skysworldadventures

Today we checked out the third entrance of the park, the east side by catching a ride from one of the out door companies.  In route we saw a big horn sheep which was pretty cool. We were dropped at the East Rim Trail head. Jeff and I were light on gear (camel backs only) and decided to switch between trail running and hiking. This plan worked really well the first 6 miles.  The terrain was not particularly spectacular and the trail was wide and sandy.  There were some ups and downs (more ups) but nothing too crazy. After the first 6 miles the trail got much steeper, narrower and rockier and much more down.  We slowed it down at this point and pretty much kept the pace to hiking speed.  The trail at this point went through a narrow canyon (Echo Canyon) and spit us out in the main canyon.  It was really quite spectacular.  At one point there was a completely vertical cliff next to the trail that shot up about 1500 ft.  Amazing! We finish...

We started the day with some amazing crapes that kept us full all day.  Mine was chicken, bacon, spinach, onion, mushroom and bell pepper sauce.  Jeff had eggs, bacon, avocado, tomato, hollandaise.  And huge hot cocoas! Today's hike included two Zion classics, Angel's Landing and Hidden Canyon. Angel's landing is a steep 2 mile assent up crazy little switchbacks.  It then splits off to an insane narrow trail that literally drops off 1500 feet on one side and 800 feet on the other and in places is a tiny ridge only three feet wide.  There are chains linking the trail in places that you can cling to in order to feel a little safer.  It's the most crazy and scary real trail that I have ever hiked.  I'm not entirely sure how its still legal.  I was fine with all of the rappels yesterday and scrambling along the creek bed but Angel's Landing had me pretty spooked in places and I almost turned back.  It is one heck of a view!  More tha...

Jeff decided that what we really needed to do this trip was go canyoneering.  In October.  In water.  I don't  like to be cold and I REALLY don't like to be cold and wet.  This seemed destined to end in disaster. Neither Jeff or I have much experience with technical canyoneering so he decided to hire a guide to a) make our trip safer and b) teach us so we can start looking in to less technical route on our own in the future.   The guide, Joe, shows up early in the morning and starts talking about how cold and miserable canyoneering is in October and how only tourists are silly enough to want to do such an unpleasant thing.  He sounded like he was 3/4 serious and offered us a dry alternative.  I was thinking it sounded like a decent idea but Jeff wanted cold, wet and miserable so onward we went. On the approach hike to the canyon Joe pulled a thin sheet of ice out of the water that was about 2' square to show us.  He said something...

We decided to do a short fall visit to Zion National Park this fall as a fun way to get out of Bpise for a few days and have a mini adventure.   We started our journey on Friday night and made it to Provo.  Saturday we made it to Zion's north entrance around noon. We started out fun with a 5 mile hike up Tailor Canyon in the Kolob Canyon section of the park.  This was a pleasant walk that criss-crossed the stream numorous times.  It offered stunning views of the sheer red clif walls on either side of the canyon and ended with a double blind arch.  What is a double blind arch you ask?  Well, a rock arch that is not fully detached from the surrounding rock is a blind arch.  This canyon happened to have 2 such arches, one over the other.  The caveren of the lower arch was supprisingly huge and helped put the massive scale of the surrounding canyon in to perspective. We finished off our fantastic day with wine, fruit, cheese and crackers that ...

I'm really not sure that this counts as an adventure, but my one and only loyal follower says that is so who am I to argue with my best friend and only fan? I'll start with a little history so you know where I'm coming from (just in case you are a random stranger who has no clue about my little bit of crazy).  I'm a running.  I like running.  I run far.  I run up hills.  For some reason this seems to make me happy.  If I workout really hard I'm more accepting of my flaws and faults and I feel like a better person.  I know, it doesn't really make sense but I've stopped fighting it and run bunches and the world is a better place (for both me and poor Jeff that has to live with my crazy). Anyhow...  So there is a race in Boise that has a reputation for being really difficult.  It is the "Race to Robbie Creek".  It is a point to point half marathon that goes up in to the foothills and is supposedly the toughest half marathon in the north...

We got up on day 2 of our trip to a beautiful sunrise. The sun first hitting the peak. The whole ridge turning orange.   After breakfast we decided to go for a bit of a day hike.  Jeff had read that there was a way to make a big loop.  Part of the loop was trail and part was not.  We thought we'd give it a go.  We followed the chain of lakes and the stream that connected them up several hundred feet. Stream. Another lake. Th water in these high mountain lakes was so clear that you could see the fish.  Jeff thought it was pretty funny that I was trying to take pictures of the fish in the water. Apparently the stock these lakes with fish.  How weird is that? Fish. Yet another lake! We hiked up a really steep pass called "Windy Devil Pass" to get up and over the ridge.  The view was spectacular.  We could see 3 lakes from the top. Jeff and I at the top of Windy Devil Pass View from Windy Devil Pass ...

I know, not as exotic or exciting as SE Asia, but it was a great trip.  Jeff and I headed out after work on Friday and drove up to Challis.  It gave us one last chance for a bed and a shower before the trip. As we were driving in the smoke was terrible.  Jeff was joking that we were driving in to Mordor.  Challis a small town that it appears no one has ever heard of and stayed at a small hotel for $45 for the night.  We found a great little breakfast place on our way out of town and then drove another hour to the trail head.  The smoke on the drive up to Challis. At the start of our hike up the Little Boulder Creek trail it looks like Arizona or southern Utah.  Lots of rocks and sagebrush.  You can't see the mountains hiding in the middle of the hills.  With that being said there was a lot of up.  It's been a while since I've gone backpacking, the first mile was rough.  After that I seemed to get warmed u...

I feel like I need to say something to wrap up this trip. It was a fantastic adventure.   It was amazing if you just look at the number of different types of transportation that it took to get through this adventure. It started with planes. A prop plane, a small jet engine plane and then a really big plane. There were 2 different busses, 16 passenger vans, shuttles and tuk tuks (motor cycle in front with a 2 person cart behind), a cyclo (passenger seat in bicycle powered vehicle) and boats. There were dozens of feries, big and small, passenger boats, floating villages and markets, speed boats and long tail boats. And last but not least, the bikes. Between the three countries I was on 3 different bikes. And there was a lot of walking that happened as well. We met an amazing assortment of people from the people that went with us on the adventure from Boise, the guides that helped us along our journey and the people we met along the way. I would like to say one more time...