Monday, December 22, 2008

Ouray Ice Climbing Trip

I made my goal of climbing Ouray. December 18th through the 21st was a good weekend of sharp steel and ice. Unfortunately I haven’t received any photos from the other group members yet so I don’t have any of me climbing. I went on the trip as a secondary leader/instructor as majority of the people on the trip were beginners. The first day was done in the Camp Bird Miners area. The next 3 days were spent in the ice park, which was very fun and safe. I got in some really good mileage. But the most interesting and exciting part of the trip happened on the first day. This is a long one, and sorry Mom, I’m not holding any details back, so you might want to consider not reading it. I don't want to get an earful.

For the first day of climbing, we hiked up the canyon to climb some natural lines because the park hadn’t yet opened for the season. Due to availability of climbs, I ended up on a climb called Skylight. I didn’t have the guide book, so I didn’t have any beta. I eye-balled the route to be a solid WI4 rating and said let’s do it. The climb consists of two pitches. The first being about 20+ feet of thick to thin ice with a “V-shaped” crack to negotiate as you pull yourself over the lodged boulder. For my first pitch of the season and first climb of any sort in about 6 months, it was a good warm up. I belayed the other two up one at a time due to the narrowness of the climb. (This is what the first pitch looks like. That's not me, I pulled this from the internet just for a reference. There wasn't this much ice when I climbed it.)

We then walked up to the next pitch. (This picture is what the climb looks like from the trail. Half of the second pitch, minus the top section is visible. Once again there wasn't even half the ammount of ice present when I climbed it.) I call this the “Devil’s Butt Crack.” The ice formed on the left side of a very narrow slot, about 5 feet wide at the bottom, to 3 feet, to 10 feet in the middle, and then to 1 ½ feet at the top before you have to pull yourself through another “V-shaped” crack, with this one being even smaller and more narrow than the first pitch. I reracked my protection and looked up at my line. There wasn’t much ice on the route, so I had to go straight up the middle. I started up at a nice slow pace so to not pump myself out. The cool thing about the Devil’s Butt Crack is that you can just lean against the wall behind you to get a hands free rest. I definitely took advantage of this going up. But since it was the Devil’s Butt Crack, things didn’t pan out as great as they started. Deception was present.

When I got to the middle section I noticed that the wall behind me started to get further and further away, making it impossible to use it for a rest, or even reach out and touch it. At the same time as the wall furthered from me, the ice started to steepen from almost vertical to dead vertical, to slightly past vertical. I was now on WI5 ice for sure. I wasn’t able to notice these changes in the steepness and wall aspect from the ground, and had miscalculated the actual crux of the climb. I now refer to the crux as the Devil’s Deception. I started to get a little pumped, as what happens at cruxes, and worse yet, I started to lose my cool. I was about 10 meters above my last piece and still didn’t have a good spot to stop and place a screw. I started to talk to myself. The fear and actuality of a possible fall in a narrow slot high above my last piece that was in thin ice, had worked its way to the forefront of my thoughts. I started to lose it. I began to rush my swings and my feet placement, which just added to my current forearm pump that was going on. At one point I lost my footing as my front points popped out of the ice. What made this scary was that I only had one tool in the ice as I was mid swing with the other tool. That is called a “one armed bandit” because you are hanging from only one arm. It’s now the third one that I’ve had to experience that on a lead. I think this is where I strained my left latissimus dorsi muscle, but I wouldn’t notice till later that night. I was sweating like crazy, partly because I was working hard on the climb and partly because of nerves. My swings were becoming more and more desperate.

By now I had thought to myself twice that I was not going to be able to get my tools in the ice, or even hold on, eventually peeling of the ice and get seriously hurt. I did not bring any cord or a 22 cm ice screw to perform a V-thread and lower to the ground, nor was I in a good place to be able to safely perform the maneuver. Here, as I realized that the situation had turned from floating in calm seas to teetering on the edge of a rogue wave, ready to go down in rough seas, I said the second quickest pray in my life: “Oh Lord, help. It’s not my time.” I now chuckle as I write this for two reasons: Primarily, because that it’s the second time I’ve been faced with this situation, and secondly, to push the feelings of the fear and helplessness from the experience out of my mind.

I was able to get my tools in, breathe two deep breaths, collect my nerves, and hurry up the next 3 meters of ice to where I could kick my leg out behind me, establishing a stem which helped give me a good stance to place a screw, and give my arms a much needed break. The crux was now starting to disappear below me. I then pushed the previous doubt, fear, and anxiety out of my mind with the top out only 10 meters above me. I took my time resting and finally yelled down to my belayer, “Whew! That was a little hard.” I don’t think that they sensed how sarcastic I was at this point. I hadn’t allowed myself to tell them that I was in trouble during the crux so to not unnerve their minds, causing them to act nervously, which would have lead to an increase in my anxiety, allowing a complete loss of my nerves. I left it at a one man show because it was all I could do to not crumble.

As I climbed to the top, the slot narrowed to the point where I could swing my tool back no more than 5 inches from the ice, and forced me to position my body to the left of my line, practically laying my side on the rock. I navigated myself through the narrow crack, topping out expecting to have the tree anchor a few feet in front of me, only to meet another 20+ foot section of vertical ice. No problem right? Not exactly. Well I had used all seven of my ice screws on the main part of the climb. I didn’t even care anymore. I quickly soloed up this section of WI4 ice and clipped into the anchor setting up the belay.

Wow that was fun. I smiled as the trial was over. I called Daniel on the radio and told him that I was now at the top of my climb, that I had gotten on the hardest climb I ever led, which was a little over my head for the first climb of the season, that it was a really fun route, and the details of what went down. Haha. I had overcome that crazy challenge. As I sat there with my sweat drenched layers now freezing to me, waiting for the strong beginners to struggle up this climb, I knew that I completed the hardest lead I’ve ever attempted. Here, I told myself not to let it go to my head, it wasn’t a good performance on my part.

After we got down and back to the car, I viewed the guide book. Skylight is rated at WI4+ to WI5+. The description said that in the early season the route is WI5 due to the steepness and the thickness of the ice, along with the scarcity of good placements for protection. I then smiled because I have now led a WI5. Once again, I told myself not to let it go to my head, it wasn’t a good performance. I’ve noticed a few more gray hairs since this experience.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Busy Busy Weekend: Avalanche Certification, Going Away Party, Soccer, and Hockey

This weekend was quite a busy one for me. The main event for this weekend was my Avalanche Level 1 Certification class. There were some avalanche incidents that happened on our second field day that deserve notice. I will hit on that later.

