Mountains, Canyons, Scorpions and a Wedding!

Colorado was one of our favorite places so far, even corner of it.  We drove from Taos to Durango, which was a beautiful drive though the mountains with the leaves changing colors. We found a spot to camp, walked along the Animas River and found a brewery (we’re getting pretty good at that).  The brewery, Steamworks was having happy hour and it was just $2 for 20 ounce beers.  Needless to say we were feeling pretty good pretty quickly.  We had nachos and split a green chile burger and then went for a long walk after dinner walk to work off the beers and food. 

Animas River

The next day we ran the Durango half, trail marathon.  We didn’t actually run in the official race since we didn’t sign up in time, but we just started a couple hours after (good thing with the previous nights beer drinking) and followed the course.  It was a spectacular course, that went up over two peaks with great views of the town and surrounding mountains.  Just as we were heading up the second peak it started raining.  As we starting descending the thunder and lightning kicked in and by the time we reached the bottom of the mountain it was hailing.  Pretty exciting jog through the hills to say the least.  We went to the post race party at, wait, you’ll never guess…a brewery.  After replenishing our carbs we ran some errands and headed on to Telluride. 

View of Durango from Horseshoe Gulch

Bryce in the distance setting a blistering pace on the Durango Trail Half 

Telluride was one of the most beautiful places we’ve been so far.  We were incredibly fortunate to be able to stay at our friend Marie’s family cabin near Trout Lake (Thank you, Marie!).  The cabin, which is nearly at 10,000 feet was amazing and faced the 14,000 foot peaks that were just a few miles away.  It was also our first chance to do laundry since DC and our first shower in an amount of time I would rather not specify.  We spent our first day there doing absolutely nothing, which was glorious.  It snowed that day so we mostly just sat around and watched the snow collect on the ground outside.  The next day we hiked to Hope Lake through lots of fresh powder, went into the town of Telluride to explore a little and found two breweries, go figure.  Our last day we hiked to the top of Blackface Peak, which was just over 12,000 feet.  At the top there were 360 degree views of the Rocky Mountains.  Probably the single best view we’ve had so far on out trip. 

Creek flowing into Trout Lake

On the trail to Hope Lake

View from the top of the trail to Hope Lake

Hope Lake

Amazing views at the top of Blackface Peak

360 degree views from Blackface Peak (view of Lizard Head in the distance)

On our hike we met a couple who had been traveling around the Southwest and they convinced us that we should check out the Needles District in Canyonlands National Park so we made a slight change of plans and headed there instead of going directly to Moab as we had originally planned.  We got into camp late (after narrowly missing several suicidal deer), but were amazed by the views of all the red rock formations when we awoke in the morning.  Three different people had recommended three different hikes in the park, so we went to the visitor center to let the ranger be the tie breaker.  She recommended the Chesler Park loop and she was absolutely right as it was definitely one of the best hikes we’ve done so far on our trip.  It had really awesome rock formations, big red rock canyons and narrow slot canyons.  We also decided to take a spur trail  up a dry river canyon out to Druid Arch, which was really cool.   Canyonlands is definitely at the top of our list for places that we want to come back to.  We headed to Moab, which was surprisingly crowded for a Wednesday night.  We tried seven different campgrounds and drove around Moab for two hours before finally breaking down and paying $30 to stay the night in an RV park. 

Chesler Park Loop in Canyonlands

Bryce almost didn't fit through the slot canyon

Druid Arch

The Needles District, Canyonlands

The next day we spent the day exploring Arches National Park, which was pretty cool, but actually kind of a letdown after seeing Canyonlands the day before.  We did the Devils Garden Trail, which contains most of the arches in the park and then the Delicate Arch trail, which was the best and is featured on the Utah license plate.  We spent the next two days in Bryce Canyon and had a great time hiking around the canyon.  Our favorite trail was the Fairyland Loop Trail, as it got away from the crowds that were on the more popular trails.  Bryce Canyon was chilly as it is over 8,000 feet.  After Bryce we headed down the road to Zion.  We did the Angels Landing hike, which was spectacular.  The hike is only about 2.5 miles each way, but is steep and the last half mile is on a steep ridge with 1,000 foot drops on either side.  There are some cables for safety, but it was pretty exhilarating.

Devil's Garden hike (Arches NP)

Landscape Arch

Delicate Arch

Bryce Canyon

Hiking into Bryce Ampitheater

Thank goodness for the cables! Angel's Landing Hike

At the top of Angel's Landing

The next day we hiked through the Narrows, which is a steep and narrow canyon with the Virgin River flowing through it.  The canyon is so narrow that most of the hike is straight up the river, which makes for pretty slow going.  It took us about 2.5 hours to make it the 3.7 miles to the farthest place you can day hike, Orderville Canyon.  We only saw one other person that made it that far, although everyone on the shuttle bus back claimed that they made it all the way to the end.  Understandable why they would think that since when you are walking upstream in a river, just a couple hundred feet probably feels like a mile.  

Hiking The Narrows

We loved the canyons of Utah and are going to try to return next Spring/Summer to do more exploring and hopefully some backpacking as well.  We left Zion and headed to Borrego Springs, CA where we spent nearly a week celebrating the Parker/Sarah wedding.  An amazing week of festivities with lots of fabulous food and great friends.  The Sims/Bowlin/Ricks crews definitely know how to throw one heck of a party, and not just one party, like seven consecutive parties.  My whole family was there and it was really nice to see my dad, mom and brother for the first time since we left, as well as a bunch of other friends.  We probably left with twice as many friends as we started the week with as we met a ton of awesome people.  A testament to what great people Sarah and Parker are that they have some many awesome friends.  I even managed to stay conscious for my entire wedding speech and avoided swearing until the very end.  We also spent some time hiking in Borrego at Palm Canyon and The Slots.  We watched sunrise and had champagne at Font’s Point (wedding day event organized by Parker and Sarah) and went for some brutally hot runs in the 100 degree desert heat that seemed like bad ideas before, during and after. 

The Slots in Borrego

Sunrise toast at Font's Point

A bromantic sunrise with Hogan

Oh!  And Gina got stung by a scorpion!  It actually happened inside the house when she was putting something in a dresser and put her foot slightly under and BAM!  The scorpion stung her and then flew across the room as she kicked it off her foot.  The thing was huge, about six inches long and just sat there on the rug in the middle of the room (looking smug).  We used a frying pan and a cookie sheet to trap it and then threw it outside onto the driveway where it was promptly smashed with the frying pan.  Most people probably would have gone to the hospital or least taken a mellow day after being stung by a scorpion that was the size of a raccoon, but Gina spent the rest of the day on a ladder hanging streamers.  What can I say…she’s a badass. 

The Infamous Scorpion

After spending a day relaxing with my parents and watching the Giants win game five of the World Series we headed to Joshua Tree where we did some more desert hiking and most importantly slept for 12 hours.  We hiked to Lost Palm Canyon and climbed to the top of Ryan Mountain.  Good views, cool rock formations and lots of interesting cactus.

We're now at the Grand Canyon where we are going to spend the next three days backpacking.  We checked in at the Backcountry Office and we're notified that our itinerary has been flagged as "aggressive".  Our plan is to hike to Cottonwood Campground tomorrow and then to Bright Angel Creek the next day.  We stocked up on mini Snickers and Fireball in hopes of throwing a Halloween party at the backcountry campground.  If you find yourself at the bottom of the Grand Canyon on Friday, please join us!





Lots of love.

B and G