Slick Rock Slew Me, But I Survived

Friday night Amanda and Rob joined us at our campground across from Slickrock, and the next morning  we all wanted to try the trail out.  Um...I didn't really know what I was getting myself into.


Slickrock is made up of petrified sand dunes--quite wonderful for sticking to one's mtn. bike and preventing the biker from falling.  I was still freaked out by some of the dunes' steepness and had to walk my bike at quite a few places.  But the place was still beautiful and I had a good time adventuring with Amanda, Rob, and my hubs.


To Amanda and I's chagrin and Darren and Rob's delight, Rob drove their new, old truck up famous jeeping trails such as Baby Lion's Back.  They were shooting a Jeep commercial at the top of one of them, and the workers seemed a little huffy puffy when we showed up in our Toyota.


For supper we had a scrumptious burrito fiesta.



Slickrock was nothing compared to what was in store for Sunday--Porcupine Rim.  It started off with a trail up that seemed more similar to biking I've done in the past.  At the top was a beautiful view of Castle Valley and all of us were quite cheery.


On the way down, however, was rock garden after rock garden (not flat like in the picture below).  I tried to muster up courage to go over a lot of it, but frequently just gave up and walked down.  The repeated discouragement from the trail got to me, I started crying at one point, and was ready to sell my mountain bike 2/3rds of the way down.  I must admit I was excited to get to the bottom even though we had discovered that we would have to thumb it back to the top because we'd forgotten the keys for Darren's car at the bottom.  By the time I had finally made it to the parking lot, Rob had already started biking back to town in hopes of finding a merciful person to give him a ride.  Some bikers from Montana were hanging out in their truck and had pity on us.  They didn't give us a ride to the truck, but provided us with "nutter flutters" which consist of Milano cookies and marshmallow fluff.  One can also add peanut butter if they're feeling extra saucy.


After some 20 or 30 minutes Rob triumphantly returned with his truck.  He had biked almost all the way back to our campground before someone graciously gave him a ride up the numerous remaining miles to the trailhead.  We quickly headed into town for a heap load of Thai food before parting ways.  We definitely deserved it.

So, have I given up mountain biking?  Definitely not.  But next time I'm taking an easier route and building my way up...or knowing me I'll just suffer through difficulty again and bump and walk my way down the mountain.

Desert Towers Bring Mud Showers

Friday the sun was still shining so we took our chances and went to climb one of the most photographed routes in the United States:  Ancient Art.

After climbing desert towers in Sedona, Utah, and Colorado, I have decided that they are the scariest things to climb on this earth.  Do you see the little squiggle in the left hand corner?  That is what Darren and I climbed.  Ancient Art is part of the Fisher Towers which are famous for essentially being big mounds of dirt--dirt that can be easily broken.  Throughout our climb I was showered by heaps of brown, sandy dirt.

At the very top one must walk (or in my case crawl) over a catwalk with no protection except for the belayer.  THEN the climber must huck (or you can crawl under it) him or herself up onto a diving board feature (still no protection). After that there are some rusty pitons which Darren decided to skip and a surprisingly difficult section of face climbing--one would think there'd be a break somewhere.  Finally one gets to the anchor.  I was already so freaked out that I just stopped at the anchor, but Darren climbed past the anchor to the wobbly paper-sized pinnacle and actually sat on top.  I couldn't believe it, but some guys came up right after us and did the karate kid pose on top.  Crazy!

Darren with Kingfisher in the background

rapelling off Ancient Art

The Cobra!  Yes, amazingly people climb this as well

We still had some juice left, so we decided to scale the lizard head which is about a two minute walk from the parking lot and also very photographed.  For example it is on the cover of Climbing Anchors by Bob Gaines and John Long (You can see Ancient Art as well in the picture below.  Again, just look for the thin squiggle.)

Arches National Park

Darren and I were lucky enough to have a four day weekend, so we decided to head back to the desert and see all there is to see in the adventure town that is Moab.  Rain was predicted on Thursday, so we decided to forgo any desert towers and just check out Arches (yea for a National Parks Pass that has not expired yet!).  Prepare for many pictures of arches, none of which have anything to do with a Big Mac.

Double D Arch

On the left are the "Three Gossips"--not an arch

Window Arches

Double Arch

Prong Horn--also not an arch

Tiny Arch

And many, many photos of Delicate Arch in the distance

Broken Arch.  Poor name choice--it wasn't really broken

The mysterious "off the map" Tapestry Arch

Darren was so stressed about running out of gas that he had to wear a sweat band while we explored some dirt roads

The rain never came, so we decided to end our day at the park by climbing a small desert tower called Owl Rock.  Tourists brought out their binoculars and watched us for a while, reminding us of Joshua Tree climbing at Hidden Valley Campground.

Relaxing on the apex of Owl Rock

Closing Weekend in Vail

So there are a little heap of us that knew each other prior to moving to Colorado, but whom which now are within at most a two hour drive from one another.  This past weekend all of us that could collaborated for some needed fellowship.  We went to church, ate at a Nepali restaurant, sat in the hippi hotsprings, and ended with some milk shakes from Charcoal Burger.   Delicious.

Since it is closing weekend at Vail, they are having all sort of fun festivities and free concerts.  Saturday night Darren and I grooved to Wyclef.  It reminded me of my senior year in high school when four or five girls and I cruised Gatlinburg for around three hours playing the only cruising music we had, which happened to be Wyclef.  Good times.

On Sunday Olivia, Darren, and I skied for free at Vail.  I even had an extra half off ticket and tried to give it away to someone near the ticket booth, but no one seemed to need it.

The mountain was dauntingly huge (I'd never skied at vail before) and super crowded and we didn't get in too many runs, but we enjoyed looking at every costume imaginable.  We saw characters like the gazelle guy, Robin Hood, an entire mariachi band, various Where's Waldo Waldos, and my favorite was a fella wearing fancy duds and a top hat who looked like he was from the 1920s.

After our leisurely few runs we took a painfully flat trail (Darren had to pull me through some mud) to watch the pond skimming competition.  Skiers and snowboarders, mostly all in audacious costumes, huck themselves down the mountain, off a huge kicker, and then try to skim their way across a body of water.  There were more wipeouts then successful skims which made the experience all the more interesting.

Captain Morgan didn't fair too well.

After the pond skimming and a quick trip into town for some T-bell and Mia Zuppa we returned for a free Guster concert back in Vail Village.