...still don't believe it.

It's feeling very springy today and it's amazing! I love all the seasons that Utah has to offer, but I think Spring feels the best. It's been cold and snowy and for the first time in months you get to sit on the lawn in the sun, walk barefoot outside, play frisbee with no shoes on. I'm sitting out in the sun right now, one of those days that's kind of windy, but if you sit still in the sun it's warm enough to be out here. Man, I love these days.

However, It's been a rough couple of weeks. I think most of my Utah friends may have heard about the avalanche that happened about 10 days ago just east of Nephi. Well, 7 of my friends were out there, 3 were caught in it and one of them died. The one that died was Garrett, my friend I went to Guatemala with. Here's some of my blogs about our trip. I met Garrett through my friend, Molly Barker that I worked on the river with. While she was gone on her mission, I was a space holder for her. She left me as someone he had to report to since she wasn't there to keep him in line. Through that trip and the whole time she was gone, he and I became really great friends and have still been since she got home and they got married last July.

Garrett has been super into touring and he and Molly, 2 other couples and another friend had been planning a trip for a while to a really remote place they were going to rent a cat to get to and ski there. They finally got to the top of the run and they started testing the snow and digging pits to see if the snow was stable. They decided it wasn't and as they were hiking back up to the ridge, they triggered a huge avalanche. Three of them were buried, one, Pitt just up to his knees, another, Mark was all the way under but was able to get his hand out to dig down to his face. The girls and Dustin who were up at the top threw their skis on and got down to Mark and started digging him out and then used beacons to get close to Garrett but noticed his boot was sticking out. When they finally dug him all the way out he was blue and had no pulse and wasn't breathing. Molly skied out to get help and Mark and Dustin did CPR for 40 mins and got a pulse back. Because they were so remote it took another hour and a half for the rescue team to get there. Here's a news video about what happened. 

I was on a trip with my friend Tony and a couple friends he had in town from New Zeland and we'd driven through Zion that evening and I was pretty excited to show them Angel's Landing the next day but Molly's sister, Caitlin called me and told me that they were in an avalanche and that Garrett was unconscious but breathing and was on his way to the hospital. I wasn't really that concerned because Garrett is probably the strongest and most determined person I know. As the night went on Tony and I kept getting messages that things weren't looking good. Jarrod and Amy were great and said that they wouldn't be able to have fun and we should just go.





So, we packed up at 5:30 am and Harriett did great, driving us 100 MPH the whole way to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center where he had been life-flighted to. They had been told that he was brain dead. The avalanche had killed him, he hadn't suffocated, and that it was amazing that they were able to get a pulse and he had been breathing on his own, but his brain continued to swell, cutting off his Vagas nerve which tells the diaphragm to breath, so he hadn't been able to breathe on his own for very long. It's really amazing that they were able to bring him back and it was great because it gave Molly more time to be with him. Even though he wasn't really there anymore, to still be able to hold his warm hand and feel his heart beating for a little more was really great. And for all of us to get to say good-bye and also to give them the opportunity to donate his organs. It was really hard to see him like that, but I almost wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there myself. It was hard because his heart was just pumping away and he was kinda sunburned from being out there and besides the breathing tube, he looked great; not one scratch. Because they did decide to donate his organs, they did some stuff to try to get his lungs in better working condition, so they kept him around for another day but ended up not being able to use his lungs since he probably got a bunch of snow in the during the slide and there was signs on pneumonia and they found a mass in his heart that was probably just a little flap of skin and had probably been there his whole life but the couldn't tell for sure so no one would take it because of that. So, they were able to donate his kidneys, liver and pancreas, so that's good.

 It's hard to know where to go from here. Especially for Molly. I feel pretty unsure of what to do in the situation. How much do I try to track her down and make her talk to me and hang out? Or just show up and just be there, or give her space and just let her come to me? It's hard to know what to do, my heart just aches for her. But I feel like I can be someone that she can talk to because I had a different relationship with him than a lot of people did and I was able to be a place holder while Molly was gone and to be a go-between when they were having some issues while she was gone.

The funeral was amazing. It was a really great tribute to him and to his life and the way he lived. My accident and this whole thing has really made me think about my lifestyle and wonder if it's stupid to take so many chances, but I really think that living your life ruled by fear is no way to live. A couple days before the avalanche, my brothers and I took my mom out to dinner and I got a fortune cookie that said "You will continue to take chances and be glad you did". I'm not usually one to place any amount of stock in fortune cookies, but I really liked that one and I saved it and put it on my night stand and forgot about it, until I saw it again after the viewing. It really hit me that that is what Garrett would want us to do and it's the way I want to live my life. I rolled it up and put it in his coffin the last time I got to see him.

