Not all who yonder are lost

Have been lazy with blogging again. This week has been pretty busy. My first week of full hsifts, an da bit tiring. Highlight of hte day: seeing two kaibab squirrels playing around during my Nature walk and then having a mama muledeer and her baby walk up right in fron of my group. Needless to say the tourons had a photo field day. Also met the great grandson of the first man to drive a vehicle up to the north rim... pretty neat.

Anyway...

Quite a wonderful weekend.

Had half of Friday off thanks to Robin our awesome boss... headed down to Flagstaff with Jess, Addy, Jake and Kenton for a Yonder Mountain String Band show in the pines. (Picture of the boys on right). Awesome show... and awesome venue. Sort of reminded me of Susquehanna bank center back home except a bit smaller, in the pines, you can get right up to the stage, and you don't have to fear for your life when you're getting there.

Lots of NPS folk there too and we all got a group campsite which was about a 15 minute walk from the venue. Didn't get to hang out too much after the show... slowly turning into an old lady but before and during was tons of fun. However I think the icing on the cake had to be hte civil war battle reenactment when we woke up the next morning haha! The confederates won whilst a bunch of hippies from the yonder concert cheered and took pictures. Very entertaining.

Got to do some real people things and went and . Headed back to Flag after watching the confederates beat all 8 yanks... got some food and did some thriftstore shopping. Made out pretty well... Some heinous sweaters, a unicorn jewelry box, some old school waist high blue pants an da vintage northface fleece from around 1982 :)

Got to do some real people things and went and saw inception. Cool movie. got some sushi, went to a dog friendly bar and listened to some good music and hten headed up to snowboal for some free camping in the forest. Good day.

Headed down to Page on Sunday. Met up with Gibson and some othe NPS peeps, got some food and spent the day on Gibson's boat (the Lady Contumacious haha).

Couldn't fit everyone on the boat so I hung back the first round with Jesse, Addy, Damon and Daisy the dog (one of hte coolest dogs I've ever met I might add). We did some swimming over to a litlte cove and climbed a bit on the sandstone. Got pretty beat up from that. Chilled some more on the beach.. Picture of me and Jesse being beach bums on the Left.

When everyone came back, the four of us got to go out... Had my first wakeboarding experience. Got up after a few tries... Couldn't remember how to steer into the wake from my brief snowboarding days but that's ok. Did much better Sunday than I did on Monday as well. Think I was just super tired the next day. That stuff really takes it out of you.

Spent the night at camp on this beach across the way form Wahweap Marina. Had dinner, chilled by the fire, skinnydipped haha, tried to find shelter when it started Raining...fun night. Went out on the boat a bit more on Monday and headed out of the Powell area around 2 then back up to the N rim after dealing iwht some car issues. Overall...awesome weekend.

Ken Patrick Fail

Spotty internet service has severely hindered my posting. So this update is going pretty far back.

Congratulations to my Aunt Irene and new Uncle Gary who wer emarried yesterday in the Caribbean. Am waiting for pictures but am sure it was a beautiful wedding... Wish I could have been there.

Anyhoo....

The Robertsons are gone. Headed out last week and ar enow safely back in Scranton, PA. Pretty sure they had a good visit.... I know I had a fun time with them here :)

Well its monsoon season at Grand Canyon. Been raining quite a lot. Especially the weekend before last. Sunday (the 1st) was so crappy, there was really nothing to do but laundry, reading, leg waxing and hanging around. Did however introduce the Robertsons to Kings. Silly.

This past weekend, me and Jesse tackled the Ken Patrick Trail.... again. Failed miserably the first time when we started form Point Imperial (on the 31st), walked the three miles to cross the Cape Royal Road, and hten los thte trail when it headed throuh a burn area. Hike started off pretty nicely though. At point imperial it had rained all night so the canyon was just a wall of fog.
You couldn't see 20 ft in front of you... Kind of spooky when you know that one of the world's biggest holes is right before you but you can't see it.

Picture of the foggy trailhead. Sign says 2 miles to cape royal road but was actually 3... They should change that.

Kind of like hiking in Maine, no?

Was truly amazing looking when the fog was starting to lift and you could just see glimpses of canyon among billowing clouds and fog patches. Beautiful.

Picture from rim part of hike before cape royal road on left.

Picture of Mount Hayden shrouded in fog. I guess you could call it inversion (when the clouds are below the rim of the canyon. Either way looks cool.

When we did the hike this weekend, we started from the other end at the North Kaibab trailhead, checked out the Uncle Jim Trail, then walked hte other 5 miles or so to the road.

