Summer stinks!

Well, it's time. I NEED to catch up. Whenever I have time (and by that I mean off the river and on my computer which is about 4 hours every 2 weeks .... OK it's more than that, I've always got it on when I'm at home... but it's usually for music or Hulu) I feel my blog breathing down my neck reminding me that I haven't posted forever so here goes. I'll try to be brief.

I've had an amazing few months! I've been able to do some great stuff during and in between my river trips. Every year the Grand Canyon River Guide Association sends a trip down the river called the Guide Training Seminar. Western sends 2 guides every year on it and it's a great chance to meet other guides and they bring a Geologist
(Peter Hontoon who I had a pretty big crush on... he'd always say things like "now this is some pretty sexy stuff!" and "this is what really gets me going!") and a botanist and a bunch of other people that I learned TONS from. It was great.
And one of the best parts is it was a really wet winter and a late spring so there were tons of wild flowers, including the Brittlebush.
It made the whole lower half of the canyon super yellow and it was so beautiful!!
And these are my favorite! They're called Ocotillo and to see them that green with the flower still on was a dream!

Then I had two weeks off to play. Which sounds great, except that other people who I'd like to play with still do have real jobs and not everyone can just get out to play. I still was able to get in some good powder days (it was weird going from hot Grand Canyon to really good powder days) and a little bit of touring up on the Twin Peaks, and then the next day I went climbing in Little Cottonwood, I love that canyon!
At the end of that break I did a triathlon with some people from St. Mark's.


We had all signed up for it and I did like 2 bike rides, swam once and ran a couple times, and luckily it was just a sprint and I felt pretty good about it. My time was 1:31 and I almost died in the pool (which ironically I was the least worried about) but it was pretty fun to do.


Then the first trip of the year was great. So good to be down there when it's not super hot. And it was fun bc my old roomie, Erika who used to guide down here got to come as extra crew.


And it was great bc now the upper half of the canyon was on fire with Brittlebush

which incidentally I found out I'm somewhat allergic to and it took every ounce of will power I've got to not scratch my eyeballs out of my head!


I finally got a new camera after my lens broke on the Hell's Canyon trip last year and it has a great panoramic setting that if you can't tell, I'm pretty in love with it. Here's Havasu and Redwall


So, after that trip I had another week off and as per usual, I'd tried to plan a trip to Yosemite but it was bad timing for everyone else, so my friends, Kristina, Jason Tea and I threw together a trip to the White Rim. It's a trail that goes around the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands. It's the doted line around the edge.
It's about 100 miles long and you bring a support vehicle and you camp for 1-3 nights. Since we didn't have a permit we had to go in that morning and get some cancellations. We took time to go to Mesa Arch, so we weren't first in line but it was worth it to get this amazing shot. If only we were getting married we'd be in luck for our engagements.

So, after getting turned down by a couple to share their campsite, even after Kristina asked so nicely if they wanted to have some new best friends, we had to do a little bit random of a route but it turned out great. We went down the Schaffer Trail

to Musselman Arch,

then back up. It was about 16 miles, then down the Mineral Bottom trail on the other side.

until we got to our great first night's camp.
But let me back up and say a few words. Did you really look at that photo of the Schaffer Trail? It is ridiculously steep and it was great going down but I almost died going up and Kristina and Jason had no problem with it. I was pretty unmotivated after that and when we got to the 'hard scrabble' hill I was more then happy to volunteer as a spotter for Jason while he was driving his mom's Jeep.

Kristina plugged away and did great though. It was super steep and rocky in some places. I'd only been on a mtn bike once in the last year or so and .... blah blah blah, excuses, excuses. I was (am) out of shape. That's the bottom line.

But the next day I had an awakening experience. We all took turns driving the car and while I was driving I was listening to the song Life for Rent by Dido, and it says (are you ready? this is going to be deep...) " If my life is for rent and I don't look to buy, then I deserve nothing more than I get 'cause nothing I have is truly mine". And I realized that that is so important in life. If you're only willing to put in the bare minimum then you're only going to get the minimum back. If I'm a sissy and woss out of the hill before really even trying then really I shouldn't get to do the fun downhill (but in this situation that doesn't really work bc we had the car and could just shuttle up the hills). Oh, this isn't sounding nearly as earth shattering as it was to me at the time. And it's funny coming from me who happily doesn't have a mortgage and doesn't even pay rent for that matter since all my stuff is at my parent's for the summer. But maybe that's what I mean. I'm paying for experiences of life with my time and effort and I do want to make to effort to do all that I can to soak every drop of life out of this existence! .... wow is that making sense to anyone? It still really didn't help my quads work any better going up Murphy's Hogback but I think I had a little better attitude about it and my brain wasn't being quite so whiny.