Some of Garrett's friends are putting a book together for Molly and her family and his. I wrote something for it that will probably be way too long but here it is if you want to read it. Just keep Molly in your thoughts and prayers and tell people you love them and take advantage of every moment of LIFE!

Jess and I were with Molly at the Front when she re-met Garrett. We were a little surprised at how twitterpated she was over him. She was acting like a fifth grade girl and we just didn't see why she was so stoked on this tall, lanky, neck-bearded, greasy-haired, poncho-wearing dude. We would soon find out why. After they started dating it became obvious that there was much more to Garrett than that first impression. He adored Molly and was so great to her and so considerate. The first time I really met him a group of us did a spring overnight Westwater trip. After a long, cold day on the water, we pulled into camp, unloaded the boats then just laid on the rocks soaking up the sun. By the time the rest of us started setting up, we noticed that Garrett had put up the tent, and done almost everything including putting all of our pads and bags in there and had started setting up the kitchen. This was my first glimpse into how Garrett works and I told Molly that she absolutely must hold on to this one.

A few months later when she decided (after much heart-wrenching deliberation) to go on a mission, she made me promise to keep an eye on him and be the person that he had to report to. I'd had a 6 week trip to Central America planned and had the idea to invite Garrett since he had recently quit his job to pursue his photography career and I thought it would be great to have an interpreter on the trip. He committed to go after he emailed me saying that Molly means too much to both of us to let anything happen between us and that if I would agree to that, then it would be a great trip. Admittedly the first couple weeks with Garrett and Mark there, two rad, good-looking, fun dudes, it was a little hard for me not to wonder if anything would happen but after I got over that, Garrett and I started what would become a great friendship for the whole time Molly was gone and up until the week before he died when the three of us spent an afternoon together.

Garrett took better care of me on that trip than most boyfriends. He would always just grab my pack to load in onto buses, into hostels, wherever. He would make food, make plans and make friends with everyone which made it really easy for me to have a great trip. He made it a little too easy to just let him make the decisions but he would always tell me that it was my choice that day what we'd do and I had to “exercise my decision making muscles”.

A week or so into the trip he realized he wasn't going to have enough money for the trip so he came to me with a plan. I'd pay him $400 and we'd do 2 hours of Spanish lessons everyday and he'd give me some prints from the trip, and he made me write up a contract. He was so diligent about teaching me and really making me learn. He'd give me things I needed to find out from people on the street and I'd have to use the vocabulary words he'd given me in the morning. I'd want to be lazy and just say they can understand me, but he'd always push me to really learn it. I think that was an example of how he lived his life. A lot of us will do what we can to get by, to be understood, to make money, but Garrett always wanted to get the most out of every experience. He was usually mistaken for a real Spaniard because of the perfection he demanded of himself while learning Spanish and always strove for perfection in all aspects of his life. It wasn't good enough unless it was the absolute be he could do.

We were in a town where there was some surfing that wasn't great for learning and it was pretty hard for us and pretty unmotivating for me. I gave up after several days of getting worked by beach breaking waves, but Garrett's reasoning for still going out everyday was that if you are going to do anything there's no reason to waste time not giving it your all. He even bought a board after several days of very valiant effort on a local's board that barely came up to his armpits. Even if you never go to a beach again (that was my excuse... what's the point of trying to learn when I only get to a beach every other year or so?!) you will have put 100% into it and you will know that you gave it everything you have and you'll never have to live with regrets. That was a really big lesson for me that I have tried to remember and live by. That's how Gar was in everything.

He was miserable riding in the vans made for short locals and was always a spectacle wherever we went. Especially when I'd done some sort of braids in his hair, or he was carrying around his camera or surfboard, people were always pointing at him and whispering. I could always find him in a crowd. Once when walking through a market these older ladies were giggling and pointing at him and asking for a kiss. He bent way down to this older lady sitting on the ground and kissed her on the check. She was ecstatic, this tall spectacle had totally made her day.

I knew from our daily life that he was going to be a great husband to Molly. He'd wake up to take pictures of the sunrise, go to the markets where he knew everyone and everything about them, buy stuff for breakfast, come back, wake me up to “Hey Ya” by Outkast, then we'd listen to Ayn Rand and talk about Capitalism over breakfast. He never let a minute go unused. He'd talk politics with anyone on the streets to learn how other places run. He'd always look for opportunities to talk about the Church and to really understand someone else's point of view. He was a great listener and always made me feel understood and appreciated.

I was grateful to have been a place holder for Molly and a go – between for them when they were having some rough times and to have been able to get to know Garrett better and make a great friend. I am really lucky and grateful to have had the time I did with him. His absence is a hole in all of our lives that will never really be able to be filled, but I will continue to remember the things and life lessons I learned from him. I will try to live with passion and put 100% of myself into everything I do.

I love you Garrett, and will miss you in the adventure of life, but know that you are living the dream and looking out for us.