Hitchhiked to get back to the developed area again. The first time we did the hike last week, we were rejected by swarms of Americans, and then finally picked up by a van full of people from Indian people. (Thanks fellow Americans...Are a couple of kids wearing Mountain Hardwear/Northface and carrying Nikons really that threatening looking? jeez)

Sunday were only passed by 3 cars before a nice family from Manchester, England picked us up.... again, Americans... what the hell?

The rest of the weekend was relatively unexciting. Journeyed to Kanab on Saturday since it was raining and gross on the Rim. Headed to Page yesterday to get another piece for the truck and then took a tour of the dam dam... Ultimate tourist endeavor. I'd be almost embarassed if I weren't doing a program on it and needed the useful information that the tour provided.

Now my afternoon 15 minute break is up and back to work. Having a rager for JR, Interp ranger who is moving to New Hampshire tomorrow. I think 4 of us are going to be there.... oh intwerps.

Ta

Point Sublime and the River

Meant to do this post earlier but thats ok. Crappy weather on the rim has us all bumming around inside so I figured I'd take advantage of it.

This week flew by. Had some program time, saw a bunch of dead kaibab squirrels, and one live one. My scenics roving and programs got rained out againnnn and our neighbor got a new dog who is absolutely precious.

So last weekend......

Because of yet more tire issues, Saturday was somewhat of a lax day. Hung out in the cabin/gym area while Jesse and Ralphy ventured to Kanab to replace the tire they popped on Friday. Friday night we went to Jessica's evening program on past river runners. Pretty interesting and now I really want to get on a trip even though some of the video clips she showed freaked me out ha.

Sunday we went back into the forest. This time took the park road to Point Sublime. Rough. But beautiful once we got out there. The tires survived! Had some food and then headed back toward the cabin. Took a picture of all our feets at the USGS marker (first photo). cute :)



Monday morning. Up at the buttcrack of dawn to get stuff together, run down to Page, rent kayaks, run to Lees Ferry to get a motor rig uprun from Brendan of Colorado River Discovery. Photo on left, view of downriver at the ferry, the location where all the trips going down the Colorado through Grand Canyon start off.

Got a ride up to just before the dam and then paddled down. No rapids or white water but it was a beautiful stretch of canyon definitely. Not too much interest in the pictographs (Jesse offered to draw us some sheep pictorgraphs if we were really upset about it) so we made it down in about 5 hours. Much fun though and lovely.






Got off the river, back to Page to
return kayaks and grab some dinner. Stopped at Navajo Bridge on the way and didn't see condors... again! (picture on right) I should stop telling people that that's the place to see them because I still haven't yet. I think they just go away whenever they know I'm coming...bastards.






Back to the rim after dinner. Ran into a bit of trouble on the way back. Hit a beefalo, the cow-buffalo hybrids we have up here. F'ed the truck up pretty badly... and killed damn thing which we learned the next day when visitors came into the visitor center remarking about a dead beefalo near the park entrance (Normally I'd be a bit more upset, and I was, but beefalos are nonnative and probably invasive which means their screwing stuff up for the native animals that live here). Unfortunately, we were not able to salvage the backstrats in time but at least our beefalo was donated as condor food which is good....


More posts to come soon. Ta

The Narrows Part Deux

Before I talk more about the Narrows I first would like to pay tribute to Ralphy who sacrificed his chair and his bum for us to have a good laugh.

"I'm having a little trouble here!" hahaha

Sooo on our second day of the hike... Woke up, had breakfast and headed out on Sunday morning. Switched to the fisheye lens so the rest of my pictures will be slightly rounded… Cool pictures but kind of took away from just how big some of these places were

Starting off bright and early and filling up on water at kolb creek.

Right before the piece where we got about chest deep in the water

Our first day hikers on that rock... or “gapers” as one of the backcountry rangers here calls them. Gapers are people that rent the special river canyoneering shoes, walking sticks, dry bags and sacks and pretty much all their gear from Springdale’s local gear outfitters. The gapers and dayhikers may have ruined the last chunk of the hike because there were so freaking many of them. Another deficit of the fisheye: made the water look yellow greenish but it was actually a beautiful blue green color. Lovely.

More narrow slot canyons and deep water… and gapers. Met up with JR and Addy again and went for a little swim. Was quite nice. Pretty much just booking it at the end.

Did some more self shuttling and headed back into springdale for dinner then more free camping on BLM land.

Monday morning woke up early again to go be shuttled around. Kind of a ridiculous photo of everybody haha I think we were all pretty tired and out of it at this point.

Hit up Angel’s landing. Probably the sketchiest hike in Zion. That’s it on the left. Scary looking right?) Several spots where you have to use chains attached to the rockfaces to climb up.

Very proud of myself for beasting it despite the sheer drops and intense heights. Beautiful though J

The Narrows

Getting so bad at posting! My apologies. The Robertson’s are here… Rolled in last night after a few transportation episodes. Very nice to see such familiar faces so far away from home.

