corona arch rope swingin'

"So I just go???"
- the last few words out of my mouth before yelling at the top of my lungs as I took the 100 foot drop below Corona Arch.

This was possibly the craziest thing I've done in a long time, second to skydiving when I was 18. My roommate and I hiked to the top of Corona Arch while a group of people were swinging, inspected the gear and riggings, and jumped. If Clint hadn't jumped first I probably wouldn't have tried it. He jumped without hesitation! I barely had time to start recording with my camera. After watching a couple people swing from the arch it seemed pretty safe, but somehow that hike back down to the canyon floor didn't seem so bad! But I just had to try it and I'm glad I did. Try everything at least once, right?

You'll love my facial expressions mid-flight.



Spring break has come and gone too fast! Braden and I originally went to Moab to volunteer for and run the Canyonlands Half Marathon and Clint came down to have fun and see some family. Saturday after the race we all decided to hike Corona Arch and ended up jumping off of it. I don't think I woke up race morning and said to myself, "I want to jump off a cliff today," but it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Would I do it again? YES. 100%. It would be a lot easier the second time anyways. Sometimes I wonder if it ever gets old for some people, but I guess not, otherwise why are they still doing it? Whatever, call me an adrenaline junkie.

a moab christmas

Annual Andrew Christmas Day hike to Cowboy Hottubs

Christmas morning excitement (including a thoughtful gift from Santa to Olivia)!

Logan and Brooke

It's been hard to sit down and write about Christmas break because so much happened and I really haven't wanted to say that it's over, but in a nutshell, I...

...went duck hunting (I just need my duck stamp right? HEY DUCKS!! I hear I'm the best bird dog out there, so if you need a hound to flush out them ducks I'm your man), hiking, was the best man for my best friend's wedding, climbing on Wall Street, bearding (what happens when Olivia strokes your beard excessively), hiked, ate good food, snowshoed with Kerri, watched the Hobbit II and hung out in downtown SLC with my best aunt Naomi, more hiking....

Of course Christmas day wouldn't be complete without the traditional Andrew family hike. We went up the right fork of Mill Creek, and the stream was completely frozen over. I love ice hikes in the desert during the winter. Not very many people get to see Moab like this with thirty-foot icicles hanging from slowly dripping springs in the canyons and cliffs. As enjoyable as it is to cool off at Left Hand in the summer, I love it just as much in the winter.

And most importantly it was great to be with my family again after two years in California. This will probably be one of the last that we're all together, because Joseph will leave on his mission this summer, and then Anna will get married...

Take two

As a last romp in the desert, Kim, Ivy and I took a trip down to the San Rafael Swell. Neither of them had canyoneered in Blue John before, but really wanted to. I was familiar with the canyon already, and I love the long, narrow slots, so Blue John it was. The drive was interesting; we saw a herd of wild horses and got the car stuck in the sand. There must've been a strong storm or something, because the road was covered in deep sand--not like it had been last month. After we got the car stuck once, we found a great camp spot close to the trailhead and stayed the night.

At the trailhead in the morning. Here's to you, Aron Ralston! Cliché, I'm sure.

Over the last month this canyon had seen a lot of changes. There must've been a strong flash flood, because the slots were filled with standing water and slick mud. It made getting through the canyon a lot harder than before, and we hadn't counted for that difficulty. It took us almost twice the time to get through the canyon than it had taken Jef and I.

On our way back through the west canyon, there were several places in the canyon that it was apparent that there had been small rock slides. A little dust here, some rocks there... it was kinda cool. And then we came across this:

Gnarly. The trail used to be right under all that! There were gouge marks all the way down the canyon walls where the boulders had fallen. It probably happened within the last week or so, before it thunder-stormed and flash flooded. Kinda a big deal.

This is at the end of our hike, at 7:30pm. 10.5 hours of hiking, scrambling, canyoneering... SO exhausted. It was a great adventure.

6 HOURS

Yesterday my buddy Jef and I went to The Robber's Roost and descended into Blue John Canyon. The canyon was made famous by this guy:

There are a couple of forks that join together to form lower Blue John Canyon, where Aron got stuck. That canyon drops into Horseshoe Canyon, where my dad and I hiked a couple weeks ago. Jef and I did a loop through the slots above Lower Blue John, and it only took us 6 hours. This sign we found at the trailhead info kiosk.

Read the bottom paragraph: the blue pool is NOT in Blue John (like it shows in the preview and movie!).

