I have returned to my beloved Pacific Northwest after a 15 day road trip with Holly, her brother Tyler and his wife Sonja. I am going to turn the blog over to Sonja for now...(read in your best Aussie accent, she's from Tasmania)
We arrived in
Tucson on a hot, sunny afternoon. Holly and Mike rescued us from the airport after we had spent a good 30 hours in airports and on planes and took us to their housesit. They had been looking after an epileptic dog, named
Carson for the past four days while its owner was away. During that time the dog had demolished Mike’s backpack, eating an entire shoulder strap. As a consequence it was lethargic and showed high levels of malaise until we arrived. It was then that the dog assumed a squat pose in his designated area and proceeded to remove the strap from his bowels. Mike watched in horror as his backpack strap came to lay nestled in between bits of undigested carrot (
Carson’s favorite snack), and a shade darker that when last seen 2 days before. That night we left the housesit and
Carson and drove out of town and to our next adventure.
Holly and Mike had organized permits for us to hike the
Aravaipa Canyon, a spring fed river that runs through a steep canyon converting it to a lush, deep green gorge in the endless landscape of saguaro and sage. After hiking upstream all day, we camped the night on the banks of the river under massive cottonwoods and looking up at a towering rock wall. We woke up early to get to
Flagstaff that night where we hit the microbreweries, a phenomena sorely missing in
Australia.
Next was the
Grand Canyon and a mammoth hike (15mi) down into its steep slope (3550ft). We got a late start and were accosted by a ranger name Silas as to whether we should be leaving this late on such a long hike. This put the fear into us all and we did not stop for the next 8 hours as we executed our plan. On the first section, which is steeply downhill, we battled masses of tourists and mule trains until the trail split and we hiked parallel along the river. It was so amazing being at eye level with these great walls all around. We made it back up the canyon wall with an hour to spare before sunset. We fed on DMF (dirty Mexican food) and slept well.
Zion National Park was the next port of call. Our friend, Calvin, is a climbing guide here and lives here. He showed us a good time with climbing and amazing mountain biking. We spent two jam-packed days here before heading to
Death Valley where I was skeptical that it could be that much hotter than what we were already in. I was wrong. After the sun set the temperature did not change in the slightest. I woke up in the middle of the night and my sleeping pad felt hot to touch because of the heat of the ground. It was amazing and Holly almost melted.
It may sound as though we spent most of our time hiking, climbing and generally having a great time. However, there was a seriously painful part of our road trip which has two parts. Firstly, our vehicle of choice is Mike’s truck. I’m not sure how to properly describe it, but it has no back seats. There is a hard little bench behind the front seats, added as an after thought, I suppose for emergencies or short distances. But we, all being long limbed, endured the back seat in delirious shifts, before alternating to the front seat for some respite (Mike bravely took a turn in the backseat on the second day but after that decided he was much more suited to driving). The second great discomfort came in the form of hot winds which welled up inside of us all after all the DMF, and when emitted, caused breathing difficulties in the small cabin.
After
Death Valley and a stint at Bishop for a day of bouldering we were all ready for a bit of R&R and spent a few nights at Mike’s family cabin which is on Lake Don Pedro. It was great to meet the family, have a shower and relax.
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| First night of camping - Catalina State Park. Trucko blew its guts out. |
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| Funnel spider friend |
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| Faulstich's. Reunited. |
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| 9-inch long shiny scary centipede |
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| The Aussie with her first saguaro |
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| Pancake breakfast... yeehaaw! |
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| Fire lookout somewhere near Flagstaff. |
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| THE MEN. (at the grand canyon) |
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| Zion mtn biking with our long-lost friend Calvin |
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| Beeeeaaauuutttyyyy |
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| Pack o' friends |
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| pain trap |
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| Death valley dunes duuude |
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| Bishop bouldering brah bro sick gnar |
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| Dark friend in a hole. |
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| Scorpion king of Holly's backpack pocket |
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| Ed Abbey's old "cabin" at Aravaipa while he worked for Defenders of Fur Bearers at the Whittel Wildlife Preserve, now known as Aravaipa Canyon. He was the first ranger of this preserve, now managed by the Bureau of Land Management. We were hot on Abbey's trail all over the southwest. See Abbey's essay Freedom and Wilderness, Wilderness and Freedom out of his book The Journey Home to see what persuaded me to visit this canyon. This was mentioned during my capstone for all you fools who were paying attention. |
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| Impounded waters of the Colorado River behind bars, aka Lake Powell. |
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| fully sick zion crack rock |
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| turns out death valley is incredibly hot. |
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| Parelskin Sn. master of watersports. |