Anyway…hiked the Narrows in Zion national park last weekend. Started at the top near Chamberlain Ranch and walked down (about 16 miles from top to bottom at the temple of Sinawava). Drove up Friday night with Jesse, Addy and JR. Rolled into the BLM campground around 10 and stayed the night (fo free.. always a plus).

Headed to the visitors center bright and early to pick up our permits and poopie bags (Leave no trace is kind of a big deal here…especially near water sources ha)

First part of the hike was pretty nice. Not too much water crossing…and not too canyoney yet either but very pretty.

Got a little further and went exploring into a little side canyon. Picture of Jesse, Me and JR... Temperature got about 15 degrees cooler in about 3 ft.

Lunch break in pretty sweet cave wall alcove. Twas pretty big…hiking companions for scale. JR reading the map, Jesse in the middle and Addy on the far right.

Parts like this photo were probably my favorite…walking in the slot canyons with sheer cliffs on either side and river flowing through. Addy and JR creeping in the shadows of one of those narrow spots. Very cool

Picture on right of the waterfall we had to go around…didn’t see the path at first and thought we had to go over….twas probably about 15 feet tall, I got a little nervous. Ended up stopping there and swimming under the falls with about 12 other narrows hikers. Most of them were middle-aged folk from San Diego that work together. Something about people hiking and stopping to play under a waterfall is pretty magical... We were all like a bunch of kids laughing and smiling and fooling around. Pretty funny

Felt compelled to post a picture of jesse swimming…mostly because he looks so great haha.

River got much more challenging when it joined with Deep Creek… About twice as wide, fast, deep and the rocks become much larger and more slippery. Definitly would have busted ass about 18 times if I didn’t have trekking poles.

Arrived at our campsite around 7 in the evening. Ate dinner, hung out, and all passed out pretty early from a long challenging day. Right photo (taken by Jesse!) is the fisheyes view of me, Addy and JR at our campsite (number 6, quite a nice one)

Enough blogging for now.... more to come on the Narrows hike soon!

Point Sublime

Took a siesta from blogging....

Figured I should get back on top of things. Had my first geology program today. Somehow I’ve been avoiding it. Went alright for the trial run. I feel like people just don’t get as excited about geology as they do about some of the biology stuff I go over (sorry Jess but its true).

Had a good weekend. Saturday was Western arts day at the North Rim. Made it out for the Utah Old time fiddlers. About 20 old folk playing country/bluegrass tunes. Very cute and a lot of fun.

Went out to Point Sublime on Sunday evening with Jesse and Addy. Was sort of dark by the time we got out there but still really cool. Stars were amazing ofcourse. Sat out on the rim drinking beers and reflecting on things. Quite nice. Also grilled up some beef and mac and cheese for dinner. Yum

Got up bright and early for sunrise and then hung out at the point for a while. (I like pictures with sunglare). Breakfast, coffee and chilling. The toilet was interesting. Wish I had gotten a picture. Basically a wall with a guy sign on one side and a gal sign on the other…. But behind the wall just one big toilet for errbody…out in the open. Pretty funny.

Got back into the forest and explored a bit. Ended up at the Rainbow Rim trail at North Timp point… Walked the trail down a few miles to Timp point. Nice walk. Had some lunch out at the point and walked back. Came across some sort of critter (photo on right). Judging by the size I’d say it’s a beefalo (the bison/cow hybrids we have out here). Nothing for scale in the picture but it was pretty enormous.

View from timp point. Some verga in the background and you could see deer creek falls. Definitely a future journey. Something about waterfalls in the canyon/desert excites me.

This weekend heading back to Zion with Jess, Addy and JR to hike the narrows. Basically hiking in the virgin river from top to bottom. Should be cold and wet..but awesome. Pictures to come soon assuming my drybags behave and keep my camera dry.

So long.

Happy Fourth

Might just get to do American things this fourth of July. Celebrating by listening to Garth Brooks and eating milk and cookies for breakfast (by the way martini glasses are PERFECT for cookie dipping J)

Camped at Cape Final Friday night. Both got done work at 6 so it was dark by the time we made it to the point (2 miles out from the trailhead, but about a 35 minute drive on the scenic road). Cooked spaghetti and chilled with some pbrs. Super windy. May have to do a tent next time.

Woke up for the sunrise which was quite nice. Ate bagels and cream cheese on the cape and took some photos. Jesse lost his visor to the crags of the cape final vista…Managed to climb down and retrieve it which was pretty entertaining to watch.

Headed over to check out a little side trail at cape Royal. Theres a wedding site there. Definitely be a cool place to get married for anyone that’s thinking of a somewhat extreme and beautiful outdoor wedding.

Got to check out a view of a side canyon I've never seen before (photo on left)