Friday after work I packed up my car, rushed through the traffic, and made it down to REI Salt Lake for the introduction lecture of the class. This was good and went over everything that I had been reading about in my preparation for this cert. Three hours later, we were done with the first day. Everyone left full of excitement due to the big storm coming in and the instabilities in the snow pack that would be troubled the next day.

Saturday started out with the storm front moving into Little Cottonwood Canyon as I was driving up. It was bound to be a huge dump. The flakes were large, heavy, and plentiful. I really just wanted to be out skiing. After our morning briefing, we divided up into groups and then skinned out to different areas. Our first stability tests were showing the obvious signs of new snow instability. We all expected that based on our previous discussion. However our first pit on a west facing slope had some unexpected surprises. The baselayer of the snow pack had huge, 3 mm, facets. This sugar actually shot out of the snowpack as we moved snow away from the base of our pit. All of our stability tests on every aspect that we looked at had this extremely weak layer of facets. There were also the melt freeze and rime/rain crusts from November prevalent on all aspects. After all of our our analyses on the different aspects and elevations, I decided that I will be very hesitant about going into the LCC backcountry on anything above 30 degrees slope angle till the end of January. There are way too many danger pockets. For instance one of the slopes we were testing on had about 10 lines on it from these snowboarders. After they saw our group's stability tests on that slope, they all bailed. Later after our class, our instructor for the day was able to get the whole slope to propagate and collapse by jumping on it and hitting a trigger point. Those snowboarders were only a few yards away from being in a very large avalanche.

It wasn't as hard to forgo skiing this new deep snow after seeing the dragon that existed within the snow pack. I talked with a couple of friends that are big into the backcountry and told them of what we found and warned them of the instabilities. I told them that the discussions today predicted that we'd hear about a couple of serious incidents by Monday.

After our first field session was over I drove up to Ogden for my friend Nazira's going away party. She now has to head back to Tajikistan because she wasn't able to obtain a work visa since she's been in the states for about 8 years on a student visa. So now it's 8:30 pm, I'm dead tired, and cannot fall asleep for a power nap for the life of me. Why was I trying to nap? Oh just because I had a indoor soccer game at 11:00 pm. As for that, we dominated the other team and played alright as a team.

So now I try to fall asleep and nothing. I last remember seeing 1:50 am on the alarm clack. The next thing I notice after I blinked was my alarm going off at 5:30 am. By this time, the second storm front had already rolled into Ogden and on was on its way to Salt Lake. Driving was miserable. There was slush, snow, and ice all over the road. There were a few times in which people, who were driving straight, not touching their brakes, and not driving too fast just spun out in front of me. I thought I was going to be in a big pile up at one point. It did take me almost 2 hours to get up to Alta.

So we grouped up and had a discussion about the avalanche forecast for the day. The forecast for the day was MODERATE. The question was asked if I agreed with it. I frowned and said that I thought it was wasn't as conservative as it should have been. Why didn't I agree with it? Well a moderate rating says that natural avalanches are very unlikely with skier trigger avalanches possible. I thought that there would be some natural avalanches today and that skier trigger avalanches were probable from our work done on Saturday. Our guesses on why it wasn't considerable were mainly along the lines of yesterday's huge temperature drop during the storm. That really helped to lighten up the snow and didn't put as much weight on the old snowpack. Today's agenda was more involved in safe travel and route finding in avalanche territory. It was nice because we finally got to ski. But to ski a lot, we had to skin a lot. This isn't the most fun thing for me since I was on regular telemark bindings and not on touring bindings that have a releasable pivot. After doing various stability tests, we dropped onto a 30 degree slope for our first run. It felt pretty good to finally be skiing, but we were still all very cautious, not wanting to cause a slide and get buried.

After we skinned up to Rocky Point we did another slope stability test session. We tried our luck on a steeper slope, and ended up getting some good lines in. We all, even multiple instructors, thought that the slope was going to slide. Honestly it probably could have if one of those hidden trigger spots was hit. As we were skiing out of that bowl up to the ridge, our head instructor Jake, also the head of the Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, received a call on a burial that just happened inbounds at Snowbird, 2 miles to the west of us. Jake booked out to the Alta resort and headed to the Bird as fast as he could. He later briefed us on what happened and I'll get to that.

We finished out the day with a couple of good turns and headed in for our debriefing. We were all awaiting news about the Snowbird burial. When Jake walked into the Alta library the whole room immediately turned to him and waited for the news. Jake looked as if he had just passed through hell. He had that look on his face that permeates stress, frustration, and despair. He told us that the girl was standing up on top of a buttress on Baldy when a slab broke above her. She was swept off this tall cliff and then carried over a series of smaller cliffs for another 200+ feet. The debry came to a stop on Chip's Run and she was buried. The search started immediately. They ended up finding her alive with a probe line. The sad thing was that she was carried over a lot of cliffs, buried about 5 feet down, and was buried for 50 minutes. The probability of survival drops to 30% at 30 minutes and drops further every minute after that. They started to perform CPR right away and then put the AED on her. We could see Life Flight try to get into her and it had to make 3 or 4 passes due to weather. It was a miracle that she was alive at the time but with that much trauma and that long of a burial, not that many people expected for her to survive. Sadly she didn't make it through the evening.

Some people around the area started to say that the resort was obviously negligent in opening that run today and must not have done avy control on that slope. I laughed at those comments knowing, and being confirmed by Jake, that Snowbird does avy control on that slope with the howitzer gun everyday (yeah the big artillery), that there had been over 100 skiers on that run before it happened, and I had been out to stability tests and snow profiles on similar aspects for the past two days. It was just a freak accident.

Anyway, I booked out of there to make it up to Ogden right in time for my hockey game. I was already dead from skinning 6+ miles, and now I have to play on a depleted bench. Yes I played like crap, and yes I was dead tired the whole time. This weekend warrior stuff sucks.

