Training in Wetumpka

This weekend Kristin and I went to Wetumpka to train for our race. We hired a guide and on Saturday we ran the river. It was really easy in our sit-on-top but there were a few places where we needed to know where to go to make sure we didn't miss any of the challenges. It was class II rapids and one class III, moccasin gap. We ran the gap a few times and it is not bad as long as you know where the best line is. Sunday we went mountain biking. Turns out I am really bad at mountain biking. I don't know why I was surprised I was never really good at riding a bike. I guess I just hoped somehow I had gotten better by not doing it for 10 years. I guess life doesn't work that way. So now I am going to have to train twice as hard just to be able to finish the course. You how people always compare stuff to "riding a bike", I hope they are wrong.

Training Day

While Jason is gearing up for Rainier Kristen and I decided to do the Coosa River Challenge. It is a race in Wetumpka that involves 3-6 hours of mountain biking, trail running, river paddling with lots of special tests throughout. Technically it is a sprint not an adventure race but for me it is a challenge so I am going to refer to it as an adventure race. We have started training and have been starting at the launch and doing about an hour of running/walking and an hour of paddling at least once a week. In about two weeks we are going up and hiring a guide to go over the course.

Kayak Surfing

We had our annual May tournament in Orange Beach and Kristin and I decided to take our kayaks down with us. Friday night I had to do a midterm testing and we had tournament all day Saturday. The surf report was not good so we left the sit on top and took the whitewater kayak to practice rolling and the touring kayaks. In the mean time a line of thunderstorms moved in and the surf picked up. There was perfect break right in front of our hotel. We had watched an instructional DVD on rolling Saturday night and after my lesson in Moab I thought I might nail it, but no. It was pretty much a failure. We both have the hip snap and could T rescue but that's about it. I did worse than I did in Moab. So then we took the kayak to the surf and caught a few waves but without a roll it was pretty rough. I got over ended once and had to do a wet exit and drag the kayak back to shore so we just did some body surfing and then it was time to check out. It was sickening to watch that perfect surf and know that you had left the perfect boat at home.

SERA 2009

picture by Kevin Bruff
Last weekend Jason and I went to SERA. We drove up Thursday and stopped at Alabama Outdoors on the way. The Nashville Groto was hosting so when we got there I helped Aimee finish painting the "burning caveman" and we set up camp. They had also volunteered us to lead a trip to Tumbling Rock Saturday and I helped clean the showers on the last day. After hanging out for a while and visiting vendor row we grilled steaks and James, Dave and Carol were practicing for open mike nite so we had an impromptu concert.The next day we went to Flowstone with Kevin. When we went to the meeting area there was this guy with a massive beard hanging out hinting that he would like a ride so I took a chance and picked him up. You never know what you are going to get when you pick up a caver but Will turned out to be pretty cool and since our friends were working the event and he didn't know that many people we ended up hanging out a lot over the weekend. Flowstone was close to Ellison's where we went last year and the hike was just as bad if not worse. Of course, if we were hiking we would say it was a nice hike but since we weren't... Anyway we finally made it and rigged up to a nearby tree. We had 9 people in our group so even though there was no cave to explore it took a long time just to get everybody up and down the rope. It was a 226 foot rappel that started out as a squeeze but after 15 feet opened up to pretty much a free rappel. After it opened up it was maybe 50' across(I'm guessing I really have no idea. With a waterfall that looked like a shower coming down right in the middle into a pool then flowing down the rocks at the bottom. The pictures don't capture how pretty the water running down the rippled rocks was.
This is a rattlesnake we met on the hike in:


Here is the opening. It was smaller than this when they discovered the pit 8 years ago.


Here are some pics from inside the cave. There were several salamanders down there and you can kinda see the waterfall.


