I'm back!

Well, I've been a bit of a slacker and I have no excuse! I've been home from the river for about two months now and I don't have a job and I don't have my house yet to be working on, so I have no excuse for not writing more. I'm up in Jackson this weekend with my mom and my friend Kristina and it's been snowing up here and we've been spending a lot of time in the condo and it's been a great relaxing weekend. Some trips are all about fun and adventure and this hasn't and it's been so great. We've gone on some sweet hikes in between the lounging and it's been great being up here seeing the Tetons and getting ready for winter.

I, however am not quite ready for winter. I feel like I'm betraying all my friends and years at Snowbird by saying that I want to stave off winter for just a little longer! I am loving the canyons! I've been climbing a lot and I've got a pass at Momentum and I'm stoked to be climbing there, but there's nothing like climbing outside. I've actually gone with this guy Tobias McPhee a couple times and he's been trying to make it as a photographer and we've gone a couple times and these are a couple that turned out pretty cool. They were taken on Goodrose up at Storm Mountain in Big Cottonwood. It's a route I've wanted to lead for like 15 years and I finally had a chance to do it and it was cool to have Toby there to shoot it. So, we need some more good weather!



So, as I'm just hanging up here, I've been determined to catch up a little. So rather than trying to do one huge entry I'll break it up a little, so keep reading! Hope you're all doing well and I'll be trying to catch up on your blogs as well! Enjoy!

New Home!!! .... well, maybe

AGHHH!! I'm sooo frustrated! So, last winter I looked around for houses forever but it turned out that I couldn't get approved for a loan so I wasn't able to get one then. So the middle of the summer, when I had cash burning a hole in my pocket I started planning all these great trips to exotic places around the world, and thinking of moving to places such as Steamboat, Boston or Montana. Then as I starting feeling the pangs of responsibility and my forth decade breathing down the neck and decided to start thinking about looking for a house again. This time I got pre-approved first then I started looking for houses. I was in a little bit of a rush to get it all going because the offer of the Obama-bucks. If I close before Nov. 30 then I get $8000! However, I look really bad on paper. Since most of the money that I make during the summer is in tips that I don't report, I needed to have my dad co-sign with me and it took us forever to get our stuff together. So we looked at a bunch of houses and I found one in exactly the area that I want. It's just a few blocks away from where I lives last winter. It's right across the street and down a few houses from Liberty Park. It's red brick and has a big tree in front and back.


I walked in and instantly loved it. It's totally a grandma house. Every inch is covered in terrible wallpaper and even the bathroom has bad carpet in it. But it has tons of potential. It's got two rooms on the main floor and a mother-in-law in the basement with just one room that I'm going to make bigger by moving a wall (that'll be no problem right? Just move a wall?). I have been sooo frustrated though, because I got a job but I don't start until Nov. 23. (which is good news by itself! IMC wouldn't take me back if I'm thinking about going back to the river, which who really knows what I'm going to do, but I didn't want to not tell them, so I'll be working at St. Mark's as a surg tech, which is what I was doing last year, and I'll be making more than I did and I'll miss IMC, but I'll be stoked to go to a new place and check it out.) I've been climbing a lot and enjoying having time off, but it's driving me crazy, because there's so much to be done on the house and I'm just WAITING for the loan to go through. My parents have forbidden me to buy anything for the house, which is a good idea, but I just wake up earlier than I would usually thinking of color options and flooring, and making lists of what I need to do for the house. But there's been some ish with the loan. During the summer when I was making money I looked good, but now when I don't have a job, and my dad hasn't been working much since his surgery (which you'll read about if you keep reading) so we don't look that great all of the sudden, and my mortgage guy has been working to try to find different options and I had to get a statement from St. Mark's stating how much I'll be making and working and hopefully I'll be able to just get the mortgage myself, but I am freaking out! I'm so sick of waiting! My closing date should be the 17th and I'm really hoping it'll all happen in the next couple of days! I want to get in there so bad! That being said, there's still like 10% of me that wouldn't be too devastated if I couldn't get it and I'll just forget all this responsibility and go to Thailand! But keep your fingers crossed!