Groupmate smiling about the goods turns had


Day 2 Instructor Matt

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Saturday Night fun


















Saturday night was a good night. We definitely had a lot of fun. Justin, Jordan, and I went to the MLS Western Conference Finals Game: New York Red Bull vs. Real Salt Lake. And yes, you are probably also wondering how a team from New York is in the Western Conference. I really don't know and my only reasoning is that the MLS is pretty small. Unfortunately Real lost 1-0. They had 3 good scoring opportunities in the last 10 minutes and couldn't capitalize.


















After the very chilly game finished, we ran across the street to Joe's Crab Shack before the masses arrived to replenish and warm our famished, frozen bodies. To tell you the truth, I wasn't cold. Many freezing cold belays ice climbing have given me more than enough experience to dress accordingly when the temperature drops.

After our feast we hopped back on TRAX, headed back to the city, and went out to a sports bar-dance club. We had a bunch of fun on a guys' night out. We ran into a girls' night out group of early 30 year olds and had a fun time dancing and joking with them. It was a good night: fun was had, laughs were frequent, and good memories made.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Ski Season: Officially Started

Yes it is finally official: ski season is started and man my pass is good looking, well everything but my picture.















So if you are the least bit observant, you've probably noticed that it says "Unlimited College" on my pass. Being in college definitely has its benefits. Hehe.

I decided that regardless of the conditions, I would be skiing this day and that I would get my pass. I am on my way to skiing 800,000 vertical feet: I am now at 8,460 feet. Okay you might not think that's a lot for one day and it isn't. I only skied three runs. Yeah that's 2820 vertical feet per run. The conditions were less than suitable even for early season conditions. The first 1500 feet of the run had decent snow. The last bit of the run was quite icy. I didn't care to beat myself up too much on my first day and my ski buddy for the day had to get back to do some studying.

All in all, it was a good start to a new season.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

It's About Time........ Time to Set Those Most Important Goals

Yeah, yeah, yeah...... I know: It has definitely been a long time since my last post. With this post I am going to outline the goals which mean the most to me: Winter Time Fun. After I detail the dreams, desires, goals, and "have-to's" that keep me going through the day, I'll brief you with a status update on what has happened since my last post.

Goals for the 2008-2009 Winter Season: (Not in any particular order, just as they pop in my mind, but important non-the-less)
  1. Ski at least 45 days; includes both front country and backcountry
  2. Ski at least 800,000 vertical feet (yes I have a watch that tracks this; last year about 600,000 feet)
  3. Ski the the south face/couloir of Ben Lomond from the peak w/Christian
  4. Ski Little Superior on a good powder day w/Christian: Round 2 = my terms
  5. Get Avalanche Level 1 Certification
  6. Get Avalanche Level 2 Certification
  7. Huck a certain cliff on Banana Dayz in Big Cottonwood Canyon
  8. Huck a certain cliff on Honeycomb Cliffs in Big Cottonwood Canyon
  9. Drop Corbet's Couloir at Jackson Hole
  10. Learn a backflip
  11. Ski Silverton Mountain
  12. Ski Monte Cristo in Little Cottonwood Canyon
  13. Film one or two short ski mountaineering films w/Christian
  14. Call in sick to work at least once for a weekday storm dump of 15 inches or more
  15. Ascend all 3 pitches of Malan's Waterfall
  16. Solo Willard Peak ice drainage at least 3 times
  17. Take an ice climbing trip to Ouray, CO
  18. Find a super hot Backcountry Babe to date (that's to satisfy your wishes Mother)
Ice Climbing in Cody, WY February 2007
So this is all I have for now, but trust you me, this list will be growing. It's getting late and my brain is ready to shut down, but before I turn in for the night, I need to give you that status update.

I have been quite busy, not just with playing, but work has picked up. Our new fiscal year started October 1 and so ended our period of performance for our last contract. Now onto 2 new contracts with a lot more taskings. These new contracts allowed for the UID team to grow from 9 individuals in Latyon, UT/Hill Air Force Base, to a team of 32 at Hill AFB, Peterson AFB (Fort Collins, CO), Tinker AFB (Oklahoma City, OK), Robins AFB (Warner Robins, GA), and Tobyhanna Army Depot (Scranton, PA). With all of this growth my responsibility has also grown. Because I did the initial ground work for 2 of the new tasks prior to the new hirings, I have been put as the Junior Project Lead for 2 teams. It's fun to finally have work and short suspense deadlines. Really my work load has gone up about 500%. I have already put in 41 hours this week, and I have decided to work tomorrow on my Regular Day Off (RDO) to finish some work.

But honestly, I'm finally having fun. I have no problem putting in the time now because the winter is coming and everyone knows that I will be travelling and having "sick days" frequently.

I have joined a Senior Hockey League and have played 3 games. Right now we're #1 with 3 wins and 35 goals for. I have 1 goal and 5 assists. Yes it is quite apparent that my team is stacked. I will admit that I played absolutely horrible last game. It is actually really hard to breath when your head is up your .......... well you get the idea.

I also started my last indoor soccer season tonight. We played really bad. We only had 2 subs and we had 2 new guys on the team. We did manage to win 11-0, even though I got beat bad 3 times on defense. I should have had 3 goals tonight but I did get 3 assists. That's not bad for the sweeper.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Heaps Canyon Zion NP: Round One

Here it is. I finally got the pictures from the Heaps trip. I have been waiting for over a year to do Heaps Canyon. Now I finally got my first go at it and it won't be my last. The whole week leading up to the trip I was distracted from work, sleep, and everything else, having the unknown of what the canyon would throw at me on my mind. I had been carefully watching the weather and for the first time in my canyoneering life, I watched and prayed for rain. Here's my story, and yes it is long and detailed.

The trip finally started on Friday night after everyone got off work. We loaded up my Subaru with gear, food, people, nerves, expectations, hopes, and fears. I believe that all of these things made the drive down seem even longer, and more drawn out than normal.

We made it to the Springdale area around midnight and set out our sleeping bags under the stars in the Mosquito Cove camping area: it would be the first sleep deprived night with more to come. The night is the darkest and coldest right before dawn. I woke up at 4:15 am to the chill of the night. My summer sleeping bag had met its temperature threshold. It was just too late in the summer for my compact summer bag. I laid with closed eyes until minutes before my alarm went off. I went into the car and warmed up my nalgene of gatorade. If you haven't experienced steaming lemon-lime gatorade yet, I would highly recommend against it. It served its purpose. I was revived and now awake enough to realize that I now had sleep deprivation headache.

