Mission Impossible *A Two week trip to the Rocky Mountain, Grand Canyon, Arches, and Back*

So about 2 weeks ago Keysa and I left to start our adventure, and her vacation time. The first stop we made was in Rocky Mountain National Park.  We set up camp and quickly realized that our tent had no poles, so we rigged it up to a tree in our site.  We met two awesome guys who were camping near by, and ended up giving us the rope to secure our tent. We hung out at their site drinking some beers and talking about life.  One was a firefighter and just the right age for Keysa, and I tried to hook them up, but you can only do so much being the youngest. Its not my fault he didn't utilize the fact that I gave him her number!

We stayed for a night and did a sweet hike on the bear lake trail up to about 12,000 feet where there was lots of snow.  The original plan was so to hike Greys and Torreys the next morning, but at 14,000 feet at the peak it would be way too cold! And snowy! So we changed direction and decided to drive to some Hot Springs, on recommendation of the firefighter.
We rolled into Hot Sulfur Springs and realized very quickly that it was one of the sketchiest places we had ever been to.  The springs were basically straight out of the 70's and clothing was optional after 9 pm.  It also was like $18 just to get in, so we thought maybe we would just set up camp instead. We couldn't figure out where to pay and went to ask a fellow camper. Creepiest man ever, the first words out of his mouth were "Sexy Legs..." Eww  He was holding a glass of "orange juice" and had a monstrous beer belly.  We escaped from there pretty quickly, and headed for Steamboat Colorado where there are even better hot springs.  We managed to find a sweet campground with a fox that kept walking through our site and didn't have to pay.
We went to the Strawberry Fields Springs the next day, and were accompanied only by old people, asians, and couples.  Quite the experience.  At least we got to get our hair wet, it had been 3 days... 10,500 feet definitely gets to you after a little while and starts to make you feel funny, so we started on our way back to Boulder and got to Kate's by 9.  Perfect timing.
I went to the Bon Iver and Feist concert on Thursday night, which was totally amazing.  Bottles of wine in the parking lot with Heather and Jen, it was a great experience at Red Rocks.
We left the next morning for the Canyon. We stopped to get a real tent from Dave's parents house, this one had poles. Then stopped in C Springs to see Alec who just arrived! YAY.  Now for a 12 hour trip... We tried to find camping that night, but every where we stopped was super ghetto or creepy.  We ended up sleeping in a Walmart parking lot in Durango, not so bad.  We debated setting up the tent, but decided that may not be safe enough.
Saturday we started early after a brief stop at a coffee shop, and me launching one of our coffees off my trunk.  We made it to four corners, which connects Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico at about 11, and had a blast there.  I think most people just stop in, but we stayed there for a while taking pictures, meeting sweet old guys (one was a bio teacher for 16 years and then up and quit to move to Denver because he had had enough!), doing a 4 Corners WOD, and buying sweet jewelry.  Four corners was definitely a great experience.

An Elk waiting for the mens bathroom!

We made our way to the Canyon which was only about 3 hours further.  Its so wonderful  and breath taking there.  My favorite part was how quiet it was at our campsite even though there are so many other people around.  Its like everyone just knows to be quiet.  We did the Hermits Rest hike which was about 5 miles total to the springs we went to and back.  And in the morning went and got backcountry permits to go down into the canyon along with a campsite.  We met two guys on the bus back to our campground, and that night ended up staying up way to late with them laughing around the fire and hula hooping/jump roping under the full moon.

We had to be up at 5 to start our hike into the canyon so we could catch the right bus to the trail and get some distance before the sun became too strong.  We should have woken up at 4... The difference in degrees was about 30 degrees more from the top of the canyon down into the middle.  Holy Lord I was sweating my butt off.  We finally made the 7.1 mile down the South Kiabab Trail hike down to our campsite after about 5 1/2 hours, and a little bit of rest.  It was so ridiculously hot at the camp, about 114, and all I wanted to do was sleep.  I laid down in the tent on my sleeping bag and basically just sweated on it for hours and got a bit of rest. Then I laid in my hammock and tried to read, but finally fell asleep for a while. Keysa hung out in the freezing cold stream, brilliant idea.  When I woke up I sat down in it and dunked my head in and it felt so good! I just continuously got my hair wet for the rest of the day and after a dinner of tuna and avocado we finally fell asleep.
We woke up at 4, an hour late, packed up, and headed out of the canyon.  We wanted to get as far as we could up the 9 mile Bright Angle Trail before the sun came on to strong at 5:30.  We granny shuffled our butts up the trail for a full 7 hours, and finally reached the top when it was still morning. We got our heads wet the whole way up, so at least we looked presentable, we were on day 5 of not showering... We had the car packed already and ready to go, so we headed out for Arches National Park. Keysa slept the 6 hour drive up, while I listened to a book on cd and surveyed the beautiful scenery.
We got an awesome campsite near the water, and paid $12 for two nights. Wednesday morning we woke up, hit up the central market, bought some steak, shrimp, vegetables, and post cards. We used the parking lot for our own personal training room, and were photographed by a sketchy guy who told us we were "sexy". Yikes!  We kept our food super cold all day in the truck by wrapping it with blankets like my mom taught me.

Cool Cool! Again!

Arches National Park is amazing. We did a great 4 mile loop hike to see the Double O Arch and climbed on top of it to form our own arch doing back bends. I was doing for a picture with Keysa and these Asians saw me and yelled "Cool Cool! Again!" So I made Keysa do it with me so we could get a great picture!  That night at our campsite we met two guys from Boston.  Two super tall guys, one was 6' 3" the other was 6' 7"! After we made dinner we went over to hang out with them and sat around the fire for hours laughing and making them talk in their "library voices".
The next morning they came over for breakfast and we had a gigantic feast of left over steak, eggs, and bacon.  The bacon destroyed the pan that the boys brought, so we didn't actually end up eating it. We went to wash off our dishes in the stream and found this fantastic wall of rock that had old petroglyphs on it.  Sadly a bunch of stupid kids had carved some of their own initials into it also. The sign explained that back in the day, to get to higher ground, the men would put logs into a large crack in the wall in a diagonal pattern and use them to climb up.  Well this 5 foot deep, 50 feet tall crack that we found with logs in it seemed possible to climb up and it was obvious that others had done it before us.  We had the boys go first, with Keysa third, and me pulling up in the rear.  One of the logs I needed to reach didn't have anywhere for me to put my feet so I actually did a full muscle up to get up onto it! Super sweet.  At the top, the very last one, I pulled myself up, and got my feet up there, but was off balance with my big booty sticking to far out behind me. I started falling backwards, and in one of the absolute scariest moments of my life thought I might not make it. Out of no where, Jim stuck out his hand and grabbed mine and pulled me up.  I couldn't believe it, my heart was super pumping.  The way back down was very intense also.  I went second to map out a path for keysa, and was definitely in some very scary and sketchy positions at moments.  I made it with Matt, the super tall one, giving me a hand.  We walked back to the car and said good bye to our new adventurous friends, as they were headed to Yosemite, and we were headed home.











 What seemed like an impossible mission, traveling all over the place in two weeks, sustaining, not fighting, having a blast, and making WHAT?!?! poses all over the place turned out to be a blast.  I'm so glad Keysa flew out to travel with me.  And that I made enough money bartending at Bob's to finance myself. It was super fun, and I hope more people have the chance to camp in random areas, and hike down into the Grand Canyon with super heavy packs on their backs and not enough sleep :)