Well, this will be a more serious blog than normal, and I've been meaning to write this for a while, but as with all my other blogs, it's been on the back burner. The bottom line is that my dad has (or more hopefully had) cancer. During the summer he noticed a lump on his neck right by where it meets his shoulder and he didn't think much of it. It got a little bigger and then he finally started realizing that it might not just be nothing. So he asked my cousin, Teresa who is a general surgeon to look at it and she was like "um... hello! You need to have this taken out like yesterday!" so he went in a few days later and she took it out and had thought it was just a fatty tumor but when she looked at it it was black and the pathology came back as melanoma. And the weird thing was that they still have never found the primary site. With all melanoma it starts on the surface with a weird mole or something, then goes internal, but they still haven't found a site that looks like the primary. Something else that is also a worry is that once it goes into the body it can get into the organs, usually first the lungs and the brain. But the good thing about my dad's is that a few days after his first surgery, they did all the scans and didn't find it anywhere else in his is body, which is great news. Especially since he was just about to come on the Grand Canyon with me. They said another week wasn't going to do any harm, so it was so great to have him be able to come and although I'm sure he thought about it a ton, as did I, but he was able to be in a beautiful place meeting new people and be in nature to think about it.
After the trip, he went had another surgery from a different doctor, Dr. Noyse who is a melanoma specialist. The plan was to put in some dye that would affect the cancer ridden lymph nodes that were all around where the tumor originally was. My dad had heard stories about the spinal accessory nerve being cut and he was really concerned about it, and he's played Squash with Dr. Noyse and expressed his concern to him. But the doctor spent 45 mins trying to get a lymph node off that was surrounding the nerve, but when he got down to it, the nerve didn't look very healthy either, so he had to cut that nerve and take out some of his Sternoclidomastoid (SCM) muscle. The nerve gives function to the trapezoid muscles, which shrugs your shoulders and raises your arm above your shoulders. He ended up taking 32 lymph nodes out and 23 of them were dyed and infected. They turned everything in to pathology and it turned out they all showed up looking not like melanoma but melanosis. Which apparently Dr. Noyse has never really seen before, but it's really good news. What they think it is is those lymph nodes and all the other effected cells did have melanoma but his body had started attacking it and the cells actually change so they're not metastasizing anymore and are not melanoma. So, that is really good news.

Now he's doing his best to not obey the guidelines he as a physical therapist would give someone else to take it easy. It's been a little bit of an issue trying to get used to not having that muscle. He can't do things over his head. Some of his other muscles will compensate for it, but as for serving in tennis or playing squash, he may have to learn how to do it left handed, bc he just doesn't have power overhead. Also cutting from the nerve being cut, it feels like it's always kinda burning I guess and he's hoping that will subside once it heals a little. He was able to go on a bike trip on the White Rim trail in Canyonlands that he had been planning with some friends. His plan was to drive the support vehicle, but he ended up riding almost the whole way. He was pretty sore after, but he was really happy to be able to do it.

So, now he's debating taking Interferon, which is a chemo type drug that with melanoma there's not that much proof that it actually makes that big of a difference in the long run. And he's trying to learn how to use his arm differently.

It's been a big wake up call for all of us. I'm pretty good at wearing sun screen during the summer but I have recommitted myself to that and to really checking out all my moles and staying on top of that. And it made us all realize how much we love him and each other, and how we always take advantage of having people we love around us. It made me so glad that my dad was able to come on the river with me and that I was able to have that time with him and that I still have more time with him. Hopefully they did get it all taken out and he is cancer free. Melanoma is a really hard thing to scan or test for so it'll be hard to detect, but he's also determined to stay on top of it and we'll get to have him around for quite a while longer! I love you dad!

Well, hello everyone! No, I haven't fallen into the river in my sleep and gone on downstream (which by the way, if you don't know me too well, is a pretty good possibility). I am still alive and done with the summer, and about to resume life as I knew it and be able to come back into blogosphere; at least a little more anyway.

The summer has been a really good one. I did 10 trips in Grand Canyon and I am pretty ready to be done. My mom was able to come on the second to last one with me and my dad was able to come on the last one and I was so stoked to have them see what I do and be able to see the canyon. I don't think they do it too bad, but I think it's hard not to think that a summer on the river is a relaxing, all fun summer job, which, in fact it is, but it's also pretty hard work and sometimes not the most engaging groups of people are a little hard to spend a week at a time with. My mom was able to come on Cat with me a few times, but my dad hasn't been able to and this time I was able to give him some notice so he could plan for it and it was great to have him there. I've been able to drive a lot and it's been really fun. I've done pretty well except for one rapid that is my nemesis, Grapevine, but it's all been really fun to drive. Here's a bunch of pics in no particular order from all during the summer.

This is from the red wall cavern. A stitched together panorama. One of the passengers sent this to me.

It started raining one day after we had rigged the boats and it was so amazing!! This water fall started after it had only been raining for 10 minutes. It was so cool.

I wasn't able to be around when my brother Jesse left on his mission because I was on a trip, but we got to go climbing just the two of us the day before I left. It was great. He's now in Paraguay after 9 weeks in the MTC and I'm so glad I was able to spend that time with him. He's such a great kid.

On our way to Lee's Ferry we saw this RV totally in flames. The people who owned it were all just hanging out in their camp chairs just watching it burn. It started in the breaks and ended up engulfing the whole thing. It was crazy!

This is one of my favorite pics of the summer. It's at the place in the canyon called Granite Narrows, it's the narrowest place in the canyon, it's 76 feet wide.