Friday night we got back so late from caving we missed most of the festivities. We saw a little of open mike nite and grilled sausage dogs but that was about it. Saturday it was our turn to lead a trip. It was the only horizontal trip for the day so we had a lot op folks. There were 11 cars in the caravan and it took an hour and a half to get there. Gerald told us we just had to get them there and they could do the trip on there own but it was obvious some of them needed a guide. So Jason took lead and I was going to bring up the rear but there was one couple who it became obvious were not going to be able to keep up. I took them and just kind of did a separate trip. It was like being at work helping people with mobility problems :-).I had to physically assist the lady the whole way through. Jason actually had the harder group because he had everything from experienced and fast cavers to ridiculously slow cavers. He had to keep stopping the group and going back to get people so he ended up doing the trip twice. For an easy trip we were both sore the next day. That evening we had a "mardi crawl" parade and a band and were able to enjoy the activities. Sunday we cleaned up a little and headed home.

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.

Another look at Bay Minette Basin

My mom and I decided to go kayaking this morning. I wanted to launch at the Causeway and explore the Whiskey Ditch but it was VERY foggy this am. I didn't want to get runned over by a boat so we decided to launch at Buzby's instead. I have launched here twice. The first time Jason and I went up stream and the river was ok but pretty wide and the second time I went with Michele and Karen and we went downstreatm to the Basin and circled around the south half. Again open water and developed shores. So I went into this paddle with expectations of a pleasant paddle but nothing special. We launced downstream and went around the top half of the Basin just to go somewhere new. OMG, it was the best paddle. Very shallow(read no motor boats), grassy mazes, blooming spider lillies, protected waters, 3 alligators, constant birdsong, it was awesome. I wish I had taken a camera. The weather was perfect, it was warm with a cool breez, minimum current, splashing fish...

Tower certification

The climbing gym Michele and I have been going to has an outside climbing tower. So today we did our tower certification to be able to climb it. We had to learn how to lead rope climb and we had to lead climb to the top. We didn't realize how tough the climb was going to be. At the top and bottom it was tilted out at an angle so the climbing was hard anyway and then to have to let go with one hand long enough to place a quickdraw, pull up slack in the rope and clip it to the carabiner, um it was hard. The we had to practice taking a fall which the guy could see I was about to fall so he had Michele pay out some line so that I would take a big fall. Michele did better than me so she had to pay out her own line then fall on purpose from the top. Anyway we did it so we can climb the tower now:-)

crack climbing

Michele and I have been going to the climbing gym twice a week to get ready for our trip. Today was Easter day so it was pretty slow and actually we were the only ones there for 2 hours so we were able to get some tips from the guy working there, Shane. He showed us how to do a sit start and to use the crack.
Photo credit: Shane

Shark Dive

What was the most dangerous thing Jason and I did in Honduras? Apparently the shark dive. And the sharks weren't the dangerous part. This is a news story about the dive operator we used for our shark dive.http://www.cdnn.info/news/industry/i090225.html

Helmet Cam

Jason gave me a helmet cam for Christmas and I haven't had a chance to use it. Our only vertical trip this year was Rumbling Falls and it got changed to a hike when Aimee got sick. So anyway I finally got the thing set up and took it to the climbing wall just for a chance to play with it. Here are the videos I took. Hopefully I will be posting videos from Moab in 24 days!

Canoe Trip

In March we canoed down the Big Escambia Creek. Brandon and Melissa(with their 2 newfoundlands) camped out with us at the Magnolia Branch Reserve(the Indian's campground). They also have a Casita. We took Chewie for his first real camping trip. We cooked out and relaxed Friday night.

Saturday Jason and Brandon dropped a car in Flomaton and Melissa and I walked the dogs then we hit the river. Chewie rode with us and the Newfs stayed in the camper. We packed a picnic lunch and stopped on one of the many sand bars to eat and chewie had a great time playing fetch and swimming. We saw some good sized bass but it was bright and the water was clear and long story short no one caught anything. I took my fishing pole that I use to fish for kitties(it has a lure tied to it but no hook). I didn't really want to catch anything or buy a fishing license and then when I didn't catch anything at least I had an excuse. And not having a hook obviously didn't hurt my chances since no one else caught anything either. We paddled for over four hours. I thought that since we were going down stream that the paddling would be easy but the wind was kickin and blowing against us the whole way so we actually got a pretty good workout.

