Last trip... phew!

The summer is officially over. Well, not really because I still have Guatemala, but the river season anyway. If all of my trips could've been this easy, I could do it forever. I swamped for this guy Tom, who I hadn't met before, but ran a super relaxed really fun trip, and the other boat was RD and Tony, who I've known for at least 5 years, and we wrestle and fight like they're my brothers. I'm not quite sure I





could handle this job if I didn't have my 4 younger brothers to prepare me for living in this world of boys. It was really fun. Sometimes we'll be cooking and I'll look around and see our peeps and I had almost forgotten that there are other people on the trip. It's pretty funny.


But don't let me fool you, it's not a fun job and it's hard work all the time.... well, sorta, while we were rigging the ranger came and picked us up and we got to go up and see the Glen Canyon dam which is 15 miles upstream and even though I have mixed feelings about the dam, it was pretty cool to see it up close at the bottom. The water is super clear and cold coming out of the bottom. That first night it poured at Lee's Ferry and most of us slept in the van and woke up to some beautiful clouds. Because of the rain, almost all of the side streams were flashing so we had clear water for like 5 miles, then it was dirty the rest of the trip. You can see two side streams bringing in tons of sediment.And it was like this the rest of the time. Even Havasu that flashed and those people had to be airlifted out a couple weeks ago was still dirty, but it was cool, because the water was almost white. The people were ridiculously solely concrete walkers and it was too hard for most of them to even get half way in to Havasu. But I always like seeing the side streams flash and seeing everything differently.



On the last night we had a little fire show.... and if you're interested, here's what you'll need:


finish the last of the watermelon from lunch. (I happily took this job)


Then a boy who likes to play with fire, paper towels, lighter fluid, a most importantly, Frito'sStuff all the lighter fluid soaked paper towels and Frito's into the watermelon, light and send down stream. This one lasted surprisingly long without tipping over. (Also, in this picture, you might notice the back of that boat looks a little weird. That reminds me that it wasn't all fun. We did have some adventure. RD got sucked into a wall below Phantom Ranch and the tube popped. We had to take another section of the boat and cut the whole bigger to put it inside that tube. I also hit the wall pretty hard, but luckily on a different part of the boat so it was OK. Tom let me drive most of the rapids and it was awesome. Oh, yeah, and this German guy on the 3 day trip fell and got a compound fracture in his finger and had to be helicoptered out at night. Luckily Tom speaks German or it would've been way more of a disaster. Hopefully some of our peeps will send some pictures of it landing right in the middle of our beach, and I can put some on here ... see, it's not just all fun :)


Since it was my last trip of the season, I tried to take some pictures of the Vishnu Schist. It's really cool, dark, super old (about 2 billion y.o.) rock with threads of Granite in it. They didn't turn out too great, but here's a couple to give you an idea. Ever corner is something else cool. I really love it down there. It pushes up from underneath the regular not so old rock (only 600 million y.o.) Here's some fluting. It happens in the sedimentary rock on occasion, but mostly in the schist, and I love it. My pictures really don't do it justice. Tom is a photographer and you should check out his site, then look through the action until you see the guy climbing in a blue life jacket. It's sweet and it's way better than my pictures.
Overall, it was a great trip to end the season on.



On the way home we stopped at a really cool hot spring I'd never even heard of that's right off the freeway by Meadow and here's a couple pictures from there.

So, I've got a week now, to try to pull my life together enough to be able to leave for 6 weeks. Until next adventure .....

Lava Rapid anyone?

On my last trip, this lady put a waterproof camera on the front of her lifejacket and filmed us going through Lava Rapid. It's the last rapid on the 6 day trip and it's a class 10. It's hard to really get the full effect but it gives you a little idea. It gets knocked a little skiwampus so you don't see the whole thing but look for the lady next to the one filming that falls off the seats they're sitting on. Then look for my shadow there holding her and giving the boatman the OK sign, it's pretty funny.
My computer is going to slow to upload the video, so just click here to see it.
Also, earlier on that same trip, a guy fell off the front of the boat in Crystal, which is a pretty dangerous class 10 and we didn't get footage of it, but here's a video of someone falling off the same way he did but the video is of Hermit. Luckily on our trip, he was able to stay holding on to the front ropes. You'll see the guy in the video hanging on the front for a second, then he falls off, so look close. Enjoy!

Women's Trip in Cat

This trip was a couple weeks ago, but I still wanted to put a couple pictures up.

The women's trip really was one of my favorite trips of the year in Moab, and I was stoked when they asked me to come back up there and do that trip. It was such a fun trip. It's fun because it's different from all the other trips and we do some other stuff like we have a yoga instructor that does yoga every morning and we bring massage therapists and they do several massages at night. And plus, it's just all girls, so it's great.

