We watched two movies this weekend Ironman and Penelope, one in the theaters and one on DVD.
Ironman is a passable fun summer flick. Although the plot is highly predictable, its funny and ironic enough to be amusing, with enough special effects to make the two hours pass pleasantly enough, if forgettably. Not up to the level of the more interesting Spiderman and Batman movies of this genre, but far better than Transformers.
Penelope on the other hand was a much more interesting movie. Its a modern fable of a young girl born with pig nose because of a family curse. While its not as complex or moving as Whale Rider in terms of a coming of age movie, it rates about the same as Holes,so definitely worth watching. Local girl Reese Whitherspoon produced it and plays a minor role.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Pink Camelback
From our various hikes at the family reunion and Zion, it became apparent that having little camelbacks for the young kids would be beneficial. Cousin n x 1.6 km received a nice little one for his birthday, so this weekend we picked up a nice pink one for our girls. ME models it here.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Humidity
One unpleasant thing about returning to TN has been the humidity.
Just for kicks I kept track of how many times I changed shirts yesterday.
Played soccer for ward team in stake league-wring about a liter of sweat out of my jersey after wards--> change to t-shirt when get home.
Go bike riding with Jonathan to local park, t-shirt is sopping wet when we get home, -->change to polo shirt for wedding reception (which is indoor so no need to change),
Go to walk/bike picnic and lead 2 mile walk carrying ME on my shoulders, polo shirt is soaking wet when get home--> change again.
Just for kicks I kept track of how many times I changed shirts yesterday.
Played soccer for ward team in stake league-wring about a liter of sweat out of my jersey after wards--> change to t-shirt when get home.
Go bike riding with Jonathan to local park, t-shirt is sopping wet when we get home, -->change to polo shirt for wedding reception (which is indoor so no need to change),
Go to walk/bike picnic and lead 2 mile walk carrying ME on my shoulders, polo shirt is soaking wet when get home--> change again.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Long Day's Journey into Night
We drove home to TN in two long days.
We made good time and listened to "The first four years" (a continuation of little house on the prairie) and "Where the Red Fern Grows" as well as part of "Tom Sawyer".
We didn't stop to see any sights, only stopping at Lincoln, NE long enough to sleep and then on again. America is a big country. Someday we will ride it by bike. (Bucket List item #10).
We lost an hour coming back to Central time, its not a pleasant thing.
We should send out a special thanks to all who hosted us on our trip, especially my mom. We also regret not being able to see so many of our friends. We focused this trip mostly on family, but recognize that we need to return more often. We hope in the meantime that this blog will keep you somewhat up to date on our happenings and hope you will reciprocate by starting a blog of your own (or sending us the link to your blog if you already have one.) Reading others blogs has been one of our great joys.
We made good time and listened to "The first four years" (a continuation of little house on the prairie) and "Where the Red Fern Grows" as well as part of "Tom Sawyer".
We didn't stop to see any sights, only stopping at Lincoln, NE long enough to sleep and then on again. America is a big country. Someday we will ride it by bike. (Bucket List item #10).
We lost an hour coming back to Central time, its not a pleasant thing.
We should send out a special thanks to all who hosted us on our trip, especially my mom. We also regret not being able to see so many of our friends. We focused this trip mostly on family, but recognize that we need to return more often. We hope in the meantime that this blog will keep you somewhat up to date on our happenings and hope you will reciprocate by starting a blog of your own (or sending us the link to your blog if you already have one.) Reading others blogs has been one of our great joys.
Wedding
AM’s brother JRR was married Friday. It was the second marriage for both he and his fiancé. On Thursday evening, we had a dinner for all of AM brothers and sisters. to meet his fiancé. AM spent all the day getting food ready for the dinner. J&HR drove up from California with their two twins, which was really exciting, as we hadn’t seen them for a long time. AM’s adopted mother and father also came, so it gave our kids another chance to meet them. Perhaps the most surprising thing is how grown-up J& PM's oldest daughter M is. She has become a very personable and vivacious young woman.
