Tue 8/16: Fun Biking, Crazy Biking

Since we had rented the bikes yesterday, the plan for today was all about biking. Lynn and George had whetted their appetite for something very adventurous, and decided to try their hand at the Slickrock Trail. Vince was tempted to go along, but decided to stick with Joanna since she would be biking today as well. I drove George and Lynn to their trail head around 9:00. Vince came along for the ride, and we spent awhile stopping in various tour offices to get prices on kayak rental and off road rentals for a future date. We then returned to load up our bikes and pick up Joanna. Our plan was to shuttle the bikes back to the Bar M area that we had tried yesterday, and then taken the 7 mile paved bike trail back to Moab. We chose this because it is downhill pretty much the entire way, and therefore suited to our exhausted state of mind. It was a fun and easy ride, and we were surprised just how quickly we reached the end. We did see a few impressive (insane?) souls riding UP the steep 7 mile hill. All the more impressive given that a few of them looked to be in their 60's.

By now it was about 1:00pm, and on the drive home we finally heard from Lynn. They were STILL on the slickrock trail, exhausted, out of water, and at least an hour from the trail head. They wanted to give me a heads up that they would be looking for a pickup, along with a water delivery when they reached it. When Lynn finally called an hour and a half later, they were coming into town after walking their bikes down a tiny, treacherous path down the side of the valley into Moab (NOT on their trail map. Later determined to be "Dave's Trail").


I quickly met them at the nearest intersection, where they had found a small ice cream shop and were attempting to recuperate. Lynn seemed to be in reasonably good shape, but George was clearly not. He was very dehydrated, and probably on the verge of heat stroke. All told, they spent over 5 hours in the desert heat, without water near the end. Once he had recovered enough to stand up again, we returned to the room where he was able to shower and take a nap. Afterwards he expressed his belief that the trail was so difficult as to not even actually be doable, and that nobody could possibly do it without walking their bike half the time. He seemed a bit disbelieving when he talked to the worker in the bike shop who could managed to entire trail in about 1.5 hours without ever getting of their bike.

Since neither George nor Lynn was interested in doing anything further, I wound up going to Arches National Park with Vince and Joanna. They will be leaving on Saturday morning, and I was not sure if they would have another chance, so I did not want to waste the opportunity. We had a good time hiking through the Devils Garden section, which is one of the most impressive in the park. I was hoping to find Wall Arch (though I could not remember it's name at the time), because it collapsed some time subsequent to my previous visit to Arches. I have a picture of myself standing under it in 2007, and would have loved to get another picture now that it is gone. Unfortunately, we did not have a map and I did not remember it's name, so we never did find it.

We had brought some light sources with us since we were visiting rather late in the day. This turned out to be a good thing, because the sun set pretty rapidly and we did wind up hiking back to the car in the dark. We probably would have made it if we did not have lights, but since we did we felt free to explore a bit farther than we would have otherwise. By the time we reached the trail head, a lot of stars were in the sky and we stopped to stargaze for a bit. The horizon was still light from sunset, so we drove another 20 minutes toward the park exit (It's a BIG park), and stopped again. Fortuitously, we happened to stop at just the right moment to see the full moon breach the horizon and amazingly rapidly rise fully into the sky. The light from the moon quickly obscured alot of the stars, but we still managed to catch several satellites crossing the sky. From there is was straight back to the house for much needed sleep.

Mon 8/15 : Climbing & Biking

Most of us were up early, and wanted to get going before the sun started baking the area. Lynn was still asleep, though, and I think that everybody was a little frightened of waking him up. We discussed the plans for awhile while he slept, and decided to go to the ice cream parlor and do some climbing. It would be Georges first climb ever. Since the sun hits that area by noon, I eventually went ahead and got him up. I don't think he was too happy about it.

Once we got all our gear organized, we went straight to the wall. I offered to lead the first route (listed as a 5.7) but Lynn insisted on doing so himself. I did manage to convince him to let me stick clip the first bolt for safety, at least. As it turned out, leading an unfamiliar route, on unfamiliar rock, without having done any lead climbing for a long while was a bit more intimidating than he expected. After a brief foray beyond the first bolt, he decided to anchor himself off and use the stick clip for the second bolt as well, but did not want to carry it up any further and handed it back down. He then climbed to the second bolt, and repeated the attempt to actually lead climb. This was not any more successful than the first attempt, and he was too high for us to pass the stick clip up. We wound up lowering him enough to grab the stick clip, which was attached to his harness for the rest of the route, and used on every bolt.

