This Thanksgiving Maia decided to get Connor on skis for the first time. He did pretty wel!

After some trial and error, Connor learned he needed to pull his hand away at the end of the game. Note Gavin’s background tunes.

Spending Thanksgiving with my family reminds me that I haven’t posted photos from the gatherings this past fall with Damon’s family.  In addition to Eric and Lauren’s wedding in September, we gathered together in October  to celebrate and remember Damon’s grandma who passed away last February.

Seems I’ve fallen pretty far behind on posting about goings on.  We were able to celebrate several happy occasions this summer and fall.  Congratulations to Paul & Angie, Judith & Bobby, Eric & Lauren, and Jody & Mike!

Map outlining options and times

The motivation for our trip to southern Utah was to hike the Narrows.  The hike follows the North Fork of the Virgin River 16 miles from Chamberlain’s Ranch down to the Temple of Sinawava, the northern most shuttle stop in Zion National Park.  It’s possible to hike up from the Temple of Sinawava’s Riverside Walk (the Bottom-Up Day Hike shown on the bottom right).  We decided that the best way to do it would be to do it as a top down two day hike.  September seemed like the ideal time for us to do the hike- warm days, low water, and most importantly warm water.   The river was flowing at just under 40 cubic feet per second and the water was about 60 degrees F.

Before.

Monday morning we took a look at the weather and a cold front was forecast to hit southern Utah on Tuesday night- the night we were scheduled to camp.  Early forecasts called for some chance of showers and thunderstorms on Wednesday with highs in the 60s F in the park- it would be colder in the river because the canyon walls are high enough to keep most of the hike in shadows.   Talking to the rangers at the visitors center about the risk of hypothermia, assessing our clothing and gear, realizing we couldn’t cancel our shuttle and weighing the various options convinced us we should do the top down one day hike.

So, off we went in our 6:30 am shuttle.  We got to the trail head around 7:45 am outfitted in our neoprene socks and canyoneering boots, carrying our walking sticks.  It was early. And cold.

Brr... Michael, Damon and Kathy during the first 3 miles of the hike along the dirt road

The weather warmed up and we were lucky to have a warm breeze for most of the hike.  We were able to hike along the stream bed along one side of the canyon or the other for a lot of the day.  We spent a lot of our time crossing the river to get to dry stream bed.  In places were the river filled the canyon it was typically calf deep or shallower except in a few places.  The deepest pools we encountered were about waist deep on me .

Kathy, Michael, and Damon for scale

Through most of the hike the canyon walls towered above us- ranging from a couple hundred to a couple thousand of feet tall.  It was really breathtaking.  There were 2 other sets of hikers at the trailhead when we started off- 2 day hikers, 2 backpackers.  We saw the other day hikers a couple of times during the first few miles but didn’t see anyone else again until we got on the shuttle.

The final hour and a half of the hike it was dark enough that we needed our head lamps- we exited the river about 12 and a half hours after starting our adventure and made our way down the final mile along a paved trail to the shuttle… 13 hours of hiking in total.

One of my great regrets when we went to Zion National Park last year was not joining Damon on the Angel’s Landing hike.  I was hesitant to do the hike last week because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t too tired to hike the Narrows the next day.  Figuring that we were planning on taking 2 days for the Narrows and that I could turn back if the hike up the to Angel’s Landing was too steep I agreed to give it a try.

We did the 5 mile hike in 4 1/2 hours taking time at the top to eat our second breakfast.  The hike climbs 1,488 feet.  The park service has put chains in to provide hand holds along the narrow sections with steep drop-offs along the final half mile of the hike.

We took advantage of the 3 day 4th of July weekend by going to visit our pamangkins (nieces/nephews) in CA- Peanut age 5, Walnut age 2, and Hazelnut age 4 weeks.  Also pictured is Nate-dawg age 4.  Jake and the majority of the adults present over the weekend managed to escape the camera.

Some more pics from our Big Island adventure…

We haven’t finished off the roll of film that was in our waterproof disposable camera so we don’t have all of our beach photos.  Here are some shots we got on our digital camera.

We really enjoyed checking out the geology of the Big Island.  Here are some pics of some cool rocks we came across.