We got some great riding in and some great views



There were tons of wildflower out that I was kicking myself for not having my plant book with me to identify, and a lot of cactus were blooming too.




That night it was super windy and I actually resorted to sleeping in the toilet. Well, not really the toilet but the port-a-potty. It actually didn't smell too bad, but the wind going through there was stirring up the chemical that they use to keep the smell down and I started coughing and decided maybe it wasn't such a great idea, but stayed in just with the door propped open a little. Seeing camp the next morning and the sand drifts that were filling in Jason and Kristina's eyes I still felt good about my decision.

The next day was more great riding with more great views and we came back around the Schaffer side and it was really fun. Every time I get on a bike I remember how much I love it and wish I had more time for it. On my way out of town when I was leaving Moab I did the Klondike Bluffs trail and that's a great ride too. The view from the top is amazing looking down at the Fiery Furnace.



OK, so that's all I've got time for right now. I have had a couple amazing days in between trips that I have spent down at our warehouse totally alone and it's been the first time in 7 ish weeks that I've spent more than half a day by myself and it's been a dream! I thought I'd get farther, and I'm sad that this always turns out to just be a trip log. I'd like to include a little more thought into it, but oh well, it's what it is. I'm leaving tomorrow for my first trip as a boatman. I've driven the whole Canyon a couple times but this will be the first time that it's my own boat and it's all my responsibility and I'm a little nervous but really excited, so I better get some sleep. I'll try not to be a stranger. I do have a full week off after this! so hopefully I'll make some more time. Good night!

College Age Spring Break

It's amazing how when I'm busy I get so much done and I can pack so many things into my day, but when I don't really have much going on, it may take me days to get some little project done. Updating my blog has been one of those things. "Oh, I'll just do that this afternoon ...." then when I'm tired (for an unknown reason because I get to sleep in everyday) I decide to put off the blog writing so I can make time for a nap.

So, today I'm motivating. I'd been working at St. Mark's all winter and they've been really great about me leaving for the summer. I did have to quit but they said if there's a spot when I get back then it's all mine.

I did a trip to St. George with Kristina and Jess and we climbed, hiked and rode our bikes and was a great trip.

And I went to Red Rocks with Garrett and some of his friends and I'd never been there and it was so beautiful and great climbing. Here's a picture that Garrett took. It's on a 10.d and it's mostly trad and ends with a couple bolts.



Just because I'm not in college any more doesn't mean that I shouldn't get Spring Break, right? So I took the liberty to take a week off of work and go with Molly and Jess and their friend Katie on their Spring Break. Definitely worth it. We had a great time. We started out at Jess's family's super nice condo in Scottsdale, AZ. It's a super nice place and when we pull up in Harriett, my mom wagon, that incidentally is not a Lexus or a BMW, and go check in not wearing Gucci or... or.... can't even think of another brand, we look a little out of place. We spent tons of time hanging on deck chairs in the sun, and it was the first sun of spring and it felt great! We all enjoyed it for about a day and a half, then the "lay by the pool, shop in the afternoon, go out to dinner at night" lifestyle got a little old. So we were all ready to get on with the rest of our trip. Our next stop was Red Rocks, just outside of Vegas. Jess and Molly were leading a bunch and doing great. Then we went to Zion and did Spry Canyon. It was really cool.

I've wanted to do it forever and we were a little nervous because we hiked up around and we came down and there was tons of snow!
This is where the first rappel was supposed to be and we sat and took a minute to decide if we were going to do it or not. We decided to go for it and we were stoked about that decision. We 'skied' down the first rap and the canyon had about 12 rappels and they were great.

Some of them we came down onto snow and we were a little nervous because we knew there were several swims but we knew they were just a couple. We had dressed for it ... meaning we could undress for it.

This picture is rather revealing of Molly and Jess's missionary tans and my camo which always looks great when I'm cold.

We hiked Angle's Landing while we were there too and Jess and Molly hadn't done it before and it was beautiful and a great hike as always. It was cold and windy at the top and great to be back up there.


It was a great Spring Break! I'm so stoked that Jess and Molly are home! I love having them here and willing to go on trips and adventures with me!

Lucky, lucky, lucky!