We collected camp and went to the backcountry desk to obtain our permit. Everything was going good: we were the only scheduled group to be in the canyon at this time. Now back into Springdale to rent our drysuits. I had no intentions of feeling the cold 40 some degree water in the potholes of the Heaps narrows. The thought of a 6 mm wetsuit didn't even cross my mind. I wanted full protection.

We headed back into the park with all of our gear, packs weighing close to 50 lbs if not more. Because we came down in only one car we had to approach the canyon from the valley floor by way of the West Rim Trail via Angel's Landing. This route would lead to a total vertical gain of about 3300 feet majority occurring in the first mile and an half of the 5.6 miles to the first rappel. It would take approximately 4 hours to get to the start of Heaps Canyon via Phantom Valley. We made great time up Angel's Landing with our energy draining packs.

Unfortunately the group dynamics weren't 100% on the same page and we took longer for lunch than I wanted to. That, added with the extra time in finding the nonexistent side trial to the first rappel, added to my concern of pushing the pace up. Others in the group didn't seem too concerned with speed. This is not the canyon to be taking our time on. After some confusion on the location of the second rappel, we managed to get to the valley floor. Here would could pick up the pace having about 2 miles before our next rappel and narrows section.

We made it to the Phantom Valley narrows at about 4:30 pm. At this point we had a discussion on the gameplan. I walked up and around to look past the narrows section proceeding us to see if there was a sneak route that would allow us to not suit up in our drysuits yet and continue down the canyon. Unfortunately it wouldn't be so. We then suited up and headed into our first pothole. This section proved to be a little tricky. Our third pothole ended up being the most difficult of the canyon. A simple pack toss allowed escape of the pothole. The tossed pack was cammed into the exit and held tight enough for one of the group members to pull himself up the lip. We went through about 7 or 8 potholes.



Let me deviate from the story to explain something of importance. I planned on doing this canyon either right at the conclusion of the rainy season or immediately following a big storm so that the potholes could have the possibility of being at their fullest. This would be a decision and gamble to follow a storm even long after the conclusion of the rainy season that paid off.

At this point we exited the series of potholes. We came to a long sandy then rocky corridor. At this point we all believed that we were at or near the "crossroads," a area where the three canyons of Gunsight, Phantom Valley and Isaac Canyon converged with Heaps. This is where we planned on camping for the night. The night was coming upon us so we decided to set up camp. We found a nice sanding spot, made a fire with deadfall wood, prepared dinner, and dried our clothes and gear. This would be my second night of deprived sleep. The first thing that kept me from sleeping was the crinkling of my emergency blanket that I laid down as a tarp. I didn't want to wake up with sand and leaves all over me. Ever turn or adjustment rattled through my ear canal. At 4:13 am I woke up because of the cold. Even though I was now dawning fleece pants, two fleece tops, and a beanie cap, my sleeping bag once again failed and had its threshold met and exceeded. I did, however, manage to fall back asleep.

I didn't hear my alarm go off. I was upset waking up an hour later at 7:00 am to find out that another member of the group heard the alarm and decided that it was too early to get moving. Once again this is not the canyon to take your time or have a late start on. After two of the group members made and ate pancakes, I was really not pleased at that since we really needed to be moving and you just don't do that in Heaps since it's very time consuming, we started day 2 of our canyon descent 2 hours late. Of course this along with my lack of sleep added to some irritation with some group members.

Getting ready for Day 2


Dawning the drysuits once again, we continued down the "sandy corridor" to the next section of narrows and subsequent potholes. Notice that the "sandy corridor" and the "crossroads" in the previous two paragraphs are in quotations. This will come into play later. We rappelled into the potholes and were met with a reminder that this is Heaps. The water was even colder than the previous series of potholes. The water had to be at 40 degrees exactly. It took my breath away as I lowered myself into it. The extreme chill hit me even through my drysuit. We continued through the narrows, dropping and rappelling into almost completely full potholes. I kept expecting to come to a keeper pothole in which I would have to drill and hook my way out of. This didn't happen. We were met with full potholes, long swims through section over 100 and sometimes 200 feet. Swimming with a pack full of water, already weighing around 50 lbs without the extra water was a challenging task.

The Real Sandy Corridor
After a good section of this we emerged from the narrows to be in a prominent tall sandy corridor that had Gunsight Canyon leading in from the North on our left with Isaac Canyon soon following in from the South on our right. We now had the realization that we had come to a sucker "sandy corridor" and "crossroads" the previous night. The canyon description had fit those two areas quite well. But we were now at the real crossroads. That meant that the last two hours were not part of the second series of narrows and were actually planned to have happened the previous day. At this point the next thought in my mind was, "S#!t, we're now not only 2 hours behind schedule but 4 freaking hours behind schedule!" I really felt pressured to up the pace because I did not want to do the final rappel sequence in the dark.

In our next section, the true Heaps narrows, there was one wading section in particular, that was completely cut off from the sunlight, and was filled with a ton of rotting wood and dead animals. The appearance of it was very similar to the trash room in Star Wars Episode V. Think to when Luke and Han Solo rescue Princess Lea, escape by jumping down a vent, and landing in a trash room. The smell was horrendous. I made the mistake of hitting the top of the water with my hands, releasing a toxic waft of retched stink. The last part of these potholes was actually a really long swim. During the swim I noticed that every 15 feet or so I would come to a pothole lip that was about a foot under water. As I exited the swim I noticed that the last pothole, which had water only 5 inches from the top, had a series of drill holes and hook marks. We had now gotten through the narrows without experiencing any truly "Heaps" hard keeper potholes.

View after exiting the Heaps Narrows
The potholes were so full that it took most of the technical aspects out of the canyon. Honestly I felt a little jaded. I wanted the challenge, I wanted to be tested, and have to battle against Heaps. I looked around and saw that the water level was about 1 foot lower than the water stains on the pothole walls. The potholes were almost at the fullest it could be. However I appreciated the circumstances because it allowed the other members of group to move through a long section in a faster than expected time.

