and many of us are looking forward to setting up camp in our beautiful mountains.

If you’re getting ready to plan a camping trip of your own, it’s important to remember a few things:

First, always make a realistic plan and stick to it. Make sure you tell someone of your travel plans and when they can expect you to arrive back home.

Second, whenever possible, use existing campsites. Camp on durable surfaces and place your tent on a non-vegetated area.

Third, avoid sensitive areas such as meadows, lakeshores, wetlands and streams.

Fourth, while morning breath and that second-day deodorant smell is something you may want to avoid, keep in mind that toothpaste, detergents and soap harm fish and other aquatic life. Wash at least 200 feet away from streams and lakes. Scatter your wash water so it filters through the soil.

Perhaps one of the most important tips to remember is to do your part. Modeling appropriate behavior and leaving your camping site better than you found it will allow the area to remain clean so everyone can enjoy it for years to come.

For more camping tips, check out our website!

National Get Outdoors Day with Tread Lightly!

Tread Lightly! and Jordanelle State Park Service Project

This past weekend Tread Lightly! staff and members came to enjoy a sunny day at one of Utah’s premier state parks, and do some much appreciated litter clean up on the beach.  Tread Lightly! came to celebrate National Get Outdoors Day and Free Fishing Day  while we helped out the park volunteers and staff.

Working with state and other government organizations is a vital part of what Tread Lightly! does to promote it’s mission and educate Utah’s outdoor recreation community. Jordanelle State Park is a popular recreation destination for people who come to visit from around the Salt Lake, Kamas, and Park City areas, as well as from around the state. Jordanelle offers many recreation opportunities such as paddle boarding, boating, fishing, camping, picnicking, hiking, and canoeing.

The RIDE ON Utah campaign is another part of what Tread Lightly!, Utah State Parks, and other statewide land management agencies  are working to promote the responsible use of motorized vehicle use on Utah’s public lands. The RIDE ON campaign integrates the Tread Lightly! principles such as respecting the rights of others and staying only on designated routes and trails. As well as traveling responsibly and always coming prepared with travel maps and guidebooks. This weekend we were working hard to educate recreationists about the RIDE ON campaign and how they can become more educated about responsible recreation.

This was the first service project that we did within one of the Utah state parks and we are planning to do more! We are already planning on doing another service project later this summer at Rockport State Park and would enjoy seeing even more participants and volunteers. Please stay tuned and look for updates at treadlightly.org for more awesome service projects and opportunities.

National Get Outdoors Day at Jordanelle State Park

Hey, it’s Kari, one of Tread Lightly!’s summer interns.

I want to tell you about Tread Lightly!’s most recent adventure at Jordanelle State Park. As many of us know, June is National Get Outdoors Month and Saturday was National Get Outdoors Day. We at Tread Lightly! could think of no better way to spend it then to head up to Jordanelle State Park and enjoy the beautiful, clear day. We were really excited to spend the day having fun in the state park. A few members had planned to rent paddle boards while others had planned to play in the water by the beach.  Although, as anxious as we were to get out there and be active, we had also gone to do our part and participate in a park wide clean-up.

We set up base camp in the Cove Pavilion, a central location where park visitors could see our banner and stop by to find out more about Tread Lightly! and Ride On Utah. After applying sunscreen and getting hydrated, our team of outstanding volunteers and staff, spread out between the personal watercraft ramp and the marina. We were armed with gloves, trash bags and a goal to pick up as much trash as possible.

John, one of Jordanelle’s park rangers, had explained to us his job of cleaning up trash every morning and how he was thrilled to see a group of people who were as dedicated to keeping the park clean as he was. The plan was to comb the beach and pavilions for two hours and then meet back at the pavilion for a delicious lunch of hot dogs and veggie burgers.

I paired up with Tread Lightly’s other summer intern, Lacy and we set out. I have to be honest, I expected this part of the day to be very long and tiring. However, as we walked along the beach, we were laughing and talking. It was great to see families enjoying the park as well, some were even curious enough to ask us why we were picking up trash. This experience really helped me to realize how important it is to pick up after myself. I was finding everything from bottle caps to lost shoes and even a sopping wet blanket that we had to lug to the dumpster. Several times we found fishing lines wrapped around logs that could have easily entrapped fish if it were under water. We would come across other volunteers and compare how much trash each of us had picked up. It turned out to be a very fun activity that had a huge impact on the state park. We finally met for lunch, piling our trash bags in a huge clump. I was amazed to see how much trash we found in the area that we worked in. I had hoped that we found most of it.

Once the task of cleaning the park was done, we all set out on our own activities. We knew that we had made a difference so that other park visitors could enjoy the lake without dealing with litter. I had also hoped that we had influenced some visitors to pick up after themselves so that everyone can enjoy the park for the rest of the summer.

Memorial Day Weekend at Rockport State Park

Rockport State Park Completely Booked over Memorial Day Weekend

Hello, my name is Lacy and I have been a seasonal park ranger aide at Rockport State Park for 3 consecutive summers and am currently volunteering as an intern at Tread Lightly! for the summer of 2013.

Everyone who works for the Utah State Parks knows that Memorial Day weekend is the kickoff to the summer season. Earlier in the week I heard the exciting news that all the Utah State Parks were full for the weekend. This proved true Friday night when all of our 120 camping sites were booked and we had to turn people away once our overflow areas were also full.  Over Memorial Day weekend Rockport saw over 2,000 visitors between campers and day use. With this many visitors at Rockport, it is important to understand the Tread Lightly! principles such as educating yourself about responsible recreation.

If everyone does not do their part we could potentially lose access to beautiful places like Rockport.  Rockport is located a convenient 45 minutes away from the Salt Lake Valley, home to over two million people, and offers many different recreation activities such as boating, camping, hiking, fishing and even hunting for scorpions with black lights.