The wedding was held in the beautiful backyard of J’s fiancé’s sister. The weather was perfect, not too hot, but no moisture either. J& SL and many of their adult children and their families came, as well as J&PM and their kids, J&HR and their kids, SR and her daughter K, as well as AM’s parents. So it was a nice little reunion. J and M were married with ME and one of J and H’s twin daughter acting as flower girls/ring bearers
WALL-E
ME, SAM, and Belle got together one last time, along with JP and JA to watch Wall-E. As always Pixar delivers, but this tale is a bit more stark and stylish than other Pixar films, so while the four year olds sit thru it, I can’t tell if they enjoy it as much as Ratatouille or Cars. I find the film brilliant. The film uses many of the visual themes from 2001, a space odyssey, which I finished reading on the way to Utah, so of course this fits in perfectly. There is probably a 20 minute section of the film while essentially wordless, but beautifully unfolds the premise of the story. Its themes of loss, the dangers of overconsumption, idleness, and waste, the need for love, and the spirit of stewardship over the Earth are all off course favorites of mine.
Timp Cave
JP and SS decided that a short easy climb to Timp cave would be just the thing to cure their tired legs. While the parking lot was all full, there were still walk-up reservation times for tours available with not too long a wait. Hikers are given an official start time 1.5 hrs before their cave reservation time. We started at our appointed time (11:20 am) but found it only took us 45 minutes to ascent to the cave. It’s a lot shorter than I remembered it as a child. Fortunately, the tour group at 12:20 had two slots available so we didn’t have to wait all the way until 12:50 for our tour. The cave has not changed, but of course the park service continues to modify its approach to the cave and every tour guide is different.. Although at first we seemed to be rushing thru the cave, by the end we had settled into a good rhythm. The cave really is quite fantastic and competes very well with all the caves we have been to in the Southeast, even if it is relatively small.
Visit to Grandpa’s.
We visited with Grandpa for lunch and a game of Triomino’s. JA wins handily. After hearing that it hasn't been doing very well it was good to see that he has been doing better. Getting quite old of course, and I think he has a hard time hearing conversations very well, but still a great story-teller. I focus on having Grandpa tell about growing up in Moab, as I know that our kids have not heard any of these. I can't seem to find the pictures we took, maybe they got downloaded somewhere else.
Back to Zion’s
Our final day in Zion’s is relatively short. We all hike the ½ mile roundtrip to Weeping Rock and then we drive up to Checkerboard Mesa to get views from the top of Zions. We then drive home, mostly without incident although our “out of fuel” gauge comes on as we try to make it back to the land of cheaper gas in Utah County before refueling our gas-guzzling minivan.
On our way home we also stop off to visit one of the people who went to graduate school with me. It was a great visit and we envied their awesome house.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Zion Subway
Our primary purpose in going to Zion was to hike “the Subway” something I had wanted to do every since seeing pictures of it from some friends of our at the University Village. After dropping a car off at the trail end, and the hikers off at the trailhead, AM took ME, SAM, and Belle with her to St. George. The hikers consist of team COKE along with JP and me (SS). This would be JP’s first big-time back country hike and I think he was both pysched and a bit nervous. It is a nine-mile hike, with four rappels, several required swims, and a lot of wading and river bouldering.
To get to the trailhead, there is a about a 10 mile drive up from Virgin, UT. The road winds gradually up a plateau and 6,700 feet in altitude the scenery changes from what might be more typical of Arches rather than Zion’s. During the drive up, Team COKE regaled us with stories of their former trips thru Subway, including one where K had run the final ½ mile steep ascent and then the final mile on the plateau to the trail end in the dark and then drive the 10 miles out of the canyon to get in cell phone range just a few minutes before 10 pm to keep my Mom from initiating the call to Search and Rescue which was their emergency plan if they didn’t make contact by 10 pm.
At the trailhead there was another large family in the parking lot preparing to start. Not wanting to get bottlenecked behind them at the rappels, we took off quickly after ensuring that we had packed our camelbacks and multiple water bottles, power bars, the climbing rope and harness, our compass and map, cameras, dry bag, and cell phones. For we flat-landers the bigger question was if our red blood cells packed enough stamina to handle the long hike at altitude.
From the Wildcat Canyon trailhead, the initial mile of the hike runs thru alpine forest.
There the trails meets the Northgate trail and begins a long, gradual descent through a slick rock gulch. Fortunately team COKE was able to use their previous experience to find the cairns marking the trail.
We then passed back into forest and then to an even steeper gulch.
Reaching the bottom, we then had to climb back up the other side of the gulch to a beehive shaped hoodoo. Another long gradual descend eventually brings us back to top of the first major obstacle.
