2011 Grand Canyon season!

Oh..... Grand Canyon. I just love you so much. It was a great summer down there! If I was good about blogging I'd probably have updated this after each trip, but that's not the way my life is, so you get it all in one blah blah blog. So here goes....

Usually I like to carpool but I had to drive down a lot by myself this summer, but get me a good book on tape and some sweetarts and I'm set. And with this view, I can't really complain.

 

I did the 2 high water Cat trips then 9 trips down in the Canyon and I got to run with a bunch of fun different people. My old roomie Erika got to do a trip and she's always so fun to do trips with! "Celebrity guides" always have such a great attitude because they only do one trip a year so they're all fresh and chipper.

And all the regulars which were always fun.

 

Another celebrity was Newty who, during the trip invited me on the best trip of my life, the private trip down the canyon later in the fall (which will be updated soon)

 

I learned a lot this summer and I kinda love geeking out about geology and talking their ears off about the rocks and they all the history of the canyon and the whole area. 

 

The water was huge this year and I got to drive my own boat 3 times and it was good and scary but really fun. I'm pretty scared about next year because the snow has been so slow in coming this year, but I'm still hoping we'll have a good spring so I'm not bringing home broken motors every trip.

It was mostly really great weather but we did have a good storm or two. Here we are all huddled under the umbrella trying to cook dinner.

 

We were able to see some great scenery go on some great hikes and it's beautiful as always!

  

There's a bunch of cool waterfalls in the canyon and here's Travertine, it's one of my favs.

And, yea, like I said, great scenery....

I've been able to bring both my parents on the Grand and Eric has been able to come twice. He is a super big help and its great to have him around.

And yes, he is wearing shorts.... if I had legs like that I'd probably wear those shorts too. 

We had a great time hiking up Havasu a ways, it was great to be just with Eric. He has to shave to come on a Western trip and my mom was more than happy to let him have her spot so she could get to see his cute, clean face.

Eric's toga style is a favorite. 

Lee's Ferry is one of my favorite places to watch the sunrise. 

My mom gave me this shirt and it's got to make an appearance ever trip, depending on who is the most awesome.

Over all it was a great summer! I had great trips and it was do a couple in Moab and the rest in the canyon. It was a really great summer and it makes me stoked for next summer!

 Thinking about trying to catch up from being such a slacker is super overwhelming, so rather than have a really long blog covering like 8 months and what I've been up to (which I still have aspirations to do someday) I'm just going to start now with shorter entries just to stay caught up.

Long story short, it was an awesome summer working on the river, then I went to Italy for a week then Kenya for 3 weeks then I was home for 3 days and went on a Grand Canyon trip just for fun which was probably the most amazing trip I'll ever do in my life.  I can't tell you how much different it was from working and I will never be the same after that trip, and I really do plan to tell you more about it. Since I've been home, I've had tons of time to blog and sew and paint, but have I done any of it? When I have a lot of stuff to do it is amazing what I can get done! But when I don't it is flabbergasting how much time I can waste! I may just continue to enjoy not having a job, but sometime soon here, I'll have to start being more productive. I bought this  amazing house coat kinda as a joke, but really I think my roommates are getting pretty sick of it because I wear it for real lot just hanging around the house in the mornings.

This has been the first year I've actually paid full price for a season pass and it just so happens to be the worst snow year in forever, which sucks. But I've decided that there is a ton of other things to do so I've been trying to take advantage of them. I've been out to Antelope Island a couple times. The first time my hard core friends ran 12 miles and I did a hike to the saddle of the southern part of the island, and it was a little cold, but it was cool to go out there. 

And another time we went to the top of Frary Peak.

 It's almost 7,000 feet at the top and it was good to get above the smog.

I did get to go skiing with my family just before Christmas and it was great. My brothers are all so good and my mom has lost a little confidence from tearing her ACL skiing, but she still has great form and it's so fun to ski with the fam! I really love it that we all like to ski together. We usually try to do it once a year at least, and Coulson and my dad weren't able to make it but it was pretty fun.

 We had a great Christmas time and it's been good because Jesse got home from his mission this summer and so we're all home and my mom is LOVING Sunday dinners when we all come home.

Eric has been playing the piano a ton lately and he really is amazing! I'm super proud of him and what he puts together. He did a concert this fall that was really great. He really is so inspirational and it boggles my mind that it all is in his head!

So, since it hasn't been snowing I decided to get my bike back out. I bought a super sweet mountain bike this fall and LOVE it and I thought it was done for the season, but I took it back out and although it was super nice and sunny in the valley I didn't realize that the bottom of Milcreek would still be in the shade and snowy. I left from my house and went up until I could hook into the pipeline trail and there was some snow on it the trail, but most of it was great, and although my brain complains sooo much on the uphill, the down hill always makes it worth it.

 I do have a little problem with circulation though, and by the time I got home the sun was down and it was pretty cold and this is what my feel looked like when I took off my shoes! Sheesh! Not so great on the cap refill there.

 Again, since there's no snow, might as well get out of here and enjoy the nice weather so I rallied Jess and Kristina to head down to St. George. 

Jess and I rode Corner Canyon the day before and ended going through the golf course and got tons of goat heads in our tires which lead to 5, that's right, 5 flat tires! in the first 20 minutes of what was supposed to be a 22 mile ride, so we bailed and went climbing.

 The Chuckawala Wall is always a great place to be, although I'm still not in a great head space to be leading routes and climbing hard but I'm working on it. I just bought a pass to Momentum so I hope to be getting myself back in the game.

We found some great new rides that are probably my new favorite. I really love mountain biking and yea, I kinda suck at going up hill and really I do complain so much in my head, but I really love going down and my new bike is so great for it, so I really loved it. 

I am so lucky to have friends that can get away with me and that want to go on adventures! We had a great time driving and watching movies on the way. We watched Country Strong on the drive and listened to the soundtrack about 10,000 times and had a great time all in all. 

I love having bad ass girl friends that I can play with! Thanks ladies for coming with me!