This was on a tip in June.
And this was the first week of June, and I was freezing. This summer was weird. It was pretty cold for the middle of the summer. Then the next trip:

It was so hot that I burned my arm on some coolers. When we were loading all the stuff into the truck, I got my arm caught between two aluminum coolers and you can see the little circle where there was a screw and it didn't burn. I think it was 115 degrees at South Cove and this picture was taken a few days after when the blisters had popped. This summer really wasn't too hot, but it stayed hot for a while. We were spoiled in June and July with cloudy trips.

My friend Garrett and my brother, Eric and I went to the Great Salt Lake, out to Antelope Island on a break a little while ago. It was really cool. I hadn't been swimming in the lake for like 16 years and it is amazing. I was more buoyant than when I swim with my life jacket on. If any of you haven't been in a while, you should go for sure. Garrett took a bunch of really cool pictures and this one is my favorite.

It was great having my mom come on the trip. Everyone loved her.

This is at Havasu and I love how dramatic my mom is plugging her nose for that huge 5 foot jump. But this next one is my favorite two pictures of her from the trip

We had a lot of wild life on the trip. That's a ring tail cat that we usually leave out the dessert for so that hopefully we'll see them. They're just so cute!
I got a black light and scorpions show up so great under that light and at one camp, my mom's little nook of trees had 5 scorpions just around her! It was crazy. There was like 25 at that camp.
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Here I am blabbin away about the geology of the canyon.

There was a pretty cool guy, Mike that came on the trip with my mom and he's really great, but unfortunately he lives in South Carolina.
The trip my dad came on, there was some amazing scenery!
That's the Vishnu Temple in the background. This is a pretty typical camp scene.

My dad got to come on the 7 day trip so we got to stop at some other places that we didn't get to do on my mom's 6 day trip. This is called Stone Creek waterfall.
The others in our group got my dad all dressed up for the toga party.

This is from the Lava Chuar camp on night 2. It's one of my favorite camps.

I really do love showing people the canyon and being able to be down there all summer is amazing, but this is a great bonus as well :)

Anyway, congratulations if you've stuck around this long to read all of these. This is how I feel at the end of this summer. It was a great year and I had a great season, but I'm ready for it to be over! And hopefully you'll see more of me on here. I'm back into life! Thanks for reading!

I don't have too much time right now, I just wanted to put a few great pictures up from last week. We had a really great trip with more amazing clouds and great weather. Only like 10 minutes of rain while we were cooking dinner on the last night though, so that was good. It was a 7 day (rather than 6, we still go the same distance, we just have more time to do hikes and other stuff) on the upper half and we hiked to Beaver Falls. It's just down from Havasupai Falls, if you've heard of that or been there. It was so amazing! It's about a 4 mile hike and everyone but one person made it. It did take 3 hours, but we made it. We found this place another guide had told us about that was this cave you swim under and up into it was pretty cool. We didn't have to swim too far, but it was neat.

This is where the toilet was set up one night, in front of an old mine. And this was the amazing view from the toilet, it was so beautiful! Here's another cool picture of some really cool rock. This is at this place called the doll's house where there's tons of hollowed out Vishnu Shist with stripes of Granite that is so cool.
I've been lucky to run with really fun other guides and on the last night of the trip we were having a dance party in the kitchen.On the way home. There's 8 of us between two trips and 3 have to ride home in the semi that carries all of our gear and it takes like 8 hours, and the other 5 get to fly back in this little plane.


It only takes like 45 min but sometimes if it's windy it feels so much longer! Here's a view back up the Canyon.And to finish it off, one of my favorites of the trip of one of the guides, Joey. Wiley had made him this mug and it just fits him so well.

Anyway, it was a great trip and if they all could be that nice of weather I might want to do it all year! We'll see if the heat wave that we're all expecting come this week, hopefully it'll stay at bay for at least a little longer... keep your fingers crossed! Thanks for checkin in!

And so it begins....

Well, everyone, it's summer ... maybe not so much in Salt Lake quite yet, but it's for sure hot in Grand Canyon. I've done two trips so far and it was already over 100 several days each trip. But, like my granddaddy always said, "if yer hot and yer by a river, then yer dumb!"

They've been great trips to start the season. I never know if it's good to have the best trips at the beginning because then it's just all down hill from there. The first trip there was a group of 18 people that were all from SL and Park City and they were so much fun. It really didn't feel like work at all because they were so great and they were all friends so that helps a ton. There was one guy on there that was a biologist and I was pretty frustrated by him. He knew a ton and admittedly, I really did learn a lot but he would correct me on these little tiny facts right in front of everyone and it kinda drove me nuts. Here's a picture of him telling us some random, little-known fact about lizards and you can tell I'm pretty stoked about what I'm learning.
The guides were cool too. I'd never really worked with any of them so it was cool to get to know them better. Here's a picture of us on dress up night. This is Evan, me, Joey, and Gonzo. I'm not quite sure how I feel about Joey in my dress!



