Zion

Here's a few photos from Zion National Park. Wish I had more to show everyone.

St. George

Well, I finally made it down to St. George to see a few friends and they ended up being out of town. Funny how that happens.
unfortunately this trip started off just like any other trip I've been on: interesting. Ashley flew to Vegas so I drove down to pick her up. When I get there I call her to find out she's just off the strip, so I head straight for the strip and the road I think she's on. Although I'm close, they both started with the same letter, I definitely wasn't on the right road. In fact I was on the wrong side of the strip. So, I then start heading the other way only to find that she thinks we've gone too far, when in fact we hadn't gone far enough. So I turn around and try to head the other way, only to find I'm still not finding her. Well, after circling the strip about four times we eventually figure out that we both think we're on different ends of the strip. That was fun.
So once I finally make it to her we finally start heading back to St. George to find a place to camp. Well, after an uneventful drive, we make it to St. George just a little before 4am. That makes it 17 hours of driving. Yeah... sweet.
The next day we were awoken to a crew cutting trees and shrubs right next to where we decided to "camp". So after a good couple hours of sleep we get up and made our way to a coffee shop to get the day started. Good stuff. Our first destination was Chuckawalla Wall right outside of St. George. It might be a 30 second walk on the high end. Pretty good access.
After one climb I started not feeling so well. I eventually took a break in between climbs and was on the verge of puking. I was just a little too wasted from a week of writing the thesis and driving 17 hours. I started feeling better the next morning but it was a bit touch and go there for a while.
Well, that night we all camped next to the prophecy wall which we were going to climb the next day. Again we woke up to some cold temps, but it always warmed up nicely. Unfortunately this wall is in the shade until just after noon. Climbing the first couple of pitches was a bit cold, but once the sun came around we were quite hot actually.
We camped at the same site the entire trip so we wouldn't have to keep moving camp. It was pretty nice to come back to the tents already set up when we were tired. Anyways, the next day we took a day off to go cruise around Zion. We first went and hiked Angel's Landing, then went over to the end of the Narrows for a really easy hike. Basically this hike was all flat. It's a good thing too, because Angel's Landing is a ton of vertical over a few short miles. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the park and finally made our way back to St. George for dinner. Luckily there is one restaurant there that has a liquor license so we could actually get beer above 3.2%. It was amazing!
The next day we made a trek towards the Arizona border and climbed some limestone. It was extremely sharp, but incredibly fun stuff. The first couple climbs were uneventful, other than our hands bleeding a little bit from the sharp rock. After lunch we went and checked out a different wall that was in the shade. I got on a climb that was shutting me down, and when I took my second lead fall, my right heel landed right on a bolt. It didn't hurt at the time, but the next day it was swollen and I definitely couldn't walk on it. So, this is where the trip ended for me. Luckily we were heading out the next day, but I was still bummed, because the climb Ashley did the next day was one of the routes I really wanted to do while I was down there. Oh well, I'll have to make another trip down there.
When Ashley and I got back to Bozeman, my foot was hurting enough that I actually went to the doctor to check it out. Luckily it wasn't broken, but just bruised. The doctor told me that a bruised heel hurts as much as if it were broken and takes just as long to heal. That's fun.
Unfortunately this also puts a hold on skiing since I can't necessarily walk yet. I'm a little bummed about that, but not horribly bummed because we came back to warm weather. I imagine the snow is a bit on the bad side anyways.
In a few weeks I'll be back on the foot and will have more trips to report, but for now I'm going to have to rest. Really not excited about that.

A week of adventures

Ashley came over to Bozeman the other week and I ended up renting a cabin out in Hyalite (everything seems to revolve around that lately). Anyways, I thought there was only one cabin back there, so I rented the one that was in Hyalite. Apparently it was a different cabin than I thought it would be and we were off on a wild goose chase for a cabin none of us knew existed. It was a classic adventure with the TEAM. Anyways, we took the wrong road (apparently the right road was about half a mile before this road) and hiked in a few miles to find that this cabin, and the road we were supposed to turn on were nonexistent.
After a few miles of hiking we turned around and ended up going back to Brandt and Tess's place. We ended the night there eating food, drinking beer, and resolving to never go anywhere I made plans for again.
After that Ashley and I got up to Big Sky for some skiing and managed to hit it on the best day of the week with about 6 inches of powder! And it was a bluebird day! pretty sweet ski day.
The last adventure was up to Big Sky again just this last Friday. Amy, Cole and I went up to hit the almost 10 inches of powder that just got dumped from the latest storm. It was quite good. Oddly enough, though, there were a ton of people up there and it was a Friday. Apparently Bozeman shuts down after a good storm. And on the up side I didn't hit my head again so the noggin is doing great.
Well, that should bring everyone up to date on the endeavors, but hopefully i'll be getting out again soon either on the ice or out skiing.