Easily Distracted

OK, so I’m discovering that I’m really bad at keeping this updated...too easily distracted I think. I wrote most of this during November, and here are almost 2011, and its still not finished, so that is my endeavour for today……

Back to November….
So we hit the desert in Utah and Arches National Park on wednesday (10th nov). Our dreams of warmer temperatures were dashed pretty much right away, with rain and then snow on wednesday evening- pretty cold, but exciting all the same! I realised in the morning that we'd broken the golden rule of camping, and pitched our tent under a tree *Gasp...* but it definetly helped to give us some shelter from the snow! Fortunately we have had sunny weather since, although its still cold, but nice enough during the day. Thursday we did some shorter hikes in the morning and then joined the ranger guided walk into the Fiery Furnace area, so named by the cowboys because of the red colour of the rock as sunset. The area is made up of 'fins'- rocks weathered into long upright formations with maze like areas between them. The walk was really interesting- lots of information about how the fins form and the environment of the area, but I found myself critiquing the rangers interpretation (which was really good)- uni has forever changed a simple hike for me.... Friday we did a couple of longer hikes- one to Delicate Arch, an incredible arch that seems to just sit on top of a flat area of rock. The fins are fun and easy to explore off the trail. In the afternoon, we hiked the Devils Garden area- also a really fun area to explore, climbing up some fins, doing a little bit of bouldering and up and over slick rock to avoid deep pools of water. We hiked for part of the afternoon with Doug, from Vermont, who I had also met in the morning at Delicate Arch.

Cooking up some lunch on top of a fin in Devil's Garden.

We headed into Moab for a bit of a lazy day on Saturday and visited part of the Canyonlands on sunday. From Moab we headed south through Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon. Tuesday (16th) we hiked down into the Canyon. It was 10 by the time we got to the trailhead, and the sign said it was 6-8 hours return to where we wanted to go (the Indian Garden, about halfway to the river), so we ram-jammed down the switch backs. The canyon is even bigger than you can imagine, really beautiful, but I think I prefer the mountains to the desert. And after the hike I love having lived in the mountains for the last six months because it meant that we cranked out a 6-8 hour hike in about 4.5 hrs!! Visiting these places has made me think about what I must have been like to be the first person discovering such amazing natural features like the Grand Canyon and the Arches. What were their first impressions, what did they think? What kind of awe, amazement or fear did they feel. Somebody told me a joke. Its a pretty bad joke, but oh well.... There was an explorer and a cowboy standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. The explorer said "What an awesome display of the power of God...." The Cowboy said "What a horrible place to lose a cow..."

Feeling a bit over the desert, we headed to Yosemite national park in California. We arrived on one of the warmest days we have had yet, and visited the giant sequoias. The next day there was a storm coming in, but we embarked on a hike up the side of the valley up to Glacier Point. We got to the top of the cliffs, about half way to the Point, and decided to turn around before the weather came in too bad. That night, we had about 10cm of snow! Yosemite is such a beautiful place, the valley with large granite cliffs, El Capitan and Half Dome, rising toward the sky. It seemed to get even prettier with snow and low cloud as we were leaving the park.

El Capitan rising out of its blanket of cloud.

We left Yosemite, and drove a few hours across California to the coast. Lots of parts reminded me of Australia and I got very excited to see some Eucalyptus trees! Julia thought I was crazy for picking some little branches and hanging them around the car. The storm seemed to follow us to Santa Cruz, where it was cold and stormy. It continued to be overcast/rainy with some sunshine for the next couple of days. Talking to the locals, it was about as cold as it ever gets- they were all rugged up in winter coats, while when the sun came out, we broke out the t-shirts and flip flops, for the first time in 3 months and the last time for about 7! Apparently the week before it had been hot, but it seems we just can’t get away from the cold. We spent a couple of days in Santa Cruz, spent time at the beach and went surfing! It was so much fun, and I even managed to stand up a couple of time! It was so great to swim at the beach, I love it! I even introduced Julia to swimming at the beach- she’ll be hooked for life.
We left Santa Cruz and drove through San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge and out the other side. We spent the next couple of days having a ‘Sunday drive’ up the Californian Highway 1, right on the coast, with such fun roads that made me wish I was driving something sportier, with a little more power, rather than a Honda in desperate need of some TLC. We visited some beautiful beaches, had the most expensive nights camping (actually all of California is expensive) and even visited the glass beaches. The last place we visited before we made our way back into Canada was the Redwood National Park. I was again reminded of Australia, particularly the southwest of Western Australia.

We spent a couple of days driving across Oregon, Washington and the very north of Idaho to get back into Canada. In the period of about 12 hours through Idaho it suddenly became winter, with not the greatest weather. Made for slow progress for a while, not being used to driving on snow.

We spent the next week visiting people from camp in Cranbrook BC, Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer before finally heading back to camp. After over 11,000km of driving in a month, I was so sick of driving and progressively got grumpier every time we got into the car to go anywhere. And after a month and a half of being away, living out of a car and constantly on the move, I was ready to be back at my mountain home.

Check out the second part of the map.