At a wider section of the slot canyon. We caught the sun perfectly! Some deeper parts of the canyon never see the light of day.

Jef descending deeper into the slot. There were about four or five places that had webbing to rappel from, but it wasn't exposed or technical enough to need a rope. It's incredible to be inside such narrow slots without the heat from the summer sun!

Worst pet peeve

I really hate it when I find graffiti and vandalism in the wilderness. It's really narcissistic and shows disrespect when you scratch your name and date in a wall. What if every hiker pecked their name into the rock? Really, who will recognize your name and truly care if you were there? Take a picture of the rock for crying out loud. Markings like that take away from the natural beauty of the rocks and their features. The sad part is, most graffiti is labeled as a "historic resource" after about fifty years. The "50 year rule" generally applies to all graffiti, trash, and anything else that is not native to the land. Ridiculous.

In this picture, Clyde, Joe, and Albert scrawled their names right over the native american pictographs. Dumb.

The Needles, Canyonlands. Mountains of untouched crypto. You don't find too much of this in Arches.

This is what I love: beautifully pristine wilderness with no sign that any other human being was there before you. I took this picture while backpacking with Ivy. Only a narrow trail led our way through the desert.

Horseshoe Canyon

Last weekend my dad and I took off to the San Rafael Swell. We started in Horseshoe Canyon, a deep canyon filled with incredible pictographs, known as the Great Gallery. The trail meandered through a sandy and rocky wash in the shadows of the towering walls and the cottonwood trees. There were small pools in the wash where thousands of little tadpoles and water skippers swam. The red pictographs rose high on the cliffs, obviously painted in a time when the canyon floor was higher. Some figures were close together with triangular bodies, and some had limbs wielding weapons.

Part of the Great Gallery panel

Little friend on the trail

On the way back we stopped at Chaffin Ranch Geyser. Who knew there was a geyser in the middle of the desert?! It was an old drill hole that spouts carbon dioxide and water filled with minerals twenty feet in the air. We were there when it blew, and it went on for about fifteen minutes. The ground all around the cold-water geyser is covered with hardened layers of minerals that turn everything a brownish-orange color. An old wagon wheel and wood beams laid close by, slowly petrifying. It was incredible.

Thanks, dad!

If I told you

where this place is, I'd have to kill you. I'll give you a hint though, it's in Arches. It was cool to hike to something not well-known in such a high-traffic national park. I love discovering the wild and weird; the esoteric places of Moab.

Lost in Lost Canyon

I just got home from an overnight backpacking trip in The Needles district of Canyonlands! Ivy got an internship for the SCA and is a park ranger there. River guide buddies Mike, Joe, Stephen and Amber joined Ivy and I hiking in Lost Canyon, Peekaboo, and Squaw Canyon. The trails were amazing! We hiked on solid slickrock for miles, where the trail is only discernible by numerous rock cairns until we descended through slots into canyons filled with meandering streams and newly-leaved Cottonwood trees. We explored several Indian archeological sites. I am always amazed at how well-preserved the wilderness is in the Needles. There are mountains of untouched cryptobiotic soil! The trails are followed and the campsites are well cared for. I love that place.

Camp broken and ready to go this morning at our campsite, LC3

Several animals visited us last night: hungry mice, Rodents of Unusual Size, and squawking birds at 4am. But after 10 miles, that pad has never been so comfortable!

We hiked to Peekaboo and found these incredible pictographs. I've never seen hand-prints like these.

Claret Cup Cactus

Ivy and I. She only has 5 more weeks here!

Snowshoeing Oowah

Chillin' in sunny LaSal

Last weekend Ivy and I borrowed snowshoes from our friends Brian and Angela and headed to the mountains! We parked on the LaSal loop road and hiked in to Oowah Lake. Three miles uphill in 2-3 ft of snow is grueling, with or without snowshoes. As our first time snowshoeing, it was hard to get used to (never try to walk backwards with those on!), but it was fun. There had only been two other people up there since it had snowed. It was cool to see how the mountains had changed from the last time I had been up there to the deep snow and green pines. Recharged with energy bars and fruit leather at the frozen-over lake, we breezed back down the trail just as the sun was disappearing. So excited for our snowshoe trip in February!

Merry Christmas



Shorts and Chacos, baby.

 Another great family hike this year! The ugly weather opened a perfect sunny window for Christmas weekend, so we took advantage of it. We hiked the Moab Rim in almost-60 degree weather.

