Backpacking Great Basin National Park

Mike and I joined some new friends he met through backcountrypost.com (Steve, Tessa, Yvonne, and Chet) for a one-nighter backpacking trip. We originally wanted to do the Under-the-Rim trail in Bryce Canyon National Park, but they had some bear attacks and closed the trail. :( So we looked for a plan B and scored pretty well! We drove out to Great Basin National Park in Nevada. I was impressed with the park: it was not busy at all, and it wasn't all sagebrush I thought it was going to be - it was actually quite beautiful back in the canyons! Our backpacking trip was a loop up to Baker Lake, over a pass into Johnson Lake, and then back to our cars. Baker Lake was at some elevation like 10,500 feet above sea level! The hike wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be either, but then again I was on some serious steroids for my poison ivy rash - that, yes, I dealt with while doing this backpacking trip! One night the itching was so bad, I hopped out of the tent and yanked my pants down right out in the open and smothered my rashes (on the back of my thighs) with anti-itch cream! But I survived.

Sterilizing some water with his steri-pen.

As we hiked over the pass to Johnson Lake, we also peaked Pyramid Peak (11,926 feet above sea level). Johnson Lake had some pretty cool run down cabins and mining structures and equipment. It was fun to explore those old places and to think people lived up there in the early 1900s!

Then we stayed at the Wheeler Peak campground that was absolutely beautiful, especially when we got to see some alpenglow on Wheeler Peak. The next day my steroids were really kicking in, so I rocked the day hike we did up to the Bristlecone pine grove (those trees are thousands of years old!) - I even kicked Mike's trash! And then Mike and I tried some random mountain biking trail along the highway and it was a total bust. It was a six-mile trail that should have only taken us about an hour to complete, but because the trail was almost returned to natural landscape it was hard to follow and quite sandy, and even technical at times, it took us over two hours to ride it. Boo.

I Did Not Escape the Ivy

This pretty little plant, poison ivy, is currently the bane of my existence. Yep. I got a pretty good rash on the back of my left thigh and I suspect I'm getting another one on the back of my right thigh. Lovely. No matter how careful I was! There was one point where we had to ugly choices: 1) swim in the river with our packs because it was so deep, or 2) wade through the poison ivy. We opted for the latter. I was wearing long pants and sleeves, but I must have gotten some on my hands and then transferred it to my legs. I was so careful too! I decontaminated everything in the washer with hot water and lots of detergent. And even rubbed all my non-washables and my very own body with rubbing alcohol. All to no avail. So the blistery rash will be my companion for the next 3 weeks. Ugh.

Death Hollow

Mike and I and two of Mike's friends, Lane and Dave, backpacked through the main section of Death Hollow near Escalante, Utah. We spent two nights in the canyon. The three main adventures of the weekend were 1) the thunderstorm that dumped on us for the first couple of hours of our hike, 2) avoiding the poison ivy, and 3) avoiding the unwanted swimming holes in the river. Other than that, it went as planned, the canyon was beautiful (poison ivy is very pretty and lush...), and Mike surprised me with an ultra-lightweight 2-person backpacking tent. Not for me to keep, but for he and I to enjoy together! I think he could see the writing on the wall that there is no way I am ever going to pack in my own tent when we could easily share the weight of one 2-person tent together. In order to mesh that with his desire to become an ultra-lightweight backpacker, he forked out the big bucks for this awesome tent..... and .... I didn't even have to carry any part of it. That's how much of a gentleman he is. :)

From here on out, I'll let the pics do the talking .... with maybe a few captions.

Hiking in the rain

One of the many extra waterfalls we saw due to the rain

With a view down into Death Hollow

Hiking down into Death Hollow - that's me on the right

One of the many "Ivy Islands" - yes that is all poison ivy

And me trying to wash the poison ivy off my face after I swear it made contact

The pool where we stopped for Lane and Dave to play in

The alcove under which we camped - the darker green is poison ivy 

12 Hours of Mesa Verde Race 2014

Well, I raced in the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde Race in Cortez, Colorado again. I did not take any pictures. Shame on me. I raced it with Patty, Jen H, and Jenn C. And guess what - I shaved 15 minutes off of my race time! That's the main reason for posting about this race with no pictures. I just had to document that for posterity sake. I think it must be due mostly to my ability to ride more technical stuff now. But who knows and who cares! I feel like I rocked it. 2 hours and 1 minute was my final race time for that 17 mile loop. Woot!