These girls were great. They had met on college and some lived in DC some in San Francisco. They brought these face masks and they were amazing for my sun baked face. Jos and I bought big sunglasses and hats for the trip and I really actually do kinda like these shades and I've worn them a lot since then. This was on the last day. There was some sweet mud for mud baths and everyone got a facial with cucumber eye covers. They put a dress on my and lipstick on both of us. I think it looks so weird! We all wore our skimpyest dresses for the event.And Jos and some girls did had a sweet dance party for everyone after dinner. It was pretty funny. I love dance parties on the river. Everyone got up and danced later. Over all it was a really good trip and just a lot of fun to be back up in Moab with my good old friends.

help?

I've checked out some of your sites and you've got sweet music on them, and I have a playlist all set on playlist.com but I don't know where to put the code to get it to play on my site. I thought I was getting kinda computer savvy, but alas I need help. Anyone?

Also, I've got a couple weeks off the river, so I'll actually have time to get caught up on reading your blogs and get a little update on here, so just know I'm cyber-stalking you!

Guatemala

Well, it's official ... I'm going to Guatemala this summer. That was my plan and a couple months ago, I was home and listening to NPR and they were saying if you're planning on traveling, buy tickets now, it's only going to get more expensive, so I just got my ticket without really having a travel partner or plans. So, when I was looking online trying to plan my trip, it was saying that it's dangerous to go there by yourself as a girl. So, I started thinking other options, maybe Peru, Thailand, or many other cool places that would have been more expensive. But a couple weekends ago when I was up in Salt Lake, I went climbing with my friend, Garrett and on the way home I realized I hadn't asked him, and within 20 minutes of asking, he'd bought a ticket, so it's on. I'm stoked. He went on his mission to Spain so he speaks Spanish and is a really good teacher, and he's got lots of time to look online and figure out what cool things we should do. We're going for six weeks and going to Honduras and Belize also and probably going to be doing some scuba diving. I'm stoked. So, if anyone has any suggestions of what to do in any of those countries, let me know.

Last week

This week was a great one on the river. This is kinda turning into a picture blog, but there were a lot of good ones last week so I thought I'd just put them on here. One of the highlights of the week was that this girl, Lindsay Hale was the other swamper and she's awesome. We had so much fun. She's from Orem, and we have the same birthday and she's so funny. (Here we are in matching outfits, both Oakley shorts from Steep and Cheap).

When we go to Havasu, we usually just hike up like 20 minutes and hang out there forever and people just hang in the water and play but this week we were going to stay for like 3 hours so Lindsay and I wanted to run up to Beaver Falls which is about 3.5 miles. So, we and a dude from the trip ran up there. It's the coolest run though fields of grape vines.

However, neither of us had been there so we missed the turn off and were so close, but we were below it and we didn't even know that we just needed to get up and around. But the pool we got to was cool enough.

The water is such and amazing color!

I'm trying out my sweet new waterproof camera, and I love it! (I think the one on the left kinda looks like the Nirvana cover from forever ago)

I'm always such a fan of reflections, and I see so many awesome ones, but a lot of times, pictures just don't do them justice, but this one turned out alright. That was the most clouds we saw all week. It was a hot one! The last couple nights, I had to get my sarong wet and put it over me just to be comfortable enough to sleep. For the derig at Lake Mead it was 113! But don't worry, it's not even hot yet, wait until July they all keep telling me..... can't wait for that.

This is a better picture of The Redwall Cavern with the other launch in it. It's huge and so fun to play ultimate or wiffle ball in.

This last picture is of my alarm. It sucks, but this is really what it looks like when I have to get up. Again, way cooler, than what my camera could record, but we usually get up when you can't see stars anymore. Way too early!!!

But the raddest thing about this week was that I got to drive all the big rapids! The way it works is you have to be a swamper for at least 10 trips, hopefully getting some driving time here and there and then you can drive a little, and when there's a spot available, you might get your own boat and be the boatman. This was trip 7 for me and I'd driven a lot of the little stuff and a few of the bigger ones, but Wiley, who's been down there for a while and I've known, let me drive all the stuff on rapid day! There's a couple class 10 rapids and a lot of 8 and 9s (The Grand is in a 1-10 scale rather than 1-5 like the rest of the world so that there's a bigger discrepancy between ratings for boaters who have never seen it before so they know which ones they need to scout). It was really fun. Super nerve racking, and I was so exhausted from that day from having so much adrenaline, then resting, then getting nervous again, but it was so fun. And I had all good runs except in this class 6 one, Grapevine I hit my motor and had to change out the prop. Anyway, it was really fun. Thanks to Wiley! A lot of boatmen get too nervous to let swampers drive but he's a good teacher and his confidence in me I think helps me relax and do better. So, overall, good week!

To be a Grand Canyon River Guide ....

I think it's hard to explain to people exactly what I do, so I'm going to show you a little of what goes into a trip.