The get down from the plateau into the confluence of Russell Gulch and the Left Fork of North Creek requires climbing about 300’ down a narrow chute using a “rock and root stairway”. There is significant exposure at the top of this descent, and being oversensitive to heights this gets my heart racing quite a bit. As we descended, we occasionally dislodged rocks that then skittered down the chute. This became a concern when we heard the group behind us reach the top of the chute, but we reached the bottom without incident. We are 2 hours and 20 minutes into our hike at this point.
Once at the bottom of the chute, we stopped for a short snack break and then began to hike down the riverbed a short distance to the first rappel point. I should mention that all but one of the rappels in the Subway could potentially be downclimbed or jumped without being roped in, but the Park Service has grown weary of rescuing hikers who do this because the landings are often in water with submerged rocks leading to many broken bones or sprained ankles. To speed our rappels, we simply tie the rope in a bowline around the climber and K wears a climbing harness for the belay, then self-rappels by doubling the rope. The first rappel requires a sideways climb and then dropping off an overhang to get to the bottom, the angle and the narrowness of the opening, along with the overhang make it a bit awkward, so a bit of assistance from those already through helps.
Now we are walking thru the canyon itself. The scenery is simply fantastic. In some places we can wade and others w have to swim. Because the water in this section is quite muddy, you can’t see the how deep the potholes and pools are, so the lead hiker acts as the guinea pig. If swimming is required, we put the electronics and rope in the dry bag to keep them safe. (This cuts down on the number of pictures we take since it is such a pain to pull the camera back out of the dry bag.) On rappels or thru swimming sections, we take off our packs and ferry the packs to the next dry spot to keep them as dry as possible. Except my pack, I figure it has nothing that would get hurt if it gets wet and its easier to swim with it on my back rather than holding it above the water. However, on one swim I realize that my camelback hose and mouthpiece are completely submerged in the brackish water. I wonder if this means I have been ingesting gardia as I drink from it.
The longest swim is thru a narrow slot with a round rock lodged above. The water is quite cold here. Swimming while trying to keep the other backpack dry is tricky because while the water is over our head in most sections, in two very narrow slots there are submerged rocks that require crawling over and I am forced to let the pack float in the water for a few seconds while clambering over the rocks. We are 4 hours and 30 minutes into the hike when we have finished ferrying all our gear thru this obstacle.
We reach keyhole falls, perhaps the most fun rappel/swim of all. You drop into a waist-high pool, then drop down thru a series of waist or deeper curved pools carved by the water. We lose one of our climbing quickdraws when C tosses it down to me and I drop it in the water. We can’t see the bottom and after feeling around with my feet for awhile, realize that it has probably been flushed into the next pool which is neck deep and there is no chance of finding it.
Eventually we reach a place where the water becomes extremely clear and remains so for the rest of the hike. We are never really sure why the water is so brackish in one section and so crystal clear in the rest. Water temperature also varies tremendously from section to section.
The final and longest (~30 ft) rappel is reached by crossing over the “waterfall room” on a narrow log jammed by a flash flood above the waterfall and then rappelling on the far side. We then hike back thru the chambers to reach the beautiful waterfall room. The crossing, rappel, and wading takes us awhile to navigate and the group behind us reaches the jammed log while we are exploring the waterfall room, which conveniently helps in pictures to illustrate the crossing. We are 6 hours into the hike when we leave the waterfall room.
We then pass thru more spectacular subway like tunnels and then out into open canyon. Here the rock of the riverbed becomes a brilliant copper color. In a number of sections there are cascades, a few of which make great waterslides.
The canyon opens up further and now we often have a choice between the water route down the river bed or and a sand/bluff route along the riverbank. The water route often proves quicker but jumping thru the boulders into water of various depths begins to become more and more tiring as time goes by. However, in the first few hours, the sandy path often requires climbs high above the riverbank into scrub brush which also requires a lot of energy, so it’s never a clear choice which path to choose. We initially think that we only have an hour or so of hiking before the big ascent, which team COKE has warned us to save our energy for, but as time passes and we continue to be bounded on both sides by vertical canyon cliffs, we realize that we still have a long ways to go. My legs are becoming tired and my old running shoes have almost no traction on the slippery rocks, so several times I slide down several feet and end up slamming my ankle and big toe into sharp rocks. This makes walking less pleasurable. JP is doing much better, but his allergies are stuffing his nose and cracking his voice. I stop taking very many pictures because it’s too much work to pull the camera from the safety of its padded bag and dry bag.