Getting to the 2nd of 3 last rappels
A few more rappels and some walking brought us to the start of the last rappel sequence. We first had to climb up this 5.3, 5.4 30 foot sandy chimney double crack climb. This easy section allowed us to see into the Zion Valley. It was about 3:30 pm. This is the first we'd seen of the Zion Valley in about 26 hours. It was a site that brought much joy, excitement, and fear. I was really concerned about doing the rappel sequence without any trouble. I down climbed to the first rappel station and went 65 feet to the next anchor. I set up the next rappel while locked off while still on rappel. I couldn't remember the next rappel length and I couldn't see the next anchors.

At this point I am hanging about 470 feet above the Emerald Pools. The sight was amazing. There was a group at the upper Emerald Pool watching and taking pictures as I descended. I rappelled about 70 feet and still couldn't see the rap anchors for the final 300 feet. My nerves and dehydration were getting to me. I rappelled another 30 feet slowly, looking left, right, and below me, scanning the cliffs to find the anchors without passing by them. At one point I locked off on my figure 8, fearing that I might have passed by the anchors, and jumped out away from the cliff to try and see into a cove inset into the cliff 50 feet below me. As I did this, the large group of Japanese tourists gathered at the pool, screamed and started talking with a tone of distress. Honestly this make me laugh a bit. I was also jubilant because I had seen the final anchor when I jumped away from the cliff. At this point I decided to have some fun with the tourists. So to further scare them, I undid the lock-off, and did a jump drop, purposely looking as if I were out of control. There was loud chatter that ensued. I didn't want to really scare them so I laughed loud enough for them to hear me and waved to them. Haha, always a prankster.

I made it to the last anchor and safetied into one of the bolts. At this point the rest of the group followed me down. Now there happened to be for of us crammed onto a small cliff that could 3 uncomfortably, hanging precariously 300 feet about the canyon floor. Everyone went down hesitantly at first but got into their comfort zone once they were free hanging under us. After all had gone, I carefully rigged up the pull rope. I then descended down. I felt great, hanging 300 feet above the floor, viewing the beautiful surroundings, feeling that I have accomplished a goal I set out to do over a year ago. I touched down at 5:30 pm.




The trip was a success. Unfortunately pulling the rope wasn't. The pull cord that I used was supposed to be static. This wasn't the case as the line stretched every time that we pulled on it and couldn't overcome the weight of the rappel line and the friction at the anchor. We set up 3-to-1 pulleys in two different locations to try and pull the rope. All this did was stretch the pull cord even more. We had over 900 pounds of pressure pulling and the line still would come free. After 90 minutes we decided that we needed to leave and weren't going to get it out tonight. This was almost a hard decision because I was right about to ascend the 300 feet to figure out the problem and rerig the pull rope.

After sitting on the Zion shuttle and cleaning up our gear, we headed out to get some grub, and temporarily avoided the long drive home. I drove the whole way back to my place reaching my parking stall at 3:30 am. The trip had ended. I had learned some good lessons and unfortunately had to relearn some lessons that I should have not had to deal with if I had made some better decisions.


Heaps Canyon Additional Pics

Some side notes. I talked with a ranger on Monday and told him of my stuck rope. Two days later another ranger called me to tell me that my rope had been retrieved and was waiting for me at the lost and found. Hallelujah.

View from the West Rim Trail


View into Phantom Valley


Heading towards the Phantom Valley Narrows


Phantom Valley Nole


Some Zion Tree Frogs and tadpoles


Snacking and watering up in the Real Sandy Corridor


Trevor looking down on me as I set up the first rappel of the final sequence


The upper Emerald Pool

Monday, September 1, 2008

Author's Side Note

There is a lot that has gone on during the month of August. For these next posts to really make sense, one will have to read or have read the following posts in this order:
  1. Disappointing Weekend - Sunday, August 17th, 2008
  2. Polar Opposite: A Great Weekend With Some Cool Surprises - Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
  3. Worst Weekend Yet - Monday, September 1st, 2008
  4. Stick to Your Freakin' Rules - September 1st, 2008

Worst Weekend Yet

Oh my gosh!! This was the worst weekend of the summer. And what makes it even worse yet, I even set up means by which to bail, more than one let me add, had other plans to insure that I had something else going on, and I still went through with the original plans even though all signs pointed to DON'T.

So now you're wondering what could have possibly happened. Well I'll be brief with this one since I have already had to tell this story to about 10 people. So the "MaGirl" invites me to go to the dunes for the weekend. That's d be fun I think, just kicking it and playing around on quads, and hanging out with a cool girl. So I never did truly commit to the activity. The committing didn't come by ways of commission, but rather omission. How did I do that? Well when you ask about departure times, bunking situations, food/gas contributions, and by never saying that I would "think about it and get back to you." So I let the assumption be made that I'd go. So what does that mean for me: cancel your date with Haley on Saturday night, in which I was going to double up with Mike and his girlfriend. You see they had set me up with Haley. And here's a quick side note, they still went out, Haley took some guy that she didn't really care for and Mike said that they all had a good time, with Haley mentioning that she'd rather of been out with me and not the schmuck she was with. Haha. I just shake my head and sigh with a smile thinking, "I've learned my lesson; follow your freakin' rules Alex." Oh the following post after this will add on to that, so keep on reading.

So I won't get into details but I'll tell you why this weekend, the last weekend of the summer, was the worst of them all. So "MaGirl", the one that asked me out to the dunes, just happened to have cloud of disenchantment about her the whole time out there. Ever since we woke up on Saturday morning she just was different and it sucked. "MaGirl" was rude, not talkative, harsh, and crabby. I tried to be accommodating to her and just chat with her and try to cheer her up, but she'd just shrug that off. So she, the one that invited me out there, pretty much didn't even socialize with me or acknowledge that I was there. What the crap are you supposed to do when the person that brings you out there just ignores you the whole time. That doesn't make much sense. And things didn't get better the rest of the time: what the crap am I to do when the girl you come with ignores you, you didn't drive, and you're just meeting the rest of the group for the first time? At one point I left with a quad to drive out to a place that I could get reception and it was a good time. I texted/called all of my buddies that told me to not go and told them that they were right. Finally I am actually socializing with someone. Man you would of thought the one that brought me out would have done that. So my first escape was nice.