January caving trip

A few years ago we started a tradition of going on a caving trip every January with Joey and Aimee. This year we camped a Fall Creek Falls state park. On Saturday we went to Camp's Gulf. "Camps Gulf Cave, located in Van Buren County, Tennessee, is renowned for its large chambers. This four-plus-mile cave contains no less than three humongous rooms, one of which (measuring over 400 by 700 feet in size) is one of the most volumous cave chambers east of the Mississippi River. The cave is so vast, and the chambers so difficult to navigate, explorers routinly never make it out of the first room." For a horizontal trip with almsot no crawling Camp's Gulf was pretty rough. It was 5 hours of climbing over break down. We pushed back to the fourth room which is the smallest but where the best formations are. We were supposed to do Rumbling Falls the next day but Aimee was too sick. I was mad that Joey was going to make her go when she was sick. Of course I made Jason go the year that he was sick and he ended up getting bronchitis because of me.Ha.

Anyway there was plenty to do at the park where we were camped. We packed a lunch a did a little day hike to the falls.

Running Season

Jason has finished his spring running season. This year he decided he needed to run a marathon. He did one 10 years ago and it took him that long to forget how hard it was. He completed the First Light marathon in Mobile in 3:32. Since he had already done the work to get in shape he decided to do the Pensacola marathon in February and completed that one in 3:36. Of course he ran the Azalea Trail Run. This is his 20th consecutive time to run it and he completed it in 43:23. Now it is time to start cross trainnig for Mt Rainier.

Roatan

Last month Jason and I went on a week long trip to Roatan, Honduras with Underwater Works. We went with about 20 people from the dive shop and stayed at Fantasy Island, an all inclusive resort on a private island off the island of Roatan. On Saturday morning we had to be at the Mobile airport at 5:00am and we flew to Houston where we ate lunch and caught our connecting flight to Roatan airport. When we got to Roatan we had to wait in the customs line forever and a few people's bags didn't make it until later that night but other than that the flight was uneventful(which is always the best kind). The island of Roatan is only about 30 miles long so nothing is fall away. We took a bus to our resort and I knew it was going to be a good trip because before we even got checked in we had already seen iguanas, agouti and monkeys. The resort is on a 12 acre island and there was a ton of wildlife. They have a troop of monkeys, huge iguana, agouti, peacocks, ducks, bats and geese running wild and a zoo with miniature deer, sheep and a raccoon looking thing that are loose and parrots, toucans and a ocelot in pens. Forget the diving we liked playing with the monkeys. This is the Ruatan Island Agouti. It looks like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit.

This is a monkey peeing on Karen. Ha HaDid I mention that the monkeys were really bad and would steal anything not nailed down.Ok, next everyone always wants to know about the food when you go somewhere. On the resort we had buffets for every meal. They had a special which was usually seafood or a local dish then pasta, hamburgers etc. The special was usually pretty good and the rest was fair to good. For dessert they had the usual stuff but the chef made homemade ice cream and at lunch and dinner we had our choice of three flavors. I ate a lot of ice cream. It was excellent!. One night they had a seafood buffet with lobster, king crab, shrimp etc. It was awesome. One day we decided to get out and try some local fare so Alec and Karen and Jason and I rented a taxi and went to Coxen Hole(which is where the cruise ships come is) and ate at a local seafood restaurant then went to the Gumba Limba park. The food was good but the park was a disappointment. Karen actually grew up in Honduras and speaks Spanish quite well so she was a great asset on the trip. Here is the dining room.

Our room was nice. We had a king sized bed and large bathroom with a large walk in shower. The only problem with the room was they didn't give you any blankets and the air conditioners worked real well. The first few nights we froze and then we started managing the AC better. I like a cold room and lots of blankets but hey, I managed. The view from our room:

At night they had activities planned for us. These are Garifunas dancers that performed for us. We also had karaoke night(yes I sang and no it was not pretty), fire dancers and bar hopping night.

Excursions: We did a couple of excursions. Karen and I did the dolphin excursion. We went to marine research center and hand a dolphin encounter where you get to pet and take pictures with the dolphins then we got to snorkel in the dolphin pen with about 2 dozen dolphins. It was pretty awesome and if i get the opportunity I will definitely do it again. We also did the rain forest canopy zip line tour. 13 zip lines crisscross a valley. It was beautiful and tons of fun.