I then climbed the route on top rope, and agreed that it did not feel like a 5.7, and was probably not the best route for the new climbers. George was next up, but quickly found that the aggressive shoes that he had borrowed from Lynn were too painful, and had to come back down. He switched into my shoes, which were better, but his toe was still hurting from the first pair of shoes, so he came down again. Vince was up next, and gve me the biggest surprise of the day. He ran up the route just as quickly, if not even more quickly than I had done. He's climbed just a little bit before, but still appears to be a natural.

We moved our rope to another route rated as a 5.5, and everybody was able to get to the top on that one. We were planning on doing one more route that Lynn began to set up, but the sun had reached the base of the cliff and everybody down below was anxious to get going.

We came back to the house and decided that the next activity would be mountain biking. We checked out a couple of bike stores in town and wound up renting from Moab Cyclery, as they were closed on Tuesday and therefore offered to let us keep the bikes until Wednesday at no extra charge. As it was still hot, we planned on relaxing until about 6:00, hitting the Bar M Loop trails, and then biking more Monday morning. Bar M was chosen because they had a mix of beginner and advanced trails, so that Lynn and George could go do insane stuff, while the rest of us stayed on the beginner trails and met back at the cars. Even the beginner trail was more difficult than expected, but we all got through safely and had a good time. George and Lynn apparently got a bit lost and wound up on the hardest trail out there (Dead Mans Ridge) instead of the loop they intended to take. When they met up, the trail they described sounded absolutely terrifying, but they both loved it despite having to walk their bikes over a number of obstacles.

The evening was rounded out with dinner at Pasta Jays, one of the few good restaurants that I had found the last time I was in Moab. Tomorrow, George and Lynn are going to try to most mountain biking popular route in Moab (Actually, in the world), the Slickrock trail. The rest of us will be finding something MUCH easier. Hopefully, I can get one of them to write a guest entry on the blog detailing their adventures.

Sun 8/14 : Dragonfly Canyon

By the time that Lynn and I woke up this morning, everybody else in the house had already gotten up and gone. (We were tired from yesterday, Ok?) Lynn texted them and found out that they were at the grocery store, so we headed out and met them there to stock up the kicthen in the house. After we unloaded the groceries, me made a quick stop at the gear shop so the others could pick up a hat, sunglass strap, etc, and headed for the canyon.


After a east downclimb into the canyon bottom, it was on to the first pothole. It went a bit faster than yesterday, as this time there was no question of trying to avoid it. Everybody did extremely well, and we were quickly through. George even took a flying leap into the pothole rather than attempting the climb down to it. By the time we reached the 2nd pothole, Lynn decided that downclimbing was for wimps as well, and did the same.


Finally, the first rappel. With the exception of George and Joanna, the rest of us had all rappeled before. Once he was half way down the wall, George got the hang of it and was doing great. The most impressive of all, however, had to be Joanna. Not only had she never rappeled before, but apparently has a strong fear of heights. For this reason, we decided to lower her down with Lynn controlling her descent from above. She did remarkably well, all things considered, and never freaked out. One of the best quotes of the trip came when she reached the bottom and was asked "How was it, what did you think?" and said "It was Great!". I then asked "Did you like it?" to which she immediately replied "No!" with a great big smile on her face.

While the trip was largely without mishap of any kind, the one exception actually happened on the very first rappel. I had descended first in order to provide a safety (firemans belay) to the remaining people. While I was waiting at the bottom with George and Joanna, I looked up just in time to see something small falling down the cliff and landing in the deep murky pool below with an audible PLOP! The something in question happened to be the ATC (device needed to rappel) that Vince was attaching to his harness. (Sorry Matt, your old faithful ATC is gone, but has already been replaced with a shiny, brand new one.)

By the time we chimneyed through the narrow section of the canyon at the top of the next big (118 foot) rappel, everybody was comfortable with the rappel and had a an even better time on the 2nd rappel. Everybody was over the fear, and was able to enjoy it more.

The hike out of the canyon went a bit easier than yesterday, as we knew the proper route out and did not have to backtrack at all. We also had a shuttle vehicle parked near where we emerged on the road, so that saved about a mile of hiking back to the car.