The night before we rig, we have to get ourselves down to Fredonia, Arizona, which is about 5 hours away from Salt Lake. Luckily there's a bunch of people that live in SL or Orem so we can carpool, or else that commute would kill me. Most everyone goes home in between trips, because unlike Moab, there's not that much to do in Fredonia. Well, I take that back, Zion is only like 45 minutes away (I'm there now) but most everyone is married or has stuff to do at home, so they all go home, and it's so hot. Anyway, we get to the warehouse the day before then start rigging the next day.

We get all the food boxes and coolers out and load them with ice that will last 8 or 9 days, and all the food for 28 people.

Then we load 4 frames, and boats into the truck on one half, then all the food and gear in the other half. Luckily we have a winch to help us out, because everything is super heavy. It takes two people to carry the coolers even when they're empty. It's like playing Tetris trying to get everything to fit in the truck, and everything has a spot.

Then we drive to Lee's Ferry, about 90 miles, and get out all the rubber, put on frames and blow them up. Then we back the truck down the river and one at a time, unload everything from the truck to the boats. It takes about 4 hours at each end. We then hang out and do all the finishing touches, and bathe. And let me tell you about this bath. The water is beautifully clear, unlike up in Cataract Canyon because it is all coming out of the bottom of the Glenn Canyon Dam. However because of that it's a freezing 47 degrees. No matter how hot it is, it still takes your breath away and gives me a brain freeze by the time I get the conditioner out of my hair. It takes some serious bargaining every time:

"OK, it's time for a bath..."

"But it's so cold! I don't want to" said in an extremely whiny voice.

"I know, but it's worth it, you'll feel so much better after, and you'll sleep better, and let's be honest... you stink"

"We'll you're right, but, but..."and at that point I just have to jump in off the back, no wading in, just jump. It sucks but really is totally worth it.

Anyway, we go to dinner somewhere at Marble Canyon, then sleep on the boats. The next morning, the people fly in to a little landing strip, and we meet them there after we've eaten breakfast and had our last couple minutes of hang time for the next 8 or 9 days. Go down to the boats, everyone loads dry bags, asks 100 dumb questions, gets life jackets and we get loaded on the boats and head down stream. Now the river trip has begun. It feels so good once we get on the river finally. We camp anywhere on the sides of the river and do side hikes to cool waterfalls and up really neat canyons along the way. Here are some of our main stops:

Red Wall Cavern

Nakoweep

The Little Colorado

Deer Creek Falls
(and check out this video of Deer Creek from last summer, it changed things so much between my two trips I did down there.)

and everyone looks forward most to Havasu.

Here's the pumpkin

But, the main part why the Grand has been a good step up is the rapids....

This is Horn Creek and the video is Hermit

They're hard to get good video or pictures of, but they are so fun. I'm learning how to drive them, and my TL this week says he's going to let me drive most everything. I'm pretty stoked/nervous!

So, after all that excitement, one of my main jobs is the set up the toilets. They're the best lou with a view ever. These spots aren't the best ones, but you get the idea. We set up one indoor and one outdoor every night.

After that and the kitchen get set up we have to keep working really hard when we pull into camp (Ben really is working hard, putting the second motor on the boat to go across Lake Mead, but not too much I can do but sit in the water that by the end of the trip has warmed just enough to want to hang out in it like this for about 10 minutes) We do get a little break from the peeps in between the boats and cooking and camp. I guess I don't really have pictures of us cooking, but we do a lot of it.

Then, after 6 or 7 days we dress up on the last night, (sadly, I can't find this dress from last year) and serve shrimp cocktail. The next day is the hardest for me, because those people helicopter out and new people fly in for another three day trip, and we have to be all excited and new and sharp for them. I just usually need at least 10 minutes, (or preferably a couple hours) to drive the boat and regroup a little. We do another couple days with them, and the last morning a jet boat comes and picks them up and takes them the last 40 miles on a jet boat across Lake Mead, because even with two motors it takes us another three hours. We get the boats ready, play around a little of course, pull up to South Cove where the semi truck is waiting for us to do everything in reverse. After a bath in the now 80 degree water, three people pile in the cab of the semi (there's a bed back there) for the 8 hour drive home and the other 5 guides fly back to Fredonia. The next morning we open the truck, take loads of stuff out, spray all the food boxes with a high pressure washer, clean out the toilets (definitely not the fun part) and put everything back where it should go for next week.

The rig and derig and the exchange day suck, and some trips can feel really long depending on the crowd, but for the most part, it's really great and I love it. I'm tired all the time and I just want to sleep when I'm off the river, but it's worth it. Here's a picture from just one of many great morning scenes. (and check out my new ditch boots that I love! I really hate getting my feet wet in the mornings, and these have been amazing!) So, there it is ... I actually do work.