Ok, finally the diving. We had three dives a day and all the dives were minutes from the dock. There was a locker room at the dock so we just grabbed our gear and jumped on the boat. Our group dove together and we had the same boat with the same dive master and captain every day so that was nice. We dove at 9, 11:30 and 2:30 then after the last dive you could get dropped off at the dive gazebo and do some wrecks plus one night dive off the boat plus unlimited diving from the dive gazebo. We did the night dive and one drop off dive then one night snorkel just the 2 of us.

We also did a shark dive. That's me in the pink:

Finally it was time to go home and they had to drag me kicking and screaming back to reality.

Puerto Rico

The last time Jason went out west on fire detail there were some guys in his crew from Puerto Rico. He and Taylor have been wanting to take a trip so they decided to go down there. They flew into San Juan the day that a category two hurricane was bearing down on the island. They drove to Old San Juan and when they got there the place was deserted and everyone was holed up waiting for the storm. They did find one bar that was open. The storm ended up skirting the edge of the island that night and they didn't get any weather out of it. The next day they drove along the coast to Isabela and hooked up with Gabriel. He owns a bar so they hung out there that night. The next morning they went surfing at Jobos beach and that afternoon Jason went diving and Taylor went snorkeling. Jason took the underwater camera so he could play with it and get good at taking pictures before our Honduras trip. After the fist dive the camera flooded. I couldn't believe it. When he got back Jason sent of the camera and housing and when they pressure tested the case it failed so we they replaced the whole thing. Luckily we got it back before Honduras. Saturday they drove through the jungle to get back to San Juan. Taylor flew out and Jason explored San Juan which is both a town and a fort. Sunday Jason flew home.

Kayaks are in

I ordered some new kayaks a few months ago and they are finally here!! A Necky Eliza(blue) and Manitou 14(fire).

Ahhh pretty

Ohhh, sparkly

We ate lunch at Big Daddy's and used their boat launch. We paddled up Fish river and found a little place to practice our paddling skills.

TAG Fall Cave In

Last weekend we went to the TAG fall caving festival. We drove up on Thursday morning and got to camp in that afternoon. We set up the camper and hit vendor's row. John Law was already there and joey and Aimee arrived that evening. We didn't get as much gear as we did at SERA but we tried. Friday John Hickman led a trip to Ellison's cave. There was a 1,000 foot borehole leading the entrance pit. Oh, wait I forgot the mile hike carrying our gear up the mountain. They told us it was a mile but I'm not sure I believe them. That was some hike. So anyway, the fist pit is a 135 foot drop. Joey got some good pics:

Next we went across a natural bridge and up a short climb with a hand line. Then we had to do a 20 foot ascend up a fixed rope. This was the only tricky ledge in the cave and I am glad it was on the short climb. The ledge was undercut so you had to take one foot out of your foot loops and push away from the ledge and at the same time push your ascender over the ledge then go over. Next was a 500 foot pit. It was not rigged and we did not have enough rope to do it. To skirt this pit you had to belly crawl on a 18" wide ledge. Past this pit was a muddy crawl to an 80' pit.Then the whole thing in reverse. Up the 80' pit, through the mud, down the 20' drop, and hand line, and up 135'. And of course the hike back down the mountain with our gear which killed my back. So in other words...Good Times. We went back to camp and had a big cookout with sausage dogs, chips, potato salad...

The next day we didn't want to put on muddy vertical gear so we went to steward's spring. It was a wet cave so Jason and I decided to break in our new caving suits. It was a stream passage up to a room full of great formations. These are my pics so they're not that great.

What's funny is that on the way in we were all skirting the creek to keep our feet dry but then we got so wet and muddy in the cave that we were practically swimming on the way out to clean some of the mud off our gear. So then it was back to the campgrounds for steak, spaghetti, hot dogs, chicken, sweet potatoes, beans, corn and a stomach ache. Then the lighting of the giant bon fire, more shopping and the SCCI raffle. They must have sold hundreds of tickets and one of the first names drawn was Joey and mine was the very next name then Aimee 2 draws later. It was pretty crazy. The next day we packed up and went out for lunch then Jason and I headed south while everyone else decided to bounce a pit on the way home.