Monthly Archives: August 2021

Adventure Day 2 – Southern Utah

Posted on by
Reply

The adventure Kings had a nice quiet morning before our afternoon of broadening my horizons.  Today we unhooked the RV again and headed back to Orderville for the Elkheart Canyoneering experience.  The entire reason Keith wanted to come to Utah was to see slot canyons.  We experienced our first one yesterday, but the climbing over the boulders within the slot canyon wore me smooth out.  Today’s adventure was a little different.  This time we parked at the bottom of the canyon, hiked to the top of the canyon, then repelled into the canyon and worked our way out.

One of the things we really enjoyed was using a smaller tour company, East Zion Adventures We were not in huge groups and we didn’t have to do anything in a hurry. On this day, we paired up with a delightful young couple from Tampa, Florida. The wife was in the same boat as I was, we are both married to adventure junkies.  When our guide Eric asked how many of us had “never” repelled, three of the four hands went up.  Keith was our only seasoned adventurer with one repel under this belt.  Eric was great and got all us newbies ready to go. 

I used to think of hiking as just walking along a scenic trail made of gravel or dirt.  Isn’t that what you think of when you consider going hiking.  Each time I have thought that this week I have been so wrong.  When our guide “Joe” from yesterday said that the hardest part of Elkheart Canyon would be the hike up, he was absolutely right.  The path was narrow, steep, and rocky with areas of thick sand.   I know where all that sand was going that was blowing across Arizona when we passed through Friday.  It all landed in Utah. 

Now I’m a gal with just one balance nerve following my surgery 6 years ago.  I don’t have the best balance so when I’m challenged with something narrow and steep, I get concerned.  I don’t let it stop me, but it does concern me, and I try to be extra careful.  Keith was right behind me as always to make sure I didn’t fall off the mountain.  On top of that, we were at a higher altitude than good old Oklahoma and those inclines got my heart rate up to 166 according to my Apple watch.  We stopped a few times along the way so we could all breath. 

We finally made our way to the top and there it was, the 200 year old Juniper tree that was going to hold the ropes so we could repel down.  The first rappel was roughly 100 feet or the equivalent of a 10 story building.  I’m not panicking yet.  Our guide is getting things set up and then he tries to be funny and tells us he will just see us at the bottom.  Ha ha.  When he finished explaining our instructions, Keith the experienced one went first.  I watched my husband start down and then over the side where I could no longer see him.  He made it safely to the bottom. Eric looked at the three of us and asked, “who is next?” I heard a woman say, “I’ll go.” That woman was me. I volunteered to go next. Eric got me all hooked up, answered a few more of my questions and off I went, slow and steady.

And guess what?  I DID IT AND I LOVED IT!  We all did, even our two new friends from Florida.  We worked our way through the slot canyon and Eric would give us a little history about the creation of the slot canyons. I apparently did not pay attention to my geography classes in high school. Eric was the perfect blend of knowledge and fun today.  Towards the end of the canyon we had two additional repels that were narrow and awkward.  No problem.  Now I’m wondering when I can repel again.  I know, who is this woman?

Well a successful fun day for sure.  Tomorrow is our last day here at the Ponderosa.  What could be in store for us?

Adventure Day 1 – Southern Utah

Posted on by
1

Any time we travel and change time zones it messes with my sleep. My eyes popped open at 4 a.m., but I refused to get up.  I forced myself to doze until 6.  So up I go, make the coffee and inch the heater up a bit.  Yes, it’s cold here.  How cold?  Well that’s a great question that I can’t answer.  We have discovered that we have no cell service, no Internet and no TV stations at our little RV spot.  Which means, no email, no text messages, no phone calls, NO NOTHING.  As you can imagine out in the middle of nowhere, cell service is spotty.  I’m sure somewhere along our journey today we will hit a cell tower.  I’m just hoping my daughter hasn’t called out the National Guard if she has been trying to reach me.  Guess I better let her know first about our situation when we reach civilization.

So today Keith has signed us up for three things:  Red Canyon Jeep Tour, Crimson Canyon Hike & UTV Adventure and a Sunset guided hike.  I think it is safe to say that I just trust Keith when he is scheduling activities for us because one of our adventures today, I was definitely not prepared for.  More on that in a bit.