We also saw hundreds of boaters, kayakers, and paddle boarders coming to visit Rockport. Even though it was a windy weekend outdoor recreationists were still eager to get out and enjoy the park. Our rangers were hard at work ensuring that everyone had a life jacket and the correct safety gear. Making sure that recreationists on the water were safe with the proper knowledge and equipment is one of the main Tread Lightly! principles.

At the entrance gate, we were adamant about asking everyone that was taking watercraft out on the water had not been to any quagga mussel infested waters. With Lake Powell now infested with these invasive species keeping quagga mussels out of Rockport and other state parks is harder. Tread Lightly! offers instructions for preventing the spread of invasive species in Utah waterways such as always washing your watercraft and transportation equipment. Also making sure to remove all plant, animal, and water from your watercraft before moving to another body of water is necessary. It is important that we prevent the spread of quagga mussels to keep this destructive animal from ruining the fish and wildlife habitat and from damaging the lake facilities.

Over Memorial Day weekend Rockport staff also hosted a very successful interpretive program. We offered park visitors a chance to see Northern scorpions glow in the dark Saturday night. I assisted one of the park ranger’s and his wife with the educational program. We took 100 participants on a scorpion walk with black lights to see the amazing critters light up. The participants were shocked to know that we even had scorpions that lived at Rockport, let alone find out that they glow in the dark! Rockport has hosted several different interpretive and educational programs in seasons past and we are planning on continuing to do more this summer.

Rockport State Park exemplifies several of the Tread Lightly! principles by enforcing the use of PFD’s, working to prevent the spread of invasive species, offering educational and interpretive experiences to visitors of the park.

Please continue to support Rockport and other Utah State Parks this summer and always remember to Tread Lightly!

Early Summer Fishing Fun

There are many great activities for a person to take advantage of during early summer. The trails are starting to dry out from the winter runoff. The weather is warming and the

waterways are primed for boating or wake boarding. All the summertime activities are beginning to blossom like the trees. Yet, for me, nothing says summer is here like grabbing my fly rod and heading out to the lakes and rivers to try and find a gullible fish to fool with a newly tied fly.

During the late spring and early summer a person is likely to find some of the best fishing of the year. The rainbows and cutthroats are at the tail end of their annual spawn and are hungry from the long run upstream to their spawning grounds and for places that allow fishing during this time of year it can be wonderful. For the last few weeks I have been busy fishing the Weber and Ogden Rivers. The rivers are both flowing very nice right now and I have been having the best luck with egg patterns, prince nymphs, and wd-40’s. I also have heard reports that the cicadas are coming on at the Green and fishing has been great this past weekend.

Over the weekend I was able to fish a few local community ponds and have noticed the bass starting to spawn and usually that is a good indication of the fishing heating up. So go check your neighborhood fishery and you might be pleasantly surprised by a fish or two. If you can find the time take someone fishing and enjoy my favorite time of year to wet a line.

With Memorial weekend over we are bound to find an abnormal amount of litter left behind. Please use your time in the field to help pick up some of the trash that others have left behind and help keep our public waterways and lands open. If we all do a little we can achieve great things!

Check out our tips on responsible fishing and as always: Tread Lightly!

TL! Membership sweetened with addition of Falken Tire Rebate!

Falken Tire has become the newest corporation to join Tread Lightly! ’s ever-growing alliance of partners dedicated to promoting responsible recreation and good stewardship of the great outdoors.

As part of their partnership, Falken has pledged a $100 rebate on a set of WildPeak A/T tires to individuals who join Tread Lightly!’s membership at the $50 level and above.  As an incentive for individuals to renew their membership in Tread Lightly!, Falken is providing a $50 rebate to any person who renews their existing membership at the base level of $25 and up.

It’s in large part because of individuals’ memberships that Tread Lightly! is able to continue educating the public on the importance of responsible recreation by enhancing and promoting existing programs such as Tread Trainer, Restoration for Recreation and Respected Access is Open Access. 

For more information on the rebate and becoming a member of Tread Lightly! visit their website.

Kayaking in Jordanelle State Park

This Sunday yielded yet another beautiful and warm day in the Salt Lake Valley. So, wanting to take advantage of a day off, I decided to take my kayaks up to Jordanelle State Park with my brother. We had feared that the weather was going to be a little chillier and windier in Heber Valley, so we dressed in layers. Though, as soon as we were ready to launch the kayaks, we found that we had to shed a lot of layers because there was barely any wind and not a cloud in the sky. We marveled at how low the water level was, even for this early in the spring. An island that is a common feature of Jordanelle State Park was now a peninsula and a definite water level line paralleled the lakes shore.

It’s still early in the boating season for Jordanelle so there weren’t many visitors, maybe four or five paddle boarders and one or two boats. Our plan was to follow the shore for an hour or so until we found a good place for lunch. This changed, however, because we got caught up in the easy going atmosphere that the lake had around it. We didn’t feel rushed or anxious about other boaters and we often found our selves just floating and relaxing. We ate our PB & J’s, applesauce and cookies in the middle of the lake and paddled back to the dock all within three hours and headed home.

This small outing really made me appreciate the beauty and pristine qualities of Jordanelle state Park. Come and learn what Jordanelle Sate Park has to offer on June 8th by joining Tread Lightly! and RIDE ON UTAH as we participate in National Get Outdoors Day. We will be cleaning up Jordanelle State Park from 9:00am – 12:00pm. Admission to the park will be free and from 12:30pm – 1:00pm, a lunch that includes hotdogs, cookies, chips and cold drinks will be provided. Hope to see you there!

 You can check out our Facebook events page for more info and to RSVP!