Early Out Bike Ride

Twice a year, campus shuts down for graduation and has all the employees leave so we can vacate the parking lots for the graduates and their families. One of those days was today. So to celebrate, Janie (who also works for BYU) and I went for a 35-mile road ride from my house out to Lincoln Beach. We rocked that ride: we average 16.3 miles per hour, which is pretty dang awesome for me. We weren't drafting off each other until the last 7 miles when we were both getting very low on energy. And since it was a beautiful day, we stopped to take a picture.

Fruita for Some Mountain Biking

Mike and I got some of our friends together and went to Fruita, Colorado for some mountain biking for Easter weekend. But.... Saturday morning it started raining in the wee hours of the night and didn't really stop until mid-afternoon. So, we dinked around camp and downtown Grand Junction for a while until it stopped raining. When it stopped raining, we played some lawn games that Mike brought at a park to see if the weather would hold and maybe give some trails a chance to dry out.

Thankfully the weather did hold so we went went to the Kokapelli trails and rode Horse Thief and Steve's loop late in the afternoon. Between those two rides, we got about 16 miles in, which is a good day!

The next day we drove out to ride the Tabegauche area where we found two bike brands (Yeti and Specialized) holding demo days.... to which I caved and tried a full-suspenson, 27.5-inch-tire-size Yeti for our ride that day. For free. We were out for just about 3 hours riding The Ribbon, Gunny's Loop, and some of the other trails within the Tabegauche trail system. I needed that much time to get used to the bike and then to kind of really like it. The full-suspension bike really does help a lot. I was much braver about doing rocky technical sections of the trail since I wasn't being bucked around nearly as much as I would have been on my bike (which is a hard-tail). When we got back to the bike people at the parking lot, I asked how much the bike was and they said $4,900. Ha! Yeah. Excellent. I think my bike is still good enough for me and I still have fun with it....unless I can find a used one for less money in a few years....

I was delinquent with my picture taking and only took one picture of Mike and I on The Ribbon overlooking a canyon:

Capitol Reef Weekend

I haven't been much of a fan of Capitol Reef National Park. I went there once a long time ago and just  did a cheesy little hike to an arch and saw that the only paved road cuts across a narrow section of this incredibly long park (I'm talking like 100 miles long). Otherwise it just has a bunch of 4WD/dirt roads that go to other areas of the park that I could never access because I didn't have a 4WD vehicle. Apparently, Mike and his friends make an annual trip of Capitol Reef and explore somewhere new every time. So my eyes were opened to the possibility of the park! They found a series of canyons called "The Wives" that we could canyoneer through, and they decided to have us try Wife 3 and The One That Got Away.

Wife 3 began with a bang! A 200-foot rappel with 150 of it being a free rappel (which means you're just hanging on the rope without being able to touch the canyon wall). It was quite the welcome-back-to-canyoneering rappel for me. The next rap was pretty intense too: I had to chimney across a crack (that had a deep drop) out to a rock stuck in the crack in order to get on the rope to rappel down the crack. After that, the raps weren't quite so intense.

At the beginning of the day: Lane, Dave, Mike, and me

Me and Mike on the approach hike to Wife 3

Mike on the approach hike to Wife 3

Me on the approach to Wife 3 - quite the tight rope walk!

That's me! Beginning the 200-foot rappel

Me finishing the 200-foot rappel

Me hiking down from the 200-footer in the background

Me, Dave, and Lane in the canyon

Mike standing on the rock stuck in the crack with Dave in his spider hole where he helped me and Mike get on our ropes for the rappel

Mike starting another rappel in Wife 3

The One That Got Away (TOTGA) ..... well, it actually got away from us. It was supposed to be just a down-climbable canyon, meaning no ropes were necessary. We started it with a pretty crazy down-climb. But then we came up on a pretty deep and dark crack that we were supposed to chimney down - but it was deep! And the walls were all curvy and rough - not good for my limited experience of doing the chimney move. So we ended up hiking back out of it - and even getting up the down-climb we did was challenging.

Climbing back up the down climb in TOTGA

Dave and Lane exploring the bottom of TOTGA

Mike and I hanging out on the cliff-side while Dave and Lane explored the bottom of TOTGA

On Sunday, we ended up trying to hike up the west side of Burro Wash, but I think Lane (Mike's friend) said it ended up not being Burro Wash. Those guys .... they must have done so many trail hikes that they've become bored of them so their kind of hiking is off-trail, bouldering, and all that crazy stuff - so that is what we did for our "hike" on Sunday. But they were good to me, and I didn't complain. :)

And here I am bouldering and trying to keep up with the guys

This is where we stopped since I wasn't really inclined to climb that

Mike and I taking a little lunch nap

Quite a bit of this hike was on a 4WD road

I wished these "mattresses" were softer and more horizontal

Mike trying out the "mattresses"