Weightless

I got a call one day that went something like this:

Chris: "Hello?"

"Hey, you wanna go skydiving?"

"Yeaaah... who is this?"

"This is Ivy!"

"Uh, skydiving?"

"Yep, Jane found out that with our guide licenses we get a big discount at Skydive Moab, so a bunch of us are going. You coming?"

"Heck yeah!"

So, I went skydiving! We drove out to the Moab airport and met up with our other friends -- Jane, Lexy, Clinton, Cody, Joe, and Morgan. We watched some educational and safety videos and then headed out to the hanger. Two of us could jump at a time with two tandem instructors. So we put on those goofy looking "jump"suits and waited our turn.

Ivy and I waiting in the hanger.

The guy that I jumped with was Ben. He had a hardcore mohawk.

In the plane almost ready to jump.

Then, at 10,000 feet, they opened the door. I focused on the picture taped to the plane wall in front of me. Suddenly, Ivy and her instructor were gone. Ben tapped me and yelled, "Our turn!" We crab-crawled over to the door and let our legs dangle almost 2 miles above the ground. "Put your feet on the step over the wheel!" A push came from behind and we were wildly spinning through the air! The feeling is completely indescribable, like nothing I've ever felt before. It was terrifying and radically exciting at the same time--I wasn't sure if I should scream or laugh (not that I could anyway at 120mph). It was the biggest adrenaline rush I have ever had, and I don't think anything can top it. 

After about 30 seconds (it seemed shorter) Ben pulled the chute. We glided and he let me steer with the lines so we spun around. It was awesome!

We landed and I ran over to Ivy. She was as white as the clouds we just flew through. "Woah, are you alright?" She leaned over and breathed deeply for a moment. "Yeah, just the flight up there was kinda crazy. Maybe I should take dramamine next time. After she felt better, we couldn't stop talking about how awesome it was. I would do it again, but even with the guide discount, it's pretty expensive.

My advice:

Do it!

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!

Gold Bar Float

A couple weeks ago Sheena, Cody, Ivy and I took four duckies with our overnight gear and floated down the river. We put in at the beginning of Potash road after it had thunder-stormed that afternoon.

The crew.

It was so shallow that you could almost walk across the river at some points.

We found a random croquet set on a small sandbar so we took our paddles and played a game. Weird.

One of the best parts of this trip was the food. We had chips and various dips for dinner, and eggs, bacon and fresh fruit for breakfast.

Random river hippy playing the harmonica. What the?

What we woke up to in the morning. Beautiful.

We four-strapped the noses of our duckies together and just floated for hours. Best party-barge ever! I love making food for only a few people and taking care of just myself. No responsibility over passengers! We played around a lot on this trip. 

When we got to Gold Bar we packed up our stuff into the truck and cliff jumped. Gold Bar is a river-side campsite that's right across from the trailhead to Corona Arch. It's even better than Left-hand, the cool-off waterhole in Moab, because the cliff is higher and the water is warmer and deeper.

Mary Jane Canyon

A while ago Clinton, Ivy, and I all had a day off of riverguiding, so we went hiking. We decided on Mary Jane Canyon, and after we stopped by the store for a snack lunch, we hit the trail. There were a lot of distractions along the way, so the hike took us 4+ hours.

 

Beautiful waterfall in the slot canyon. Here you can climb up under the boulders and come out behind the waterfall in a small opening that can fit two people.

 There was a lot of small critters like this one. We caught a couple of other snakes, and they were pretty large.

Found a few of these cool lizards.

  Clint thought he'd try his luck with a toad. She didn't turn into a princess.

There were tons of these new baby toads. We had to be careful to avoid stepping on them as we hiked.

Go Burn in Hittle

On one of our three-day Cisco river trips, we were cleaning up after dinner at Hittle Bottom, when all of a sudden we notice a 30-ft flame coming right at us and boys yelling, "Fire!" We threw all the propane into the truck and slammed the trailer doors, then drove it out of the way. A wild wind whipped up, bearing down right on camp. All the campers jumped up and grabbed everything we could find- every jerry can, Gott cooler, bowl, ice cream bucket, and even wash buckets (our scrubbies were lost in the flames- someone forgot to get them out before tossing the water ;). We ran back and forth from the river and got it out pretty quickly. The lucky break came when the wind stopped, and then we just dug around and dumped water on the charred remains. After we finished it up, we found out that a boy from our group was playing with a lighter with some of his friends. Kinda reminds me of what happened to Dewey Bridge, a kid burned it down. Later a park ranger and other officials came out to investigate and everything turned out alright.

