Ok, now I have time.
So we went down to Chicago and got a hotel before we flew out. EPA, I seriously regret in hindsight that we didn't hook up. My loss. We just changed plans a few times during the last few weeks, and I didn't wanna go to the trouble of coordinating a Obner Get-together and then have to back out. So we took the train into town, and I saw Chicago close-up for the first time, or at least some of it. Can't remember the station we got off at, but it was Milwaukee St? that we walked up, eventually going to a very loud asian-influenced appetizer bar that was right next to a cool record store. I was under-dressed and out-indied.
The next day, we get up and go to the wrong airport... cab ride: $26. Then we hail another cab and go to the right airport... cab ride: $48. We're too late, but catch a flight 2 hours later. In Denver, we get our rental car and hang out with my buddy Boss. Beef jerkey, beer, smart-assery, mountain bike talk, and some great quotes, such as "I think ATV's are the only way fat people can see the woods" and (at REI) "so what is this, a club for people wearing shorts and boots?!?" Ahh, bossman. Then we pick up the wife's sister at the airport at 3am and start driving to Utah. It looks like this:
[img][650:487]http://img19.echo.cx/img19/9951/smdscn15624cz.jpg[/img]
This is Escalante, the bigger, more sparsley visited of the 2 parks we went to. You drive on paved roads for an hour or two, then turn off onto a dirt road for another hour. Then you leave your car, load up your pack, and start hiking across scrubland. There's a trail for the first mile, then it disappears and you have to look for little piles of rocks every few hundred yards. Sometimes they're real hard to spot... they're rocks. The beginning of the trail:
After 2 miles or so you find a crack in a boulder about 18 inches wide and 40 feet long or so, and you lower your packs over the side with a rope, then climb through and around and come back and get them. Now you're in a wash basin about a quarter mile wide, which slopes down into Coyote Gulch, near where it hits the Escalante River, by Stevens Arch. Things begin to get pretty, you no longer question the whole undertaking, and you can't wait to get setup and start drinking bourbon. So we camped right next to the river. This is the kind of place with no signs, no real camp sites, no visible signs of people having been there excpet for the occasional pictograph on the rock walls. Good stuff. Not car camping for once!
The next day we hiked around, saw Stevens Arch close-up,
[img][375:500]http://img19.echo.cx/img19/3942/smdscn15887hq.jpg[/img]
...had lunch, and got going towards the other end of our trail, about 5 or 6 miles upriver. It hurt. By this time, the packs hurt us like hell, my legs were killing me, lots of my stuff was wet (Carhardts don't dry quickly), and I wanted sleep in a baaaad way. At one point, I just laid down on the sand and "did the dying" for about half an hour while the girls stretched. Towards the end, we crossed under a natural bridge:
[img][375:500]http://img19.echo.cx/img19/2760/smdscn16031am.jpg[/img]
That's me. Be thankful I'm so far from the camera... if my shorts were any shorter, T.C. and Higgins would be following me around.
Right before dusk we hit the arch we were looking for, and found the spring at its base that was mentioned in our literature, meaning I got more water! We brought enough for 2 days, but I was banking on finding that spring, so it was a damn good thing it was there. Good water. Good sleep, except for the loudest goddam frogs I have ever heard. I kept dreaming about sneaking up on them 1 by 1 and stabbing them with a giant fork... could've been the bourbon. Either way, they were annoying.
The next day we were to "scramble out" according to our guide. The blurb was like 2 sentences long, ala "the first 20 feet are difficult, but if you make it that far you'll be fine. Once at the top..." so we figured we'd be fine. Lemme tell ya, that "scramble" was nothing short of damn-scary! It was a 45 degree climb up mostly slick rock, with 50lbs of pack on you. There were 8 and 10 foot sections vertically with nothing to grab onto, and nothing to break your fall all the way back down to the canyon floor. We sent her sister up first with the rope attached, because she had a far lighter pack than us. Then she would brace herself and pull each of us up, 40 or 50 feet at a time. It took up almost 2 hours to get up about 300 feet in elevation. Her sister climbing:
[img][650:488]http://img19.echo.cx/img19/2898/smdscn16083ka.jpg[/img]
I'll admit that when I had 10 minutes to wait, and just look at where I was, I got a bit freaked out. I was having those "well, they can just send a hellicopter for me" thoughts. But I mustered the troops, quit my internal bitchin, and climbed my lame ass up and outta there. Plus it occurred to me that not only would it take like a whole day to get help, but that place was waaaay too poor to afford a chopper. So yeah, up I went.
Your reward for making it up that cliff face is a 4 mile hike through open desert / scrub land, with only a compass heading to guide you. It sucks. You're wiped the fuck out from that climb, and you have to hike another 2 hours across sand, rocks, and cacti, hoping your directions didn't lie about the heading, because you don't get within sight of the vehicles until the last half mile or so. But we got back fine. Sure enough, there was the parking lot on the knoll, and our car was fine.
Zion is.... well it's beautiful, but it also sleeps over 3,000 a night. I recommend it, for sure, but it's not the same
kind of park as Escalante. You can see like 75% of it from your car or the buses. There's plenty to climb, and there is back country, but lots of those trails were washed out, so we had to go meet Bloor's affore-mentioned stinky euro-tourists. But I must defend them here. I talked to a lovely German couple for a while, and realized that they were soooo much happier to be there than most of the Americans were. They knew what we have, and I don't think a lot of the Americans did... "mom, do we haaave to?!?" "Oh honey, look at that, it's just like on TV." Etc. Good folk, but then I always like the Germans. So we climbed up to Angel's Landing, one of the cliffs. It was steep, with a ton of switchbacks, but it was paved, so it felt like cheating after the last park. The view from the top:
[img][375:500]http://img94.echo.cx/img94/8122/smdscn16399xe.jpg[/img]
Then we drove through AZ and NM, and stayed at a B+B in Santa Fe, which ruled. Too much crappy art there, not enough substance. 300 art galleries in town, and 295 suck. Great food, great scenery, and if you dig for it, some good culture, but it's buried beneath a mountain of pseudo-indian tourist junk. Then we went back to Denver to fly out, and stayed with the missus' alcoholic aunt and uncle, who are a hoot. They are SUCH nice people, and were wonderful to take us in for the night. And man can they drink. whoo. Always a good time. Then we flew home.
Sorry for the length, folks. I tried to post as few pics as neccessary. Puma really still hasn't showed her cans?
