Spring break ended a few days ago and I think it's safe to say everyone is sad to be back in school being productive (or at least pretending). I went to Colorado for a few days to visit the folks and while it was great to see them, play with the dogs, get free food, and see the triple T family, it wasn't a thrilling high adventure trip (sorry guys). Since nothing really noteworthy happened in Colorado (except for Christian getting his hair buzzed (http://ridgwaywhitbys.blogspot.com/) I have decided to post pictures from my spring break last year which was a blast.
Rewind to March 2007 (insert funky time traveling music here)
I somehow managed to get Michael to come to Moab with me instead of going on one of his usual extreme climbing trips. Even more amazing, I talked him into taking a few days to go to Telluride to visit my family as well (with promises of ice climbing and tasty homemade food).
We arrived in Moab late monday night and set up camp at the end of Potash road.
Tuesday morning we hiked up to Corona Arch for a bit of rappelling. We rappelled off twice to the amazement of a small crowd of hikers. They even took pictures of us.
Chilling at the top of Corona Arch
Getting ready to go over the edge
Rappelling off Corona Arch
Trying to pull the rope down
Learning how to coil a rope
That afternoon we did a bit of climbing and I learned some important lessons about good foot placement.
Wednesday dawned nice and rainy which was a great invitation to sleep in and bum around the campsite until the sandstone dried. A bit more climbing was done and I made a nemesis from an unnamed 5.9. Most the of the climb was pretty easy but the beginning move was really hard if you're short. Grrrr! My big accomplishment was climbing Fist Full of Potash, an easy 5.10 that someone said might be too hard for me to climb.
Later we went for a 35/40 mile ride which was fun but took a long time due to a few technical complications and a killer crosswind. The epic bike ride was rewarded with dinner in town at a place with all you can eat pizza and soup. The trick is to stuff yourself with lots of pizza and have the soup to fill in all the corners.
Waking up to the sound of honking geese is not nearly as nice as little birds, but sometimes it's the best you get. After a bit of climbing in the moring, we went and looked at dinosaur tracks and hiked at the Fisher Towers.
Michael just discovered dinosaurs once roamed the Moab area!Roar! I'm a scary dinosaur!
They are amazing. I can't even describe how beautiful it is out in the desert hiking to these huge towers. The pictures don't even come close to the actual experience. If I had to choose just one place to go before I died, this is where I would go.
The rest of the week was spent in Telluride, Colorado. It was too warm to ice climb and too cold to do anything else, so we watched a lot of movies, ate a lot of food, and slept in.
Too warm for ice climbing, but at least I got to hold the ice axes!
Michael and I made one last stop at Wilson Arch on the way home. All in all, it was a pretty awesome trip!