The firefighting crew

Hittle Bottom lives on to provide riverway camping for more passengers.

Climbing

I climbed some routes at Mill Creek today with some river guide friends; Karen, Scott, Lauren, and Ivy. I learned a couple things... one of them is that I'm addicted. I had climbed a couple times before, but it was mostly just with my scout troop a long time ago and with mediocre gear. I started bouldering at Big Bend, but that's more technical and difficult. I get a bigger sense of satisfaction when I finish a hard climb. I need to work out more and get better on my form and technique. I need a new pair of shoes and a harness, and then I'll begin to slowly acquire my own gear. If anybody has used gear they don't use, I might be willing to buy it from them. I'm learning how to belay pretty well, so if anybody out there wants a climbing partner or if you'll just let me tag along, I'd love to go!

River Life

This summer I got a job as a riverguide! I'm working for World Wide River Expeditions, the Hazlett's rafting company. Right now I'm mostly doing one-day and three-day trips down the Fisher Towers section of the Colorado River. There are a lot of youth conferences and scout groups that come for river trips.

Guides at Moab Diner during training.

Jed, Mike and I got the same Chacos!

Sheena and I on the Desolation Canyon training trip.

Firewater Canyon in Deso.

Rowing the daily

Most of the times I'm guiding a boat like this, a paddleboat with 8-12 passengers.

Moab Action Shots takes pictures of all the boating companies and posts them online. Check them out!

Search & Rescue

The other week I was hanging out in the World Wide warehouse when John, one of my guide friends, came up and asked if anybody was familiar with the Gemini Bridges trail. I've ridden the trail quite a few times so I followed John as he told me that someone was lost out there without any flashlights (this was at 9:30 pm and the moon wasn't out). We met up with Randy, a guy from the single's branch, and we headed out in his Silverado pickup after a quick prayer. The people that were lost were from Canada along with a new river guide from Tag-a-long. They had lost their way in the dark after riding their bikes for five hours. Finally they found a place on the trail where they could barely get service on their phones. So the guide called the only other local that she knew, Randy, whom she had fortunately met just the day before. So, somehow they found their coordinates and we were able to find out that they were on a jeeping trail called "Metal Masher." In our Chevy Silverado we found out why it's called Metal Masher, even on the bypasses. After we had gone up the trail quite a ways and almost given up, we bumped into some jeepers that said they were out there looking for "three lost people." So we kept going and we later got a call from our lost friends saying they just saw our lights from the truck and to turn around! Finally we found them and took them back to their truck at the trailhead. We rolled back into town at about 3:30 am, but it was worth it! The next day John bought Randy a sticker that says "Metal Masher" to put on his truck as a joke.

Seminary Graduation

This is my graduating seminary class and our seminary teacher, Brother Jackman.

The White Rim Trail

Last Thursday the guys from the priest's and teacher's quorums in my ward started a mountain bike trip on the White Rim trail in Canyonlands National Park. It's a three-day, 100 mile off-road hard ride. Joe Heywood, Bryan Hays and I planned this trip for spring break in March, but it ended up being rescheduled to May 20-22, 'cuz I guess they missed me too much while I was in the hospital. Ironically, neither of them where able to go after it was rescheduled! Lame.

                              

The crew at the at the beginning of Mineral Bottom road: Joseph, Kory, leader Merrill, Jake, me, Aaron, Zak, Tyler, and Wiley. Not pictured: leader Ken.

On the trail with the Green River behind me. Because I'm still so out of shape, I drove the support truck most of the trail. I was able to get in 10-15 miles a day on my bike though!

Because we changed the campsite permits late, we had a short ride Thursday, a long ride Friday, and an average ride Saturday. The first day we weren't in a hurry to get to camp, so along the trail we hiked to Fort Bottom Ruin, an old Anasazi Indian ruin. 

Relaxing at camp Potato Bottom.

After 21 miles on Friday and another 30 to look forward to, we didn't feel like struggling up Murphy Hogback, a grueling 5-mile hill. So we loaded up seven guys in the truck, four bikes on the rack, and six bikes on top of our gear with three guys to hold it all on.

Our second night it was so windy that to cook dinner we had to use the table and a tarp to keep the propane stove on. Good times. We were able to get a camp at the Airport site instead of the Shafer campsite, which took 12 miles off the ~65 mile day.

Some of us in a small slot canyon along the way.