A lot of times in my life I think about how much I value my health and my body and that it functions properly. Too often I think about if only I had legs like ____ or a stomach like ____ and I don't think about just how great it is that I have a body that works and does almost everything I ask of it. (Besides a little camo, which is annoying but it's what it is and it doesn't hurt. A girl just a little older than me came on the river with me last summer who had recently been diagnosed with retinal myopathy (or something like that) and she will be blind in about 3 or 4 years, and that made me realize that my camo is nothing.) I realize that with how much I like to play, I do all that I can to be safe and take care of myself, but even when you are being careful and you know what you're doing, stuff can still go wrong. I've had some adventures that have usually turned alright in the end. But one adventure that I was really lucky wasn't worse was when I broke my back.
My family was on a trip up in Oregon and we'd all been going off this big rope swing into a lake all day and of course, trying to keep up with my brothers, I tried doing a back flip and ended up slapping pretty hard, so the next time around I just dove in, but to prevent another slap, I held on a little longer than necessary and ended up diving into like 5 feet of water. Long story short I'm super lucky. Had I gone in at an angle or had my head bent any more I could be a quadriplegic or dead. I got a compression fracture on T-3 and cracked one of the pedicles, and had to wear this brace for 6 weeks (it was supposed to be 3 months but I got out a little early).

I'd been thinking about this because my dad's friend who is a quadriplegic from a trampoline accident when he was 32 was over at our house the other day. I've never really heard him talk about it and it's so crazy. He'd been a diver and was totally comfortable in the air, but was trying to get as high as he could and just got a little off balance and landed on his neck on the edge of the tramp. He can move his hand enough to move his wheelchair, but his wife and a nurse dress him and feed him everyday. It was a big wake up call to me to me as cautious as I can, but at the same time that I need to make the most out of every day. I had one (probably more than that, but that was the major one) close call and I'm so lucky! So, the point is go play and love your body! and take advantage of this amazing piece of engineering that you have that can ski or climb or run or flip or whatever you want it to do!

Feb 7th already... really?

When I was a kid it always drove me nuts when "old people" would say things such as "back in my day..." or "you're too young to remember..." but I do catch myself saying those things and I wonder when did I get so old? That being said, where does the time go? I can't believe it's a week into Feb! 2010 is already ticking away.

One thing that I resolved to do .... (not a New Year's resolution, mind you. I'm over making those) is to write on here more often. I'm not sure if you read my entry a couple weeks ago, but my purse was stolen up in Canada and my passport was in there but that's a different story, and I really don't care about that, what I'll miss the most is my journal was in there. The one I've been keeping for that last year and a half or so. Granted I haven't been that great about writing in there either and I'm so glad I kept stuff on here from the last little while so at least I have that. I really hope whoever has it has at least read some of it. All the thoughts that bounce around in my head. And maybe they'll want to come on a river trip or go climbing or get something out of it. So, just in case I loose another journal, that'll be my motivation to keep up on this, but sorry you're not getting all the juicy details of my life :)



What's that? You don't really care about my journal, you're just dying to know how the Canada trip went? Fine, I'll tell you. It was great. I was really excited about going and it was better than I could have planned. Here's the story:



My friend Bri got married about 4 months ago and her husband, Lee is from Canada and his family came down for the wedding. Bri's always said that Lee's got 3 hot brothers so I was pretty excited to meet them. I did in fact hit it off with his next youngest brother, Craig and we had a really great time hanging out while he was here, which was really only 2 days after I'd met him. We hung out after the wedding and had great conversation and a really good time, but too short until he had to go back home. So luckily technology is amazing and we've figured out Skype and kept in touch that way. When Bri and Lee planned a trip to go up there I decided to tag along and get to see him again. He planned a great weekend in Jasper National Park. After I conveniently left my purse in a restaurant in Edmonton we headed up to the mountains. Craig had rented a cool little cabin 10 minutes from Marmot Basin resort. I love driving into a new place at night and waking up to new surroundings, and it was a great wake up there.
The Canadian Rockies are amazing! Really abrupt and jagged and beautiful. Got to be honest and say that I'm really spoiled by Snowbird and the resort was really fun and beautiful and it hadn't snowed in a while and I didn't explore too much, but Snowbird is still my fav. But the scenery was breath taking.

It was -15 degrees C and I was surprisingly not too frozen. That's what I worried about most about going up there. You know, sleeping in igloos and going everywhere on dog sleds like they do up there in the Arctic, it could be really rough, eh? But I did come home with all my fingers. It was fun too, because I used to only snowboard but except for a time or two every year I've really only skied for the last 7 or 8 years, but everyone else was boarding so I decided to join them and it was really fun to be back on a board (but don't tell my tram buddies up at the bird:)
After a couple days up there we went back to Edmonton and I was supposed to only be there for 2 more days, but then the whole lost / stolen / who - knows - what - the - hell happened to it passport situation happened (read a few entries down for details if you haven't heard the story) and I ended up staying for 3 extra days. I was pretty frustrated by the whole situation but not too much because I got to spend a couple more days up there. I got to see Calgary ('see' = a 10 minute drive through the city after visiting the US Consulate, getting a new emergency one luckily they made right then for me) then drove 3 1/2 hours back to Edmonton and I got to spend some more time up there with Craig so it was good (luckily we weren't too sick of each other by then)
Edmonton itself is about 4 hours away from Jasper and it is pretty flat but he lives a little bit outside of Edmonton and it's actually really beautiful (that is if you like that frosty, stay inside unless you have to go out, or unless you're adequately bundled kind of beauty) Bri and I went on a walk when it was -22 and it was frosty for sure. I've been told I've got to see it in the spring and summer when all the fields are blooming and so I may have to go up again just for that. That's a valid reason, right?