Provo Round #2

This weekend I was lucky enough to be able to visit Ivy again! My Andrew aunts and uncles were celebrating my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary, so I asked to be just dropped off at BYU. I arrived just after Ivy had raced in the school's mini-triathlon, and had finished strong. We (she) recovered in her apartment in the Foreign Language Housing where she studies Spanish. 

Later in the afternoon we hiked up Rock Canyon, which is only a 15 min. walk from campus. The fall colors were pretty, and the cool air was perfect for a hike. There were several groups climbing and mountain biking, and we joined the many couples that were obviously hiking for a date. We explored the canyon, found a cool cave, and crossed the stream several times. Ivy told me about Squaw Peak that overlooks the canyon and times that she's climbed it. Pretty cool!

After we walked back into town, she showed me around campus and all the things that she does around there. We had dinner at the Ruby Thai restaurant and then watched a flick at the International Cinema. I invited her over to my grandparent's house for the night and the next day, and we stayed there with all my crazy wild cousins and family. Sunday we went to church and after lunch we dropped Ivy off and headed home to Moab (where my new climbing harness had arrived! Now I have all the gear I need to climb with my friends). What an awesome weekend.

Exploding colors in Rock Canyon

Goblin Valley

Karen, Kerri, Lauren, Ivy and I took a road trip to Goblin Valley and the surrounding canyons. We drove out to Crack Canyon and had delicious tin-foil dinners and set up camp. In the morning we hiked Little Wildhorse Canyon and explored the hoodoos in the park. I really want to discover more in the San Rafael Swell. I love slot canyons!

 

Little Wildhorse Slot Canyon



Ivy, Lauren, Kerri, Karen.

Lake Powell

The single's ward went to Lake Powell for three days to waterski, wakeboard, kneeboard, and everything in-between. Jane even bare-foot skied!

Cooking fajitas. Good food always makes the trip so much better. We used World Wide's kitchen and food, so most of the riverguides cooked because we knew what we were doing. The funniest quote of the weekend was "I like how as riverguides, we just get it." --Jordan

The best part of the trip was cliff jumping.

Last time I went to Lake Powell I tried several times to stand up on a wakeboard, but I couldn't. So I settled for kneeboarding instead. Ivy got a gnarly bruise from a crazy flip-jump-twist-wreck she did. It was impressive.

Ivy and I at Defiance House, awesome indian ruins!

  Randy, one of our favorite guys. He took us all over the place to cliff jump, hike, and swim. We went to Party Cove, where the cliff wall alcoves straight into the water.

And guess who got groover duty? Eww...

Desolation and Grey Canyon

At World Wide, every riverguide gets a free river trip a year for a family member. I decided to take my brother Joseph on a five-day Desolation Canyon river trip. Ivy came too, so the three of us got our own boat. There where two other guides on the trip, Suzy-Q and Morgan. The first day we have to cover 25 out of 86 miles of the Green River, so we took a motor with enough gas for one day.

Rigging our boats at Sand Wash, the put-in, Monday evening.

The next morning while we waited for Suzy and Morgan to get the passengers from the airstrip, I found a snake. When Suzy came back we put the reptile on her back. At first she thought it was her sunglasses and chums.

Unfortunately Jed, our driver and the motorhead, forgot to tell us to open up the gas tank while the motor was running, so it died a lot. It was embarrassing because all our passengers knew we didn't know what we were really doing. Luckily for us, they were very nice and helped out.

It took forever for us to figure it out. Everyone except for Suzy wanted to shoot ourselves. Instead she just swears, right Suzy? ;)

Outlaw hide-out in Firewater Canyon.

One of the nights it stormed the whole time. Cool lightening and thunder but we didn't appreciate the rain very much.

Morgan tried to stay dry by sleeping in her dry-bag under the table. I don't know why she's smiling, it didn't work that great.

Ivy and I at McPhereson Ranch. I'm glad we use groovers on the river now.

We stopped on a small isolated beach after Rattlesnake Rapid and hung out there for about thirty minutes. One of our young passengers pointed downstream and said, "Hey! A bear!" We got off that beach pretty quickly. The black bear looked like an awkward adolescent. I love the wildlife in Desolation and Grey Canyon!

In camp we played the whipped cream game with our passengers. It's my favorite river game.

Ivy and I drew straws for our favorite rapid on Deso, Three Fords, and I got it! I really hope that the year I come back to guide I can be trained for commercial trips like Cataract and Desolation Canyon.

Love ya deso ~ until next time!