I do have some thoughts on why she was like this from a conversation that actually occurred with her on Saturday night when we took a walk. So what I gather is that she had just very recently separated with her last relationship, a very long-term committed relationship, like probably right before I met her. So she had that on her mind (Oh now this has some influences that play out in the following post). So now here I am with her at a place/activity that she has done with her ex probably 3 times a year for the past couple of years, surrounded by the same people she always does it with, and she's probably just thinking about her ex and separating with him. She said to me at one point, "I just think that I can't make that big of a change in my life right now" in reference to going out with me. Um, I think that she was looking into something with me a little too hard, too fast, and too soon. Wow.

Other than that conversation, I don't think that she said more than 50 words to me all day.

Sunday didn't get any better. She was crabby, tired, and most likely now has a broken hand from stupidly putting it out of the roll cage when we tipped while out with her bro-in-law in a Rhino. So it didn't get better. The best part of this day, other than leaving, was taking a trip out to get cell phone reception and making plans for Monday, and the rest of the week.

The drive back: now that was peaceful and quite. There wasn't one word said once we got into the car. The first word that was said was when I fielded a phone call from a buddy. Luckily, he and I still both speak Thai and we had a conversation detailing how awesome the weekend was, without the "MaGirl" knowing exactly what was said. And then my mother calls to give me a girl's phone number. That made me laugh. Thank goodness for the iPhone and being able to receive my email directly on my phone. Haha. Wow.

So as I get my stuff out of her car into mine as fast as I could, trying not to get too wet in the rain, I just felt so elated. It was done. As I checked her car one last time for stuff, I was right about to give her some more money to even out the food/gas contribution, but something just held my hand back. I don't know if it was her attitude, my anxiety to get out of there, her anxiety to get out of there, bitterness from the "great" time with her, or my premonition that she'd just stubbornly throw it back.

It is now over. Time to drive home and actually get some sleep.

HIGHLITES
I will say that I did have some fun. The first notable came when we went out on group rides in the Rhinos. So 12 of us went out with 4 to a Rhino and just had a blast romping through the dunes. Adam was driving ours and he's a really fun, crazy, experienced rider on every sort of recreation vehicle at the dunes. We were flying through the dunes at midnight, getting air, taking crazy corners, hitting drops, climbing sand razorbacks, just having a blast. We did have one tip when Adam backed down a wall that he couldn't climb, and backed the left rear of the Rhino over a sand ridge. We sat there for a moment wondering if we'd tip or just stay. Then the world's slowest tip over happened. I mean we could have made a burger and eaten it before we went down. This is where the "MaGirl" stupidly put her hand on the outside of the roll cage and got it pinned/smashed against the ground (Not so much a highlite). We all bailed out of our seat belts and grabbed the cage to lift it off her. We didn't know what was pinned under the cage and thought it was a leg. Well that put a somber mood on the rest of the night/ride down.

Watching Adam drag race his quad up the face of the dunes and just destroy everyone. He surely had the fastest quad there. The man's put so much time, effort, and money into it.

The other highlite was just BSing with Adam and J.J. when all the ladies went out for a ride. Man there were some funny stories told.

The last highlite was finally taking off, and a day early at that. I'm home.

Stick to Your Freakin' Rules

Ok so I placed this post here after the weekend write up so that you'd already know the reason behind my new rule and the rules I should have stuck with.

Here are the rules that I should have stayed true to:

Dating Rule #1:
Thou shall not date divorced women.*
  • There's just way too much baggage that is associated with that situation. I don't want that on my plate.
  • Ok well there is the * present. I'm not doing a complete blanket on divorced women. If I know the background behind it, and it's not crazy and all that, I'll consider it.
Dating Rule #2:
Thou shall not date women with children.
  • So there is just too much crap that you have to deal with. It seems at first you just go out without acknowledging the child situation so that you can get to know each other. Well you have to view her in two different lights: her out with you and her with her child. Not fun and adds more to the equation.
  • Plus I have had a girl kind of use her child as "leverage." This girl would tell me that her daughter was asking about me all day, wondering when I'd come over next or she'd say that her daughter wanted to talk to me and hand her the phone during a call. Not cool.
Dating Rule #4: This is the new one. Yes I know that I skipped #3, but it's not pertinant to this post.
Thou shall not date women that have just ended a long-term relationship.
  • This is going down as the "MaGirl" rule.
  • If I would have known how recent her break up was, like a week or two before I met her, I would not have gotten her number and taken her out.
  • So for now I have put a standard of, let's say, 3 months of being single after a very committed relationship before I'll take them out.
Dating Rule #5: This is also a new rule. This came to me after I initially finished this post.
Thou shall not go out to an activity with the parents/family until after 4 or, preferably, more dates.
  • This is now the "Baggage"-"Roo"-"MaGirl" Rule.
  • This came to me as I realized with the last 3 girls that I went out with/dated, I did something with their family on the second or third date.These all ended up weird/awkward eventually (drama, drama, drama).
  • I am now staying away from situations in which the girl is more than ready for me to be around their family when I/we don't really even know each other yet.

So you might be asking why I have these rules. Well Utah is a very messed up place. Everyone seems to have been married before (or really looking to be), now divorced, might have a kid, and just bringing the baggage by the boat load. Most of the women in Ogden that are my age and single are most likely divorced. To find women that do what I do, have the same desires and life goals, and aren't divorced with a crap ton of baggage, Alex will have to move down to Salt Lake City.

Hopefully I will find a job down there then be able to make my move soon after. Hey I'll be closer to the better skiing areas. The wheels for this are already in motion. Once the job comes, the roommates and move are already in a holding pattern, and be easily set in motion. Now I just need that miracle of getting a new job to come through.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Polar Opposite: A Great Weekend With Some Cool Surprises

Ok so yes my last weekend wasn't the greatest. It seemed that the fun karma had become depleted in my life. In reality, I was having a lot of fun this summer, so I couldn't expect to have an awesome weekend every week, now could I. So enough pouting for me, time to quit being a baby.

Onto this weekend. Complete 180 from last week. It was crazy, busy, exciting, fun, and super involved. Let's take a closer look shall we (I'm such a nerd, this I know).

