Backpacking in Grand Gulch

Over Memorial Day weekend a few friends and I went backpacking through Grand Gulch in southeastern Utah. We put one car at Bullet Canyon trail head where we would come out of the canyon and began our hike at the Collins Spring trail head on the other side. So it was a one-way 33-mile hike. 

I did such an awesome job packing for it. I'm super proud of myself. My pack was only a 38 liter pack and didn't weigh 30 lbs. I did wear the same clothes for three days - but it was only 3 days and 2 nights in the canyon so there was no need to pack heavy. I needed all the advantage I could get since I knew I would be the slowest hiker there. 

The first day was pretty cool except for hiking through all the sand. We did take a wrong turn down the wrong canyon which would have taken us down to the San Juan River to the south - when we needed to go east. But we got it figured out before too long and only added 1.5 miles to our hike that day - although we were trying to get 12-14 miles in that day. 

The second day of hiking was through some pretty thick vegetation and thus was pretty close to bush-whacking. The two guys would frequently get ahead of us and then wait for us to catch up, but there was one point where the canyon split with Step Canyon and since we were tired, Lizzy was hurt, and we weren't paying attention to the canyon walls above us, we three girls turned up Step Canyon unknowingly and added a mile to our hike that day - which was already planned to be 11 miles. One of the guys left his pack with the other and came running up Step Canyon to get us. They had been yelling for us... and at one point it seemed like their yells were to our right and then later behind us.... but we doubted ourselves since their yells were echoing off the canyon walls. 

The third day was the best day of hiking, very little sand and very little thick vegetation. And only 7 miles. We climbed up through a slick rock wash at the very end and that was pretty cool. We really tested my water filter's ability to filter water: the canyon was pretty dry and didn't have very much running water at all. So two out of the three times that we filtered water to drink and cook with it was from potholes that had tadpoles swimming around in... yuck. But my filter worked like a champ and we didn't get sick. I'll be replacing the actual filter portion of my water filter though.... it got pretty slow at pumping water by the end and I figure that is because the filter is clogged with all the stuff we didn't want to drink. 

We counted 17 ruins that we saw! That is what Grand Gulch is famous for. Have you heard of Mesa Verde and the Anasazi ruins there? Well, Grand Gulch is chuck-full of ruins similar to the ones at Mesa Verde. The ruins were home to the Anasazi people sometime around 900-1200 AD. And you could walk up to these ruins and really check them out. 

Lindsey & I checking out an Anasazi home

The three lost ladies of Step Canyon

Our rescuer coming to save us from Step Canyon (re-enacted)

Wild roses! What a lovely surprise.

Trying out an Anasazi bed

In the Anasazi Jail House

Going down into the Perfect Kiva

Lindsey and I in the slick rock wash at the end of our hike.

My 4X4 Honda Accord - made over the majority of this "high clearance required" road to pick up Lindsey's XTerra.

My Big, Comfy Chair

Yay! I have more seating in my living room now!! I can actually host visiting teachers and home teachers comfortably now. :) 

I special-ordered my chair from a furniture shop in Historic Gardner Village in Salt Lake City. I had a hard time picking out the fabric, but thankfully my mom was there to help me and the salesperson was very nice and helpful. I even showed her the pics from the tour of my condo on this blog so she could see what my living room looked like. 

And I think it turned out pretty good. And the chair is exactly what I was hoping for. Big and comfy. I wanted one that I could lay across the arm-rests comfortably... hence the comfy part. 

And guess what else? I got together with an old-college roommate of mine, Amanda, recently. We indulged ourselves with chocolate lava cake at the Rooster Noodle-n-Dumpling Bar and then gave tours of our houses to each other. Her house is darling!! And she was so kind and gave me some old curtains of her that go perfectly with my living room. So tonight I hemmed them to be the right length and hung them up. So great! Thanks again Amanda! 

And the funny part about my adventure hanging the curtain rod.... I bought my first cordless drill so I could be a little more self-reliant and not ask so much of my friends anymore... but I also stripped my first screws with it. Ha ha! Oh the adventures that await me.

Arches & Moab

A few friends, actually a lot of friends - 17, and I went down to Moab this past weekend to play in the red rocks. 

We woke up early to enjoy the sunrise at Mesa Arch. Then we hiked to Delicate Arch. And then we spent the remainder of the day in Devil's Garden hopping from arch to arch and enjoying springtime in the desert. I wish I would have taken pictures of the flowers in Arches to prove that the desert really does see spring. So beautiful! 

On to the Next Big Life Change

Well, now that I'm a homeowner and have put down some big roots.... I've jumped into my  next big life challenge... or at least I've applied for it. Meaning: I've applied for BYU's executive Master of Public Administration program in the Marriott School of Business. Whoa nelly. I keep worrying about how it's gonna crunch my play time.... but I have to live in my house for 3 years anyways and this is a 3 year program, and my budget with a mortgage payment on it has crunched my playing anyway so might as well study some books... and the really cool thing about it? Because of my tuition benefit, I'll be getting my master's degree practically for free. I just have to pay for books. :) And then I'll be a master!! Sweet. Cross your fingers they accept me! :)

Extreme Makeover: The Storage Closet

This weekend Bryan helped me put shelves in my storage closet! Oh it's so beautiful! I love, love, love organization. And now I've got it in my storage closet. You might remember this picture from the tour of my condo when I first moved in: 

And then here are the after pictures. Although, the ski holder isn't new. 

