Our Close to the Summer - Zions

Our first trip on Thursday (9/18) was in Mystery Canyon. Here is a group picture (left to right) Dan and Heather Pettingill (California), Ron (Denver), Me, Devin, and Rudy (New York).


That is our Canyon 'Mystery'


Me Climbing down a log in Mystery.


Looking up a hill that I don't want to climb.


Stemming over some water.


Here is a video of the final rapell in Mystery. It was one of my favorite rapells.


There is Rudy going down the final rapell.


Me and Devin rapelling out of Mystery and into the Narrows.

Oure second trip (9/19) in Spry. Devin, Me, Frank (Vegas), Bill (SLC), Jim (Canyon Leader, SLC).

After walking up a bunch of hills and approaching the top to get into the canyon there was this wall with a bunch of petroglyphs on it. If I was an indian this place would have been perfect to have my spiritual moment....

We rapelled down here, but the view looking out was incredible, pictures never do it justice.

There is Devin at the top of one of the raps.

This is by far the coolest picture of anyone rapelling! This was the last rapell out of Spry. Oh, and yeah that's me. :)

Our last trip was in Birch Hollow, which comes out Orderville (lots of people do Orderville). We didn't get a group picture that day, but we went with: Dan and Heather Pettingill (California), Alan and Megan Pryke (Australia), Me and Devin, Jill and Mike (don't remember last names, from Denver), David McNay (SLC), and Ari Ewell (SLC).

Because of the large group, we set up the rope with what is called a stone knot so we could rapell 2 at a time and also took 2 ropes, it was rapell after rapell. That is me and Ari rapelling at the same time.

Devin doing some down climbing.

All of us piling in the truck to go get the other truck we left at the top.

Special Olympics

I went with my company to help out with the Special Olympics tryouts (Sept. 12). I had a lot of fun! I was somewhat emotional throughout the day, it is just incredible to see people that have severe challanges in their life be so incredibly happy to just play some golf. When I go do things like this I realize how truly blessed I am in my life!

Marcia, Erika, Daron, Jon (one of the finalists), my boss Carolyn, and Bridgette.

Some of the winners

Homer, and one of the volunteers.

This is Bryce, he was one of the sweetest guys, and was also one of the happiest.

Some more finalists.

Blarney and Shillelagh

Devin and I took my cousin Matt, and my little brother Daniel down by Hanksville to 2 canyons, Blarney and Shillelagh (Sept 5th and 6th). It was Matt's first time, he did a really good job, lucky for him he is very tall and was a really good canyoneer.

Matt and Daniel at the start of Blarney.


Matt's very first rappel.


Here I am at the bottom of the rappel into Blarney.

Here we are in Shillelagh

The three boys showing off their muscles.

I have always wanted to hang upside down the rope and I finally dared to.

Gas to get to canyons = $100, Food for the Hike = $50, Matt's face at the end of a long day hiking = priceless!!!

Our Anniversary - Can't believe it's been 2 years already!!

For our anniversary this year we headed down to St. George, it was a well deserved vacation!! We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott in St. George, went and saw Les Miserables at the Tuacahn theatre. We also went Canyoneering and caught up with my family that was down there as well (I don't have pics of that).


We got our pictures taken with the actors who played The Thenardier's, for those who don't know, they are most the obnoxious, and crude people in the play and cause all sorts of problems, they were our favorite!

It was actually quite a challenge to get our picture taken together, everyone was rushing out to go home, and it was hard to stop people. We finally saw this old guy and thought he could take a picture of us, it was really entertaining, he just couldn't figure out the camera, and kept pointing it at himself no matter how many times Devin kept showing him how to do it, we tried not to laugh to hard when the flash went off in his face, and took a picture of his chest. It was really funny! LOL! We finally found a young couple to snap a picture.

Yes, we actually swim through that water, it's pretty sick, but it makes canyoneering all the more fun!! ;)

Blue Johns - Here's to Aron Rolsten

One of our trips was through the Main Fork of Blue Johns Canyon. We went with some friends who go every year around the time Aron Rolsten went, and hike the same trail he did. It was a very picturesque canyon! The first 4 or 5 miles was in the canyon, and the last 7 miles was in pure sand, that part was not very fun, but it was all worth it!For those who don't know, Aron Rolsten went into this canyon by himself and got his armed pinned to the canyon wall by a boulder. After being stuck there for six days, he cut his own arm off, finished the canyon, rappelled the 80 foot drop, and then hiked in the sand for 3 or 4 miles before being rescued!

North Fork of Robbers Roost

Devin and I took my little brother Daniel on his first canyoneering adventure through the North Fork of Robbers Roost. There were 4 good rapells as well as some fun downclimbing. Daniel was so tuff, he had never done this with us before, and we all had such a blast!! We gave Daniel 10,000 cool points for this canyon!


There are two main exit routes out of the canyon- one easier and one difficult. We wanted to find the easy way, but ended up taking the hard way. There were a few times on the climb out that we wondered if we would make it back to the canyon rim, and after running out of water just as we got to the 1.5 mile trek across the baren desert, we were all asking each other why we put ourselves through that stuff... But, as always, after we found the truck just where it was suppose to be, got some very warm water out of the back of the truck and soaked up the AC for a few minutes, we were able realize just how much fun it actually was.

Here is a picture of Daniel showing off his bulging muscles, this kid is so strong!

Here is a picture of our anchor - this is where we start our rapell.

Benson Creek in Brian Head

During one of our Technical Canyoneering Courses from the American Canyoneering Association (http://www.canyoneering.net/), we went through Benson Creek just west of Brian Head. It was definitely a favorite- easy and very pretty, with some fun rappels right down the course of a waterfall. If anyone wants to go- this is a good one to start with!

Here are some pictures of us going down the 100 foot water fall.