After another hour of hiking, we begin to worry that we have missed the exit trail. Somewhere during our time in the Subway we have lost our map that has the GPS point for the exit trail, so we can’t determine our position relative to the exit. The canyon walls are less vertical here and we think that if we get by the next fin we may be there. We do remember that the exit point is 2200 feet lower in altitude and so using the GPS we determine we have descended only 2000 feet. We continue on down the trail. K decides to run on ahead to see if he can find the exit trail. After another 30 minutes or so, we begin to worry where K has gone but shortly our shouts are answered by his call. The exit trail is just a little further down. We take a short break for our weary legs to rest before we begin the steep ½ mile climb out of the canyon.
We are happy to be on a well defined trail again, even if the trail ascends steeply. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to push off during the climb with my injured big toe, but found I could just flat-foot the climb. However, looking upwards it was not obvious how the trail was going to get us out of the near vertical wall at the very top. Team COKE assured us that it did.
We climb up and up on rock slab steps, but as we approach the top the trail became dusty loose rock. I tried not to think about the steep 200-300 drop-off on the left-side of the trail. We reached the top, and then hiked about another mile along the plateau to reach the parking lot. We have succeeded. It is 9 hours and 38 minutes after we began our hike. JP has done a fantastic job, and probably capable of at least another couple of miles if really pushed.
To get to the trailhead, there is a about a 10 mile drive up from Virgin, UT. The road winds gradually up a plateau and 6,700 feet in altitude the scenery changes from what might be more typical of Arches rather than Zion’s. During the drive up, Team COKE regaled us with stories of their former trips thru Subway, including one where K had run the final ½ mile steep ascent and then the final mile on the plateau to the trail end in the dark and then drive the 10 miles out of the canyon to get in cell phone range just a few minutes before 10 pm to keep my Mom from initiating the call to Search and Rescue which was their emergency plan if they didn’t make contact by 10 pm.
At the trailhead there was another large family in the parking lot preparing to start. Not wanting to get bottlenecked behind them at the rappels, we took off quickly after ensuring that we had packed our camelbacks and multiple water bottles, power bars, the climbing rope and harness, our compass and map, cameras, dry bag, and cell phones. For we flat-landers the bigger question was if our red blood cells packed enough stamina to handle the long hike at altitude.
From the Wildcat Canyon trailhead, the initial mile of the hike runs thru alpine forest.
There the trails meets the Northgate trail and begins a long, gradual descent through a slick rock gulch. Fortunately team COKE was able to use their previous experience to find the cairns marking the trail.
We then passed back into forest and then to an even steeper gulch.
Reaching the bottom, we then had to climb back up the other side of the gulch to a beehive shaped hoodoo. Another long gradual descend eventually brings us back to top of the first major obstacle.
The get down from the plateau into the confluence of Russell Gulch and the Left Fork of North Creek requires climbing about 300’ down a narrow chute using a “rock and root stairway”. There is significant exposure at the top of this descent, and being oversensitive to heights this gets my heart racing quite a bit. As we descended, we occasionally dislodged rocks that then skittered down the chute. This became a concern when we heard the group behind us reach the top of the chute, but we reached the bottom without incident. We are 2 hours and 20 minutes into our hike at this point.
Once at the bottom of the chute, we stopped for a short snack break and then began to hike down the riverbed a short distance to the first rappel point. I should mention that all but one of the rappels in the Subway could potentially be downclimbed or jumped without being roped in, but the Park Service has grown weary of rescuing hikers who do this because the landings are often in water with submerged rocks leading to many broken bones or sprained ankles. To speed our rappels, we simply tie the rope in a bowline around the climber and K wears a climbing harness for the belay, then self-rappels by doubling the rope. The first rappel requires a sideways climb and then dropping off an overhang to get to the bottom, the angle and the narrowness of the opening, along with the overhang make it a bit awkward, so a bit of assistance from those already through helps.