Friday: Work went by so quick. There wasn't anybody there, and of all the nothing I had to do, I got it all done. It was the first day that I really didn't care about having nothing going on because it went by so quickly. But after work, what time is it? Hockey time. Now this is how good my weekend was going, let me elaborate. So we only had 6 guys there to play hockey. For some reason no one was showing up. Well of course we knew that they'd cancel it and I'd be out of a good release once again. But the guy who had to stay and zamboni the ice agreed to let us play. Oh that was so awesome. We then played 3 on 3 for the next hour plus. I was super beat by the end of it all. Now once that was finished, I had to get home, hydrate, and get over to the soccer facility for a late night make up game. I was actually really out of it the whole time, for one thing, and then being in a boarded up field that looks similar to a hockey arena, made me think that I would just poke check the ball away with my stick (which didn't exist) while on defense, or just check the guy into the boards to stop him. Whoops. I got beat once or twice in the beginning and also got a foul or two called on me. All that said I did manage to score my first goal of the season. Now that's saying a lot for me because I never play up. Since nobody else on the team really gets back on defense, I decided to play sweeper, I'm the last man back. So I had an opportunity in which there was a good opening, I passed it up, he took a shot on goal, I got the rebound, and drilled it in. So it was a good night. Indoor soccer definitely is a completely different game from outdoor, which is why I am not too fond of it, but it is still fun to get out and run.

So on to Saturday. I took it easy and just did laundry during the day and waited for my night plans. So remember last week I happened to complain about a certain brunette that stood me up? Well I did get a hold of her, we planned a date for Saturday, and I totally stood her up. Oh man revenge is so nice. I mean I told her what restaurant to meet at, called her saying that I was a little late and to see if she was there already, and then once I confirmed she was there, I called the restaurant and had the hostess tell her that I couldn't make it because I was out with my girlfriend. Oh my gosh how good is that!!!! Payback.

I know, I know.... I really know how to give it to someone. And right now as you're reading this thinking about how much of a jerk I was, how insensitive and immature I acted, wanting to punch me in the face feeling sorry for that poor woman, you're now going to have that feeling of being dooped by Alex once again.

Of course I didn't do that to her. Are you serious? I did go out with the "MaGirl" and we had a good time. She truly was sick the other day and didn't feel good enough to call. So now that I feel like an idiot for thinking that she stood me let's get on to the date. So after having to stop off at her sister's for a bit we headed back up to Salt Lake for dinner. It was an alright dinner for food, but it was really good for getting to know her. We seemed to talk a lot about work, personal goals, priorities (oh yeah, you know I said skiing), and just whatever else came up. She's really a sweet person. She's mature, my age (thank goodness), brunette (of course, you know me) a dancer (way fun), intelligent, and beautiful, especially her smile. It was just really easy for me to get along with her.

After dinner we met up with my buddy Mike, his girlfriend, and her friends to go out dancing. That of course was way fun, especially when you're with a good dancer. So after all the club fun was said and done, I got "MaGirl" back to her place around 3:15 am or so. I was not about to drive all the way back up to Ogden. I called Mike and met up with him to crash, but I never got tired now that I wasn't driving, so I stayed up and finally headed home to Ogden at 6 am. Now that sucked.

Since it's already Sunday let's talk about that. Yeah so church was hard. I was so beat. The new Bishopric spoke and yeah. Well the big surprise is finally getting to hang out with a good childhood buddy from Wisconsin. Ben Leonhardt moved out to Layton the other week, and we planned on hanging out Sunday night. It's good to see him. Man he still looks the same. Why couldn't I still have the same hairline? Why do I have to have the family hairline? Anyway, we chatted about everything: school, work, finding jobs, girls (and the ridiculous drama that is contained within their DNA), crappy student loan payments, skiing, possibly rooming together in Salt Lake City, and life. Way fun time. I'm so glad that he is out here. He's a good buddy to have around. I hope that he finds a job quickly.

To an absolutely fun, invigorating, and exhausting weekend: Adieu.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Disappointing Weekend

Do you ever get one of those disappointing weekends? You know, one which starts out having a lot of plans, activities, hopes, and expectations, that eventually turns into blah. That's what happened over the past three days.

Let's start out on Friday. I went up to Idaho to meet up with a group of people. The plan was to stay up on the Snake river and just mess around for a couple of nights. Because of work, I didn't go up till Friday morning. So this brings us to the first part of the disappointment. I didn't know until I was halfway to the meeting spot that it was 150 miles away. Good thing that I just happened to dump $60 in my tank, and that I would be using 3/4 of it for the round trip over 24 hours. So I get to our place, see that everyone is out on the river, and decide to put up my tent. Well at least I got a good nap once that was done. The next disappointment came as I noticed some people that were supposed to be there had bailed. Okay so really that's not too big of a disappointment, but it added to being there with some people I really didn't care for. There happened to be more than a hand full of people I didn't care for: they just weren't my type of people.

So Saturday morning rolls around and I am pretty quick to pack up camp and head home. The whole drive home I am thinking about what I am going to do before hockey. Oh yes beloved hockey: beautiful, powerful, aggressive, energy consuming hockey. I get there a little late, about 8:00 for an 8:15 start time, and right when I get there, this stupid, selfish, disjointed waste of space, decides to call the ice time, stating that there wasn't the minimum amount of people required to be there. Apparently her Utah public school education hasn't allowed her the faculty to count to 10! If she would have bothered to raise one of her fingers for every person that was there and signed up, she would have quickly realized that she didn't have enough digits to account for every individual present. And she wouldn't even reason with us! So this really starts the aggression and aggravation within me. This was supposed to be the culmination of my weekend, and now it's gone. And to think I planned a date for Sunday night because hockey just happens to come first. Now don't I feel stupid that I didn't plan that date for Saturday night.

On to Sunday and the date. So I planned to meet up with this attractive 27 year old brunette, we'll call her the "MaGirl, down in Salt Lake City at 5:30. I meet her the previous Saturday while down in SLC enjoying the Outdoor Retailer Show and festivities. I had chatted with her a couple of times during the week and we decided to make plans for the weekend. Well about 3:30 I received a text:

"Hey you! I am so sorry I am going to have to postpone dinner. I have not been feeling well all day. I hoped to be better by now, but I am not. I am so sorry."

Well that's just great now isn't it! So I don't even get the decency of a phone call? Just splendid. Granted, she could actually be under the weather and out of it, hence no phone call, but I'm going to go with my first impression on this one. I didn't reply to the text message and shortly received another from her seeing if I had got the first one. That's when the "did I really expect anything to go as planned this weekend" thought came into mind. I'll be extremely surprised if she gets back to me on the dinner raincheck. On the bright side, it did save me from a drive down to Salt Lake City.