Joey is in a band and we do a cool stop in this canyon called Blacktail which according to the "earth keepers" is the center of the womb of Mother Earth and it does have a really cool feeling in there, and it's always a good stop.



(That hat is supposed to be a little floppy, but let's be honest, that's a little much) This is Alice Webber, you may have heard her on KUER, yea, she's famous.

There's a few stretches of flat water on a couple days and I bring tons of nail polish and these guys went nuts. It was great.


I also bring a bunch of embroidery floss and feel like I'm in Jr. High again, and I teach everyone how to make bracelets or anklets to help them not realize that their faces are melting off in the afternoon sun after Havasu.

Here's a couple more pictures from the trip. There was a guy there that had a really nice camera and he was taking tons of great pictures, so I can't choose which ones to put, so you get to see them all.



For the break in between trips, I met me roommate Erika down in Zion and we did a couple slot canyons and I slept in the park while she recerted her WFR. I love being in Zion when it's not so hot, it was great. I didn't have my camera so she has all the pictures and as soon as I get them from her I'll put some more on here. It was a really good break though.


The next trip was really fun. I was swamping for Brain Lugers (aka Luge) who was the boatman on my first trip ever and it was really fun. He's a great Trip Leader and he runs a really fun trip. Justin Olsen and Jason Tea (aka The Bag) were on the other boat. And besides the fact that they have really pervy mustaches, they're pretty cool too. Here they are doing a great job of holding up the cook kit.


We camped at a couple different camps that I'd never camped before and that was a treat. This trip was a little more May- ish on the weather front. It was perfect, a lot of clouds and perfect temps, until the third night when this moved in. Luckily it was after we'd run most of the biggest rapids of the canyon when the people are freezing and soaked by the cold water.


That night though, right before bed I gave the usual speech about rain in the desert. It goes a little something like this "hello everyone, you all look pretty cozy, and I just want you to know that it may rain a little bit but this is the desert, and it usually rains for like 5 - 10 minutes, then stops. So you all have tarps in your bags and they work great to make a bed burrito and just wait it out, and it'll be done soon. But if you decide you want a tent, I put some in the kitchen. Ok, everyone, have a good night!" and off I go to the boats. The problem with that night was that I believed myself too and I LIED! It started raining and pretty much rained the whole night! Brian let me get back in his kingdom (the back part of the boat with big boxes on the sides that are perfect for setting up a shelter) and we threw up the tarp. But since we did a really half - ass job of it and since it wasn't the 10 minute shower I'd promised, the tarp was soon laying right on us and we could feel the rain and any time either of us moved it poured a puddle right down onto our pillows which in turn leaked all down our bags. If I was a good guide, I wouldn't have been so lazy and I'd have helped the peeps set up their tents and refurbished our little fort, but apperantly I'm not, so we all (4 guides + all the soaking wet passengers up on shore) were a little groggy in the morning. Luckily no one was too mad at me for my obvious misjudgment of the weather. The next night we were smart and all the guests had tents set up in the first 5 minutes in camp. (Side note: I love the desert becasue we got all our bags and clothes out at camp and they were dry by the time dinner was done. Everything dries so fast! I love not having to wake up with tons of condensation on my bag and all over my stuff!) And the guides delayed it as long as possible, but eventually took some time and actually set up some good shelters.


The Bag is a little too homo-phobe to sleep back with Justin, so he'd set up a tent on the boat and bungeed it down, and I helped Brain get his all sussed out and we all slept so much better! It's amazing how when you're not in bed, 5 minutes of a little work is no problem, but thinking about getting out of bed and getting more wet to make your life 100% better is way too much to do.


We had some really cool clouds in the morning and I actually really like rain in the canyon.


It's pretty funny because I'm pretty sure without a watch or something to tell us, I don't think any of us would ever know the date, let alone the day of the week or anything of significance. So, when someone mentioned that it was Memorial Day, none of was prepared. No flags, sparklers, nothing. So, Brian and Justin taught me how to make a grease bomb, while Jason was throwing up off the back of the boats (poor guy had a rough evening on the last night of the trip and Luge and Justin both got it afterward, but luckily it must have been a boy-only Noro virus!)


It's not a great picture of the final outcome, but I though it was pretty cool. HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY everyone!


Here's Luge contemplating life and getting lost in the overpowering effects of the canyon.


So, now here I am, back in Fredonia, getting ready for another trip tomorrow. I'll be doing 8 more tips, so about 4 more months down here and if they could all be like the last couple I'd love it and the summer will be a great one, so let's hope for that! Clouds, some rainy nights, good guides, rapids, and peeps ... and being in the canyon away from the rest of the worries of life .... what a dream!