Now we are walking thru the canyon itself. The scenery is simply fantastic. In some places we can wade and others w have to swim. Because the water in this section is quite muddy, you can’t see the how deep the potholes and pools are, so the lead hiker acts as the guinea pig. If swimming is required, we put the electronics and rope in the dry bag to keep them safe. (This cuts down on the number of pictures we take since it is such a pain to pull the camera back out of the dry bag.) On rappels or thru swimming sections, we take off our packs and ferry the packs to the next dry spot to keep them as dry as possible. Except my pack, I figure it has nothing that would get hurt if it gets wet and its easier to swim with it on my back rather than holding it above the water. However, on one swim I realize that my camelback hose and mouthpiece are completely submerged in the brackish water. I wonder if this means I have been ingesting gardia as I drink from it.
The longest swim is thru a narrow slot with a round rock lodged above. The water is quite cold here. Swimming while trying to keep the other backpack dry is tricky because while the water is over our head in most sections, in two very narrow slots there are submerged rocks that require crawling over and I am forced to let the pack float in the water for a few seconds while clambering over the rocks. We are 4 hours and 30 minutes into the hike when we have finished ferrying all our gear thru this obstacle.
We reach keyhole falls, perhaps the most fun rappel/swim of all. You drop into a waist-high pool, then drop down thru a series of waist or deeper curved pools carved by the water. We lose one of our climbing quickdraws when C tosses it down to me and I drop it in the water. We can’t see the bottom and after feeling around with my feet for awhile, realize that it has probably been flushed into the next pool which is neck deep and there is no chance of finding it.
Eventually we reach a place where the water becomes extremely clear and remains so for the rest of the hike. We are never really sure why the water is so brackish in one section and so crystal clear in the rest. Water temperature also varies tremendously from section to section.
The final and longest (~30 ft) rappel is reached by crossing over the “waterfall room” on a narrow log jammed by a flash flood above the waterfall and then rappelling on the far side. We then hike back thru the chambers to reach the beautiful waterfall room. The crossing, rappel, and wading takes us awhile to navigate and the group behind us reaches the jammed log while we are exploring the waterfall room, which conveniently helps in pictures to illustrate the crossing. We are 6 hours into the hike when we leave the waterfall room.
We then pass thru more spectacular subway like tunnels and then out into open canyon. Here the rock of the riverbed becomes a brilliant copper color. In a number of sections there are cascades, a few of which make great waterslides.
The canyon opens up further and now we often have a choice between the water route down the river bed or and a sand/bluff route along the riverbank. The water route often proves quicker but jumping thru the boulders into water of various depths begins to become more and more tiring as time goes by. However, in the first few hours, the sandy path often requires climbs high above the riverbank into scrub brush which also requires a lot of energy, so it’s never a clear choice which path to choose. We initially think that we only have an hour or so of hiking before the big ascent, which team COKE has warned us to save our energy for, but as time passes and we continue to be bounded on both sides by vertical canyon cliffs, we realize that we still have a long ways to go. My legs are becoming tired and my old running shoes have almost no traction on the slippery rocks, so several times I slide down several feet and end up slamming my ankle and big toe into sharp rocks. This makes walking less pleasurable. JP is doing much better, but his allergies are stuffing his nose and cracking his voice. I stop taking very many pictures because it’s too much work to pull the camera from the safety of its padded bag and dry bag.
After another hour of hiking, we begin to worry that we have missed the exit trail. Somewhere during our time in the Subway we have lost our map that has the GPS point for the exit trail, so we can’t determine our position relative to the exit. The canyon walls are less vertical here and we think that if we get by the next fin we may be there. We do remember that the exit point is 2200 feet lower in altitude and so using the GPS we determine we have descended only 2000 feet. We continue on down the trail. K decides to run on ahead to see if he can find the exit trail. After another 30 minutes or so, we begin to worry where K has gone but shortly our shouts are answered by his call. The exit trail is just a little further down. We take a short break for our weary legs to rest before we begin the steep ½ mile climb out of the canyon.
We are happy to be on a well defined trail again, even if the trail ascends steeply. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to push off during the climb with my injured big toe, but found I could just flat-foot the climb. However, looking upwards it was not obvious how the trail was going to get us out of the near vertical wall at the very top. Team COKE assured us that it did.
We climb up and up on rock slab steps, but as we approach the top the trail became dusty loose rock. I tried not to think about the steep 200-300 drop-off on the left-side of the trail. We reached the top, and then hiked about another mile along the plateau to reach the parking lot. We have succeeded. It is 9 hours and 38 minutes after we began our hike. JP has done a fantastic job, and probably capable of at least another couple of miles if really pushed.