Here's to a beautifully disappointing weekend: Adieu.

Friday, August 1, 2008

First Comes Love.... Then Comes That "Certain" Commitment

Yes I will finally come out with it. I have fallen in love. Okay I know that three weeks is really fast, but when you know, you really do know. Plus doing something 3 or 4 days of each week really helps you get in touch and get to know what you need to know. My mother said one day I would be just floored and taken completely by surprise, becoming completely smitten. She said this probably because I have tendencies to blow girls off to go skiing, climbing, or do whatever I want to do. I guess she was right. It is a match made in heaven.

You know that feeling, when you think about your love all day? It's a distraction but a good one. You become so consumed and only want to do one thing: be with your love. You count down the hours and the minutes until it's time to meet up. You're constantly smiling. And it's that genuine smile, one that is also done through your eyes. People all around you can tell something is up. You do your best and want everything to be done for and because of your love. You don't care what other people are saying, doing, or thinking, because you are in love. You sacrifice time and stay up later, get up earlier, and try and get out of work quicker. You feel happy with life, work doesn't seem so bad, that idiot that cut you off on the highway doesn't even phase you, you're somewhat scatter brained and giddy all the time.

So I was thinking, "now that I am in love, I probably should show my commitment to my love." That brings us to that commitment that I don't say by name. But we all know that this commitment starts with a purchase of something meaningful. You know I talked to a lot of people asking them how I should go about with this: what style I should buy; what level; what size, how big; what color I should get; should I go with traditional or stylish? All these things were going through my mind for the last two weeks. I finally just made my mind up the other day. This is what I decided on (scroll down).


























That's right, I have fallen in love with hockey. I hope none of you actually thought I had fallen in love with some girl. HA!! Remember who's writing this. I am letting it really take over my life right now. It's a good fit too. I have wanted to play hockey ever since I was 11 years old. I had bought all of the equipment and really wanted to play bad but when my mother and I talked to the youth hockey coach, we found out that the price for the season ice time was $530. There was no way that my mother could afford that and she wasn't able to do that for me. Growing up my mother did anything and everything possible to assist me in my sports pursuit, but this was the first thing that she had to back away from. I know that it made her sad seeing me sad and disappointed because my childhood dream was out of reach and impossible to do. I know that it was a really hard thing for my mother to tell me that I couldn't do it, but that's fine.

Life has a funny way of having our dreams come true. It only took fifteen years, but I now am living my childhood dream. I play every Monday, Wednesday night, Thursday morning before work, and alternating Fridays and Saturdays. I owe it to Gas Can Dan for getting me into it. He started playing again and happened to have both a goalie and a player set up. Since he was wanting to just play goalie, he invited me to go play with him, and gave me all of his gear to use. Luckily I had gotten a brand new $300 pair of skates free from my buddy Justin the week before. They were going to just drop them off at D.I. (Goodwill) and decided to give them to me.

Dan and I both really turned up our game this last week. He's knocked off a lot of rust and I finally started to pick up on puck handling. It's really cool to have people ask me where I played in high school and to see their expression when I tell them that I have only been playing for three weeks. I know that I'm not that good but it'll come with time. So here are some pics from our last drop-in game on Wednesday night. Dan's girlfriend was kind enough to take them. She took them from far away in not so great lighting, so they're not the best of quality. I'll get some better ones in the next coming weeks.

Getting back on defense



Stealing a pass across the goal



Getting ready to take a wrist shot



Back on defense again



Dan and me taking a breather


Saturday, July 26, 2008

Vacation Appraisal: Needed, but not what was expected.

My first week of official vacation: How did it go? Quite disappointing. Let’s look at how that came to be.

So I was planning on going to Flaming Gorge for 4 days, the whole reason why I took the vacation days, and the trip got cancelled two days before we were to leave. That was a little disappointing because I was really looking forward to riding behind the boat all day long for four days. But I really needed a break from my fabulous job, so I still decided to take the leave. I did manage to get out behind the boat, but only once.

I played hockey Friday, Monday, Wednesday night, and Thursday morning. It's a lot of fun and helped make up for not going to Flaming Gorge.

The biggest disappointment came on Friday. I was planning on driving out to Steamboat Springs, CO to see my sister Kira, Andrew, and my cute niece Masha, while they were out in the area for a wedding. Well I only alotted about 36 hours for the visit since Mapquest said is was only a little longer than 5 1/2 hours to drive out there. It turned out that it takes about 8 hours if you're pushing it. So I would have ended driving for 8 hours to stay for 8 hours, sleep for 8 hours, only to wake up and drive back for 8 hours. We decided that it just wasn't as convenient as we thought it'd be and bagged it. So I was really disappointed in not being able to go out and visit with them and that weighed down on me.

I did luck out and was still able to go out camping with Charlotte and Joni, which was a lot of fun. But overall the vacation wasn't what I was expecting. But I do like how I used only 3 days of vacation for 9 straight days away from the office. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Camping: At it once again.


Here I am once again out camping: same game, different crew. The cool ting about this time is that I didn’t have to do any of the planning or organizing. Charlotte handled everything. This time we went up to Green Canyon in Logan. I was a blast. I only knew Charlotte and Joni out of the group that I was in. We met up with a bunch of people already up in Logan. They happened to snag a really cool secluded campsite tucked away and under the canopy of a grove of trees.

I got bunked up with Joni for the night. She was a lot of fun and we enjoyed staying up late talking about life, her boy toys, Charlotte, girls, and what we really wanted to be doing with our lives. I will say this, I am pretty sure that this was the worst night of camping sleep that I have ever had. It was really warm in the canyon during the night and my sleeping bag was a little too warm for it. Anyhow, enjoy the pictures.

Joni setting up a tent for the first time


Sleeping mat blow up montage



Cheesy Group Shot


Hanging up my hammock over a scary broken limb trying not to fall and impale myself


Hammock Fun



Take notice that Charlotte is cooking THREE hot dogs and they were all for her


Sterling and Alex


Campsite mascot that we saved from the firepit

I don't really know what's going on with this picture


The cheesey couple


Charlotte and my response to the Cheesey couple


One last late night hot dog


Joni stole that last of my hot dog


Getting ready for bed


Not really a morning person


Cleaning out the tent