whiskey for breakfast

My 4th of July weekend was incredible! As soon as I finished work on Friday, Josh and I attacked the 45 minute drive up into the La Sals and quickly found an awesome campsite. After setting up camp, Josh, Beau and I took a nice hike up the road. We had seen some rocky hillsides a little further up from where we were staying and had planned on checking them out, but our minds were stuck on having smores and we turned around before reaching the destination.

A hot sun woke us pretty early on Saturday, so we decided to take another hike before climbing. We hiked up to Oowah and then Clark Lake, enjoying the sounds of silence (water, trees, wind, birds, bugs and not people), and remembering that hiking at high elevation is hard!

After the hike, it was finally time to try climbing again. I was a little nervous (no, make that a lot) that taking a fall, or catching a fall in a harness would really hurt my butt, so I decided to stay away from leading. It was a pretty good decision, because I soon learned that taking 8 weeks off climbing makes me really weak! I managed to repeat a lot of my favorites from the fall, but none without taking once or twice. It didn’t really matter how weak I felt though, because I learned that I can start climbing again!

Sunday was spent pretty similarly, except with less climbing and more relaxing and wild flower picking. The sun barely came out the whole weekend, but it was actually a welcome change from the incredible heat in Moab.

to those who wait

People often use the phrase: “I (insert activity here) my ass off,” to describe exertion, but I literally climbed my ass off!  As least, that’s what my mom likes to say. After a year long battle with pain due to a broken tailbone, I finally had surgery to remove it.  The recovery so far has been long and “watching the paint dry” boring.  Up until recently, I had a much longer list of restricted activities (like sit, stand or walk) than unrestricted (um… lay on my side).  Last Saturday, I decided to brave my very first hike, sans tailbone.  I chose Millcreek Canyon for the first hike, because it had an easy, flat, dog friendly hike to a swimming hole.  Unfortunately, 39 cars worth of people also had the same, brilliant idea. Picture 80-100 people all around this little swimming hole:

The hike started out slow, but the lack of shade and incredible heat definitely got me ready for some swimming.  The pain in my butt grew as the trail met up with the river, but I wasn’t going to stop until I could cool off in the water.  As soon as I made it to the swimming hole, I laid down my towel and watched people jump into the pool from the rocks above.  It made for a fun afternoon as jumpers belly flopped, back flipped and screamed while a pack of dogs charged up and down the river, splashing spectators and creating general chaos.

When I braved the chilly waters (although not by jumping in), I discovered that the cold pool soothed my aches and I enjoyed the pain-free soak for quite awhile.  Unfortunately, the dogs were still at large and I made the mistake of throwing a stick for them. A fight over who was to give it back to me started and I became alarmed as dog after dog jumped over my back and pawed around my legs and fresh incision.  It was time to call it a day and start back home.

Oh, well!  It was so nice getting outside after a month inside and I wasn’t any worse off for it on Sunday. I can’t wait until I am fully healed!

Sitting, climbing, trail running: here I come!