Phone Update

Just testing out posting from my phone. This shot is from Bear Lake a year ago fishing with Jordan, Doug and Kevin.

Aug. 15, 2009 - Camelback Mtn.

I imagine that most anyone who enjoys hiking, or even has friends that enjoy hiking, has probably climbed to the top of Mount Camelback (Camelback Mountain). I never had until I was 22. "Really?! I can't believe you've never hiked Camelback?!"

Well, I've done it a number of times since. Usually these days, it's with my wonderful wife Shirley. She is such a trooper. Shirley is wonderful and sweet and nice, but when we hike Camelback, she turns into this slave driving machine (I love you Shirley - I'm only exaggerating).

Shirley lived very near Camelback Mountain for a while, and has hiked/climbed/flown up and down the mountain quite a bit more than I. She has this habit when she hikes (and most especially when she hikes Camelback) of wanting to push the pace to the extreme. When we get on Camelback, she's racing the clock. Sometimes I think she forgets I'm there.

Here's a picture of Shirley making me eat her dust as she climbs this section past the first rail. Shirley calls these the "pansy poles" and mocks anyone who uses them. Do I use them? Sometimes. Does she mock me? Everytime. Even if I just accidentally brush up against one.

It's all in good fun though. Camelback is crowded; there are all kinds of people that hike it. I've even seen people going up barefoot (weirdos). But it's a great hike. It's close, it's challenging, and short enough that you can go hike it, and be back home on a saturday to get on with the rest of your day.

I think next time I'm gonna beat Shirley.

June 25th - 28th, Kernville, CA

(not actually us in this picture)

Yeah, it's been a while. Like I've said before, I blog in spurts. Get excited about it one month, forget about it the next. But also, I feel lame-o writing about our awesome advetures, but without any thing to show of it (pictures).

But this trip was awesome. And I can swipe some pictures from facebook that others took.

At the end of June, we went to the tiny little tourist town of Kernville, CA for a white-water river rafting trip. Shirley had been rafting before but the closest I'd ever come to white-water rafting was floating the Salt River in a tube when I was a teenager.

We drove up wednesday after work. Got there around midnight. Found one of those pay campsites, but it was too late for any rangers to be there collecting money, so we camped. Woke up and left too early for any rangers to be there collecting fees yet, so we left. Met our group at the park in town, and headed for our camp site.

For 3 days and two nights we camped near the river and went and ran different lengths of the river, taking extra cars and shuttling from put-in to take-out. It was loads of fun. At one point, the truck had taken off to pick up something and wasn't back yet, but we were anxious to get to the river, so we volunteered our car for the service. It coulda made it I think, but the truck got back just as we were about ready to go, so we let the truck haul the raft.

Apart from rafting there was a lot of other great stuff to do there too. When we weren't on the river, we did a lot of eating, a lot of hanging around telling stories, and even some hiking and rock climbing. We went on a hike up to a cave. It was pretty cool. Shirley whooped all our butts getting there. She's a trooper when hiking; didn't even turn around to see how far ahead of the rest of us she was. But the cave was cool. And I'd never been rock climbing outside of a rock gym, but the guys we were with had all the ropes and equipment, so we set up a couple climbs and went at it. It made me feel very cool climbing up the side of a cliff.

All in all it was a really cool trip. One I'd love to do again. Though, if I do go again, I'll remember to wear an older hat that I don't like as much. On one of the really big rapids, Shirley and got knocked down into the raft and when we bumped each other, off went my hat into the river - it got sucked under, never to be seen again... I liked that hat.