Back at the house, we all took a shower and had an excellent Fettucine Alfredo prepared by Vince and Joanna. Afterwards, we wandered around downtown for a bit, and rounded out the evening with a game of "The Settlers of Cataan". The game lasted a bit longer than usual, and only ended when we declared Joanna the winner because she was so far ahead, and we wanted to get to bed.

Sat 8/13 : Lynn, my hero!

I am more exhausted at this moment in time than I can recall being in a VERY long time. But perhaps I am jumping to the end of the story, so lets start at the beginning. Our first stop of the morning was "Gear Heads", a small outdoor shop in Moab that carries just about EVERYTHING. (Small in size, but they sure pack the merchandise in. REI has nothing on their selection) We picked up the accessory cord and webbing needed to safely enter into technical canyons.

From there, we grabbed breakfast at the Moab diner and headed up to Wall St do get a little climbing in. We should have taken a hint that nobody else was there on a Saturday morning, but figured out the problem mere moments after we stepped out of the car. The south facing wall that is South St was blazing hot, and the rock was painful to even touch. We drove around a bit to look at the amazing scenery, and then decided to try the Ice Cream Parlor, which I had read was in the shade in the morning. (Last time in Moab, Matt and I had tried to find the ice cream parlor, but failed. It turned out that we actually did make it there while we were looking, but failed to identify it.)

We arrived at around 11:30, to see a large group departing, which I believe was a guided tour. We hiked up to the base and found several other climbers preparing to leave. As it turns out, the sun comes over the the top of the cliff around noon, and bakes that wall as well. Thankfully, the very nice climber that was preparing to leave set our rope on his anchors when he was done, letting us climb that route without having to lead it. This both made it easier, and far quicker, so we were both able to climb it before it became too hot.

Since it was still early, we decided to go further down the dirt road that passes the ice cream parlor. I was expecting it to get worse shortly thereafter, but we went quite a long ways before deciding to turn around and see if we could move from the cabin to the house we had rented. (Thats my story. Lynn will tell you that I got nervous about continuing to offroad in my Prius. Either way, we both enjoyed the stares we got from the multiple offroad vehicles we passed going the other way, who had not doubt spent quite a bit to rent those vehicles)
When we got back to town, we were able to get into our rental house, and prepare for the highlight of the day, our dry run of Dragonfly Canyon. We will be guiding the rest of the people on this trip down that canyon tomorrow, and decided that actually having done it before bringing non climbers into it would be beneficial.

I will discuss the canyon in greater detail tomorrow, but I would be remiss if I did not chronicle Lynn's heroic efforts on this trip, especially considering that I titled this blog post after them. In the order they occured, here they are.

1 - I had placed my waterproof camera into a Pelican box so that I could throw it Lynn. I had just filmed him swimming across a keeper pothole, and wanted him to do the same from the other side. Apparently I had not closed the box properly, because as soon as it landed in the water near the other side it immediately filled with water and began to sink into the pool. It would never have been retrieved since the pool was impossible to see through, and deep enough that we did not touch bottom. Lynn immediately jumped in and managed to grab it before it sank very far, for which I am very grateful. (This was all the more impressive as the water was quite cold, and Lynn had not enjoyed his first trip through it very much.

2 - The hike out of the canyon was very long and exhausting, and I was very tired from the days activities. I was not moving very quickly, and Lynn decided to carry my extremely heavy backpack along with his own. (I would love to believe that it was out of sympathy for my suffering, but I know that it was actually just to get me to move faster.)

3 - When we *FINALLY* reached the road, we still had a ways to go back to our car. We had hoped to hitchhike the mile or so up the road, but nobody was stopping. Once again, Lynn proved his mettle by leaving the gear with me and walking to the car himself, and driving it back. (OK, it was another way of speeding things up, but appreciated nonetheless)



When we got back, Vince and Joanna had arrived, and we went out for Mexican food. Shortly after we got back from dinner, George arrived as well, so we are all here now! (Except for Brad, who won't be here till the middle of next week.)

Fri 8/12 : The rest of the way.

Today was (mostly) according to plan. The mostly came about because our 7:00am wakeup call was promptly delivered at 6:00am, and at least for a little while we simply thought that our phones were getting their time zones confused. Thankfully, we figured this out before we left for the caverns, and were able to spend the time relaxing in bed. (OK, watching cartoons.... It was Lynn's idea, I swear.) We arrived at the caverns just before they opened up, and were literally the first ones the begin the hike down the natural entrance.
While there can be no doubt that the Big Room that everybody who goes down the elevator sees, I remain convinced that the natural entrance is even more impressive. I can't say exactly why, except perhaps that the sense of constant descent, and the amazement at the people who first explored it are both amazing.

