Random Grand Canyon Hike

Hi All,
I hope this post finds everyone doing well.
Janice and I had a rare day off together last Thursday because Janice was able to do some work on the weekend. :) :) :) So we decided to do something fun.
Janice heard of this hike in Grand Canyon West that works its way down a side canyon to the Colorado River. If we did the whole hike it would be about 10 to 12 miles one way so you could do the hike in one long day if you were truly motivated but an over night would be advisable. We just wanted to find the beginning of the hike (way back on some out-of-the-way two tracks) and hike a little down the canyon to see what it was like. After our day we are both extremely excited to go back and do the whole thing.

This picture was taken about 200 yards from the car. As you can see there is no trail. We had just a couple of topo maps, compass and a GPS.



This is maybe a mile into the hike. The canyon starts out as a gully and then starts to get deeper.



This is 2 or 3 miles down the canyon. You can see it starts to look like the Grand Canyon a little.



Janice was told there would be some climbing and that some people take ropes with them. Here is a little scramble.



Pico is trying to spot for Janice. Pico is such a good rock dog. We can climb down to a ledge, lift him to it, tell him to stay, climb to the next ledge, lift him to that one and so on down the scramble.



The canyon continued to get deeper and deeper as you can see and even more and more beautiful.



We turned around shortly after this photo. The days are very short here and the temps at night at that elevation can get into the 20's.

Here is Pico and I on the way out.



We will be back to finish this hike some day soon.

I just wanted to share this with you all. This is the mountain behind our house after the 1st snow. On my days off I like to drink coffee and watch the sun come up and light it up.



Peace and Love,
Geoff

Halloween and Climbing at Red Rocks

Hi All,
It has been awhile since I have written. I am finally posting the pictures of our Halloween costumes.

The Tortoise and the Hare.



Bounty Hunter Dogg and his wife.



Hillbillies.



And probably my favorite Giving birth.



It was a lot of fun. I have not been to a costume party in a long time.

In November Janice and I where able to get a couple of weeks where we had three days off together. We had not been climbing in a long time so we went to Red Rocks outside of Vegas for two three day trips. We got to camp out (it was very cold at night) and climb all day. We were also visited by the Brennen's some old friends from Manistee.

Kevin's son Josh hurt his knee playing football so could not climb but Tehani got to climb outside for the first time.





As you can see she had very little fear and got about 80 to 90 feet off the ground.



Here we are after Tehani got down. I am surprised the picture is so good because Kevin was a nervous wreck the whole time. :) :)



Here is Pico watching from a good spot.



Here is a climb we did the second day we where there called Physical Graffiti, a 2 pitch 5.6. If you click on the picture you can see a couple people climbing on it.



Here is Janice and I at the anchors on the second pitch.



Janice following the second pitch.



From the first picture you might be able to tell this is a popular climb. We had to wait for a while to get on it and then I lead the first pitch and waited at the anchors for about an hour (freezing my ass off I might add) waiting for a group of climbers to move along. With all this waiting the sun started to go down.



We ended up trying to find our way down from the top of the climb in the dark. I am here to tell you that this would be a difficult task when there was light. It was quite an adventure.

The next day we had a great time trying to find a climb. Much of the looking for climbs are very fun like this.



Me taking a picture from the top of the first pitch.



Janice repelling from the top.



This climb can be seen from one of the popular parking lots. I think we had our picture taken about a 100 times that morning. We were rock stars. Get it, "rock" stars. :):)



Our next trip we tried to go to some places we had not been. One of them being around Kraft Mountain. The area we wanted to try was on the other side of the mountain. On the hike we hiked through a giant boulder field which had 100's of bouldering opportunities.

Here is Janice and I on the Monkey Bar Boulder.





Here is the really cool trail on the back side of Kraft Mountain. We were saying to each other that we are so lucky, we get to hike this amazing hike and then climb and then hike out again.



Here are a couple of shots of Janice on top of a very cool 5.10c with Turtlehead Mountain in the back ground.





We had an amazing time and succeeded in kicking our own asses hard. Janice made it to the top of a 5.11b and a bunch of 5.10's. And I loved these two 5.11's that kicked my ass but I could do all the moves. One was a 105 5.11b with a couple of scary cruxes. Great fun.

We would love to have visitors we could take and show around this area. So, please keep that in mind.

Peace and Love,
Geoff