So, overall, even in spite of the whole passport issue it was a great trip and I'm really glad I went. First trip to Canada was a success and who knows, maybe when I go back up I'll run into someone with my passport who knows my life story and is trying to pass as me!

Update...

THE HOUSE: Last update on here it was still up in the air, but if you have wondered, it didn't happen. I am not a mortgage paying, responsible, house owning part of society. There were so many up and downs in the end trying to make it happen. We tried to go through several different companies and in the end they said that they'd do it in 30 days, but that was contingent on me working 40 hours a week, and at St. Mark's they're sending people home early a lot and I just didn't want everyone to have to wait around and have it not happen. And I was going to have to put down 5% and I could have made it work, but the fixing up would have ended up costing a lot more than I would have expected. So in the end, I was bummed that it didn't happen. I think that house would have been so great, and I was so stoked about fixing it up, and I could have made it work, but I'm feeling pretty relieved at the same time. Now that it didn't happen, I'm enjoying not having to be frugal. I was so stoked to settle myself somewhere and I looked at some other places with my friends, but in the end, decided since I'll be going to the river in just a few months, to just stay at my parent's house and 'practice' paying a mortgage. I know, I know what you're thinking... 'you're 30 and you're still living at home?' and some days I've got issues with it, but for the most part, I really like it. My parents are great and my mom spoils me. She and my dad are excited to have me around and there's always food here, and it's great and I get to hang out with my brother, Thayne who's the only brother still living there. Point is no house. Thoughts of nesting are still swimming around in my head, but I'm enjoying the non-mortgage life more than I did before also, so we'll see.

NEW YEARS: Went up to a friend's cabin up past Heber with a group of friends.


The cabin is really cool and everyone there was really cool, but to be honest, it was a little depressing. Everyone that was there was good looking, smart, fun LDS people that I enjoyed being around but there was a lot of talk of how depressing it is to be this age and be single. I don't think my life is sad. I do think that it would be cool to have someone to share it and I do hope that I'll find someone but I think it's really sad when people don't feel like their lives are complete without someone else, and they're just waiting for someone else to make them happy. This is a time in our lives that we don't have as many responsibilities and have the opportunity to do rad stuff that once you do get into something with another person, you can't do those things, so play and have fun now! Anyway, those were my thoughts right as we were ringing in the New Year.

But the next day redeemed the weekend and it was really fun.
Drew's got a few brand new, really fun snowmobiles and although we didn't have the 4 feet of new snow that we had last year when we were up there, it was still really fun. And I got to go out for a cross-country ski and contemplate how I didn't want to make New Year's resolutions. So, all in all it was a good weekend, and a good way to bring in 2010.

MOLLY AND JESS CAME HOME!! Two of my best friends have been on their missions to Toronto, Canada and Milan, Italy and they got home within two days of each other and it's been great to have them home. They've both jumped right back into school and life so we haven't been able to hang out too much, but it's been so great to have them around!

So, there's a cliff note update on the life of Grace. As I always say, I'll try to be better about more consistent posts, but who knows. Stay tuned!

Really people?

Someone please explain to me how this could happen ... I left my purse in a restaraunt on Friday, noticed an hour later when we were already on our way to Jasper National Park, and called they had it, set it aside with my name. When I called on Monday, it was nowhere to be found! Then I went in on Tues and my wallet (with $60 cash missing and my work ID that had been loose in my purse stuffed inside it) had been found that morning loose in the bathroom when they came in to open the restaurant! But no purse. Which had my journal, book, other stuff, and most importantly my passport zipped into a side pocket!!! I'm supposed to be flying out in an hour, but after tons of calls, looks like I've got to take a 3.5 hour each way trip to Calgary tomorrow to get an emergency passport that will hopefully get me home in the next couple days. Geez people! why would you leave my wallet with all my credit cards in it, but steal my $5 Guatemalan purse ?!?!?! And I'm getting the hugest run around from everyone trying to get home. Oh well, I'll enjoy some more time here in Edmonton. It's sunny but -22 degrees C!!

It has been a great trip so far, except for this. I'll post more about it soon, just had to put this out there!

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!