By the time we reached the bottom about and hour and a half later, we decided to immediately take the elevator back up and begin the drive towards Moab. The drive was estimated at 12 hours, and the front desk closed at 11:00pm, so we wanted to get there in time.

While I still feel that I am now more tolerant of long drives than I used to be, today was still a LONG day of driving, made all the more so by the fact that much of it was done in New Mexico. I remember being very annoyed at the habits of the New Mexico highway department last time, what with the silly speed limits and incessant "safety corriders" which seemed only to serve the allow them to double their speeding fines. This time around, I was pleasantly surpised that most of the speed limits seemed to be more reasonable on the route we took, but they found another way to mess up the experience. We encountered a number of "construction zones" along our route. These typically took the form of a couple of guys doing some relatively minor work on one lane of the road. This would not have been a problem at all, except that for no discernable reason New Mexico seems to believe that construction zones cannot be less than about 5 miles in length. Despite the work only actually occupying about 10 feet of distance, each work site was proceeded by literally miles on lane closure with reduced speed limits.

Despite the frequent slow downs, we did reach Moab in time, and are now checked into a cabin at the Lazy Lizard Hostel for the night. Tomorrow we switch to one of their rental houses (Grammas House) which will accomodate the rest of our group when they arrive. The cabin is sparse, but will meet our needs.

Thu 8/11 : Carlsbad Caverns

Perhaps I am simply more accustomed to long drives than I was last time around, but the drive from Austin to the edge of Texas did not seem nearly as interminable as last time. (It's still over 7 hours, but it seemed to go pretty quickly.) The first problem came when I got around to looking up the operating hours of Carlsbad Caverns. Much to my surprise, they cease to allow people to walk down the natural entrance at 3:30, and to go down the elevators at 4:00. Since Lynn had complained about my original plan to leave Austin at 6:00 am (sleepy head!), it turned out that we we're going to be just a little bit too late. Lynn suggested simply canceling our hotel in Carlsbad and continuing to drive towards Moab, but knowing how incredible the caverns were, I pushed to stick around and tour in the morning if we did not make it today. We decided to head there anyways in the hope that we would make it, which turned out to be a good call since we had failed to realize that we would be crossing into Mountain Time, thereby rolling the clocks back an hour.

Despite being there in time, we were unable to hike down the natural entrance due to some lightening that had been in the area previously, so we took the elevator down with plans to return tomorrow. As before, the caverns were incredible. Lynn, who had only ever seen some of the caves in and around Austin, seemed amazed. He very much seemed to enjoy playing with his camera, and getting some amazing shots.

Eventually, as we were taking our time to look around and get photos, the ranger who was ensuring that everybody was out of the cave before they turned off the lights showed up behind us. We wound up walking out with her, and getting to see each section of the lights get turned off, which was very neat to see. (For the technically inclined, the lights were controlled by Allen Bradley pushbuttons... Kinda wondering if there was a PLC hiding somewhere.) Lynn, of course, would be hard pressed to avoid trying to get a picture with a cute park ranger. Much less three of them.

Unlike last time, we both had smartphones, so we should not have trouble finding the good food in Carlsbad. Last time, as my loyal readers might recall, the restaurant recommended by the front desk of the hotel turned out to be fast food. The only place that didn't look horrible was Chilis. This time, though, we had our phones! And they told us to go eat at Chilis........

The blog returns!

Like a phoenix from the ashes, this blog now rises again! For the next week and a half, anyways. This was started to document our Road Trip in 2007, so now that I am embarking on a new road trip, it seemed only appropriate to use it again. (And whats more, I am actually revisiting several highlights from the last trip, so all the more appropriate still.)

This time, the destination is Moab, with a stop along the way at Carlsbad Caverns. It was awesome last time, and as several million years have not yet past, I doubt that it will be any different this time.

Annette and Matt are not along this time, as Annette is in NY visiting her family, and Matt is too busy with work. This time along, I had planned to travel with my friends Lynn and Eric. Eric had some problems with his leg, however, and had to cancel, so the road trip portion (along with Carlsbad) will be just Lynn and myself. Joining us in Moab are Lynn's friends George, Vince, and Joanna, as well as our friend Brad who will be flying out later in the week. (Another person with work to worry about .... How sad.)

We have lots of adventure planned, so stay tuned!