Zions in the Spring

Zion National Park has a lot of snow and mud in the spring.... which is not very conducive to canyoneering. Oh the snow wasn't inside the actual park... or the main part of the park anyway. Some friends and I went down thinking, hoping the reports that Birch Hollow was dry even in the spring were true. So we drove down late Thursday night, got up and drove to the dirt road where the entrance to Birch Hollow is. There was actually quite a bit of snow still on the up-hill side of the road and it was draining across the road in several places so we plowed through those mud spots fairly well - with Lindsey's SUV and Nate's sedan. But then we reached one mud spot... one that was not gonna let us through at all.

So we had a decision to make... it was noon and we still had another mile to go before we reached the entrance, then we had a decent little hike down a gully to the first rappel and then we'd have the canyon to go through, then the bush whacking up another gully and then a 7-mile hike on the road back to where we had to leave our cars. And the cherry on top was that the temperature was only in the mid-60s. And did I mention it was already noon? So we packed up ... a lot of stuff: warm clothes, backpacking stoves, emergency blankets, lots of food, and then all of the canyoneering gear we needed - ropes, carabiners, rappelling devices, harnesses, you name it. So we headed out down the road. 

We got started down the gully to the first rappel... and discovered that there was a ton of snow! And a little runoff stream down the middle of it... and since we were all wearing normal shoes that we didn't want to get wet, we had to bush whack on the side and through the snow. The further we went the more Lindsey and I were getting nervous since the gully had been completely dry the last time we did it. And I was sure there would be snow runoff pools in the low parts of the canyon... in which we'd have to swim. We all had dry clothes with us.... but still! That would be some very cold water. We didn't reach the first rappel until 4:00 - a very bad time to start the canyon with a big hike up a gully afterward and a 7-mile hike remaining.

Nate rappelled down the first rappel and then hiked down to the next rappel and the rest of us stayed at the top to await the verdict - if we were going to continue or turn and hike back up the gully. He came back shaking his head, "No." He said when he checked out the next rappel, which is where the canyon really narrowed into a famous slot canyon that Zion is riddled with, it was full of snow - under foot and overhead. Underfoot would be scary because we wouldn't know where the rock was and what if we broke through the snow and fell the 50 to 100 feet we would have rappelled. As for the snow bridges, they could have busted overhead. 

So Nate ascended up the rope and we packed up. We hiked back up the gully in half the time it took us to get down it, which was a very good thing because we had a few incidences on the muddy road getting back out. For those 6 hours we were playing in the gully, the snow was still melting on the road and making the mud spots we got through in the morning much worse. Nate led the way in his sedan and then we totally got stuck in the mud and it was sliding us toward the edge of the road - on the down-hill side. It took me, Rob, and Cameron to push him out because he couldn't move forward or backward. So we loaded the path under his tires with sticks and branches and then pushed with all our mights. He took Lindsey's SUV and plowed a path higher up on the road through the snow... and apparently (since I was down-hill going potty cuz I had to go so bad!!) he slid her car side ways through most of it because the snow and mud was that slick. And then we all watched nervously as he plowed his sedan through one set of the tracks he made with Lindsey's SUV - because he decided he wanted to go even higher on the road with his car than he did with Lindsey's SUV. He made it through with no problems!! We clapped and cheered the whole time!

So that was our adventure. Nate and Lindsey S left that night to return home, but Lindsey, Rob, Cameron and I stayed another day (Saturday) and did some of the classic Zion hikes: Angel's Landing and Emerald Pools. Then we drove home that night.

Bike Race, Easter, a Chair & DC

Yes, yes. It's been a long time since I've blogged... I'm repenting right now. 

The first part of this month was packed with loads of things going on. 

Number 1: My mom came down to watch me race in my mountain bike race down in Hurricane - at the infamous Cholla Challenge race. This is the first race that I did last year... where I rode with my clipless pedals for the first time and took many falls, got most of my scars, and got two flat tires during the race. Well... this year was a much better race for me.... I didn't get a single flat tire. I didn't fall over at all and I did pretty well! I got 6th place.... out of 6. Ha! At least I improved from my last time down there. Apparently several of my teammates got flat tires though. Sad day for them.... but I paid my dues last year! 

Number 2: My mom also stayed for Easter the very next day and made me and my niece, Jen, Easter breakfast and dinner! We stuffed ourselves terribly while we watched General Conference. 

Number 3: I bought my chair!! Woo hoo! Although, it won't get here until the end of May since I special ordered it. I'm excited to see it and how it turned out. It was quite the process to pick the fabric based off just a little swatch of fabric and picture that fabric all over a big, comfy chair. 

Number 4: I had a business conference in Washington DC, so my mom also accompanied me on that trip as well. We tried to see the Mint but wasn't quite successful. But we did see Arlington and that was beautiful! I'm so glad we went to Arlington, because that was the only place we saw any cherry blossoms - we were a little too late for them at the Tidal Basin. And then we enjoyed the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade Saturday morning - all TWO hours of it, walked through the Japanese street festival, and then went to Ford's Theatre - we didn't get to go in since there was a matinee going on. Next time I go to DC... I'm going to Mt. Vernon and colonial Williamsburg ... it's time to get outside of the city.