Moab Day 6

Last day. Time to go back to the real world. Landon had joked earlier in the week that his goal was to wear us out so that we would sleep to 6:00 and he finally did it. We did not get up until our alarm went off at 6:30. He also wanted us to go through Colorado National Monument on our way back to the airport so we did. He said that this guy wanted this area to be a national park so every Fourth of July he would climb this rock formation and fly the American Flag and finally they made it a national monument.


Maybe one day we will climb it :-)It's a 4 pitch 5.9. After that it was an uneventful flight home.

Moab day 5

Today was supposed to be while water rafting but as is a woman's perogative we changed our minds. We had spent all our climbing time getting ready for Ancient Art and had not learned how to lead climb so we asked if we could do a full day of climbing instruction and squeeze in another kayaking trip. Of course Red River came through as they did all week. It was drizzly again that morning(I know what you are thinking, rain in the desert? Well that was what I was thinking too. That is why I didn't take a raincoat which of course destined us to be rained out so I bought 2 rain coats and as soon as I did the rain cleared up for good.)so Landon taught us princples of lead climbing at the shop that morning while it dried out and even took us to the store to buy the rest of the gear that we needed. The we ate lunch and went back to "ice cream parlor" to do some lead climbing. We lead 2 climbs apiece and bagged our first onsight(lead climbing on your first attempt without falling or hanging on the rope). Then we went back to the hotel and landon and I went down the river again. The first time we went down the river I got caught in an eddy and flipped and did a t rescue the second time I knew where the eddy was I just couldn't do anything about it and I get flipped and had to T rescue again. At least I made it through the rapids and didn't have to do a wet escape from the kayak and have to swim.

Moab Day 4

Today we were supposed to climb Ancient Art. First we were supposed to meet at 7am but since it rained yesterday they pushed it back to 10 to give the rock time to dry cause it is covered in mid and really needs to be dry. We got up at 5am as we have been doing every morning for some reason and it was raining again. We went to the lodge and watched the sun rise, went for a little hike along the river then went into town for breakfast. I waited till 8 to call Carl because I didn't want to wake him but it turns out they had been trying to get a hold of us. They wanted to put the climb off till 1:00 which was fine with us but we expected to be entertained till then so we went to the shop and I asked if I could do some more kayaking while Michele hiked some more in Arches. They were like ok time to change gears. Landon had to undo his climbing gear from canyoneering the day before, reset for a multipitch ascent, load up kayaking gear, load his motorcycle and trailer up so he could run the shuttle for us and do this all while we were sitting there waiting on him. So it all worked out perfectly. Landon and I ran the same stretch of river and ended at the Hotel again while Michele hiked to Delicate Arch which she had wanted to do. Then we ate lunch at the hotel and went straight to Ancient Art which is down the street from the hotel. I don't have an kayaking pictures but here are some pics of delicate arch

So Ancient Art is the reason for this trip. Michele found this really cool climb and we planned a whole trip around it. Ancient Art is the formation in the pictures with the corkscrew summit on it. The cool thing about it is that it is a tower sitting on the edge of a cliff. So we climbed 200 feet but when you look down over the edge of the cliff you are looking down 1200 feet.

Here are some pics of us climbing. We didn't make it to the top of the corkscrew. Landon said it was their policy not to guide people up there for safety reasons and we pretty much agreed with him but we still made it to one of the summits and it was an awesome feeling.

Moab day 3

This morning we went canyoneering. It was a really nice hike through a canyon with 2 rappels the first one was 90 feet and dropped into a water carved sand stone chamber and the second was a free rappel under morning glory arch. Then it was a great hike through a beautiful canyon.We were running a little early to meet our shuttle so we did a side hike that involved some scrambling and a few rock climbing moves(like we didn't get enough rock climbing on out trip)up to a little cave.

Next we had lunch by the river and did a half day on inflatable kayaks. We hated the kayaks they were way uncomfotable. To top it off we got hit by a horrendous thunderstorm with like 50 mph winds and Michele's boat was wind flipped and she had to be rescued then she was freezing. Luckily our hotel was right around the corner so we just stopped our trip short and the guide finished up the trip by himself but then he came back and taught me to roll a kayak in the hotel swimming pool which I have been wanting to learn forever so we forgave him for making us paddle the inflatables. I can get all but the last little bit of the roll so I will practice more when I get home.

moab day 2

Well here are som pics of our room. We are staying at the Red Cliffs Lodge. It is right on the Colorado River and our room is on a little creek. The hotel is also a winery.

Today was our first rock climbing day. We went to a crag called "ice cream parlor" in the morning and did some face climbing and learned about lead climbing and multi-pitch. We climbed up to 5.10 We had 3 hours for lunch to avoid the hottest part of the day. We had a nice lunch and walked around town. We found a used book store and bought some books and read for a while. That afternoon we went to a place called "wall street'. It was literally on the side of the road so it was really nice because we didn't have to do any hiking to get to the climb. We leaned about crack climbing and did some check out climbs to make sure we were ready for "ancient art". We did a rediculously hard climb called minnie me so that our guide could check our "determination. I did a cool 5.8+ crack called 30 seconds over potash and did some real easy lead climbing. Here are some pics of my crack.(I bet you never thought you would want to look at pictures of my crack)

Moab-Arches National Park

We arrived in Moab yesterday. Our first flight was delayed so we had to literally run to catch our connection but we made it and amazingly so did our bags. We got to town around lunchtime so we checked into our room and ran into town to eat lunch. Then we went to Arches National Park which is only 5 min north of town. We did the scenic drive and a few short hikes. We had not gotten any sleep the night before so we weren't up for much. We actually stopped at a parking area in the park and took a 30 min nap. Here are some pics of landscape arch and double arch.


We have a tradition of walking across neat bridges on out sister trips.


After that we were tired so we went to bed at 8:30 and slept for 9 hours.