Red Canyon

Let’s start with the Red Canyon Jeep Tour.  When we finally got cell service we discovered that it was 43 degrees and the high was only supposed to be around 54.  I was not really prepared for this turn in the weather, but I put on a couple of layers and we headed out to East Zion Adventures to get our day started.  Eight fellow adventurers and our two guides piled into an “open air” jeep type thing.  Our guide told us that we had about a 12 mile ride before arriving on the property where they would drive us out to see the Red Canyon.  We finally reached the property and headed off road.  The trail, if we can call it that was extremely rough, it was very windy and cold.  We were all wrapped in blankets with our hoods over our heads trying to stay warm until we reached the Red Canyon.  The view was spectacular.  We spent a little time at the overlook walking around taking pics and then we headed back to the Ponderosa.  Tour guides on these kinds of trips can provide some great historical references for what you are seeing [which I enjoy] and they can be people who just like to hear themselves talk [which I don’t enjoy].  Our tour guide “Jeff” liked to hear himself talk. 

We learned that we were going to have to drive over to where our second adventure of the day was scheduled.  That meant that we were going to have to unhook and drive the RV about 30 miles to Orderville, Utah.  Remember the tour I said I was not prepared for?  Well this is the one.  We met our group of 9 people and got split into a group of 5 and 4.  Keith and I were in the group of 4 with two delightful young ladies from Missouri.  For this adventure, our tour guide was Joe. 

Again, we hopped into an open -air jeep thing and headed out to the opening of Crimson Canyon canyon, which took us through more dirt, sand and wind in our faces.  When we got to the “sandy” part of the road this is where Joe stopped and asked if I wanted to take it slow and easy or fast.  Now what was I supposed to say to that and why was he asking me?  We went fast.

We arrive at our destination and we are at the mouth of a slot canyon.  Well we did come to Utah to see slot canyons and here one was.  This will be great I thought.  We will stroll through this beautiful slot canyon and take some pics.  We took some beautiful pics but strolling through the canon made up about 15% of it.  We went from the bottom to the top of this slot canyon and we had to climb over obstacles.  Yes, I said CLIMB OVER OBSTACLES.  See where I get the unprepared part.    Do we think Keith new this and didn’t tell me?  No, I think he was surprised too.  Some of them weren’t too bad, some were very challenging, and some were “oh shit and oh hell no” obstacles.  Of course, the young ladies did great, Keith did really well and then there was me, the 61 year old short woman. 

You know, I consider myself to be in pretty good shape.  I play 2-3 hours of pickleball 5 times a week.  My aerobic fitness is really good.  With that said, what I learned pretty quickly is that my upper body strength and lower body strength could use some work.  I had to pull myself over boulders and climb up walls and work around awkward unforgiving angles.  Made me really appreciate those athletes on American Ninja Warrior.   This is where I can’t say enough about our tour guide Joe.  He was not going to let me fail and he made sure I could complete each obstacle and of course Keith was there to assist as well.  Sometimes it took one or both of them to pull or push me up and over something. 

When we got to the top of the canyon I kept wondering where the opening was that would take us back to the jeep.  There wasn’t one!  We had to go back down the way we came in.  I will admit, it was easier going down.  Sliding over the obstacles was much easier than climbing over them.  Keith gave Joe a really big tip at the end of the adventure.  He was the best tour guide ever! 

We finally got back to the RV site, plugged everything back in and decided to walk up to the Lodge for dinner.  We hadn’t really had anything of any substance to eat.  Once we finished dinner, we had an hour and half or so before the next adventure, the sunset hike.  Now I am the one that wanted to do this hike.  Sounded romantic right?  Well after dinner I began to feel myself crashing.  I couldn’t get warm and I was just exhausted.  I think all the adrenaline I used up canyoneering and the cold, windy and sandy conditions were taking its toll.  By the time we got back to the RV I was done for the day.  I wrapped up in a blanket and didn’t really move until it was time to go to bed.  I don’t think we missed anything on the sunset hike, the sun was behind the clouds, it was getting cold again and the wind had kicked up. 

Tomorrow I will be all rejuvenated for what will probably be the more difficult adventure for me thus far.  The canyoneering in Elkheart Canyon is where I have to repel down into the canyon “3” times.  What was Keith thinking here?