School's out for summer, so what do we do? Go to Zion National Park! We had a great time-we being myself, Reece, Trav, Meg, and 'Hot Dog'. Haha, Us four were driving down to get Howie, so Trav called him when we got close. When he answered, Trav said, "hey 'How Dog'" and Meg and I heard 'Hot Dog' so for the rest of the trip, that's what everyone called him, lol!
Well, there was major communication blunders about the trip, and the canyon we were supposedly going to hike & repel was a much bigger adventure than we bargained for. Meg and I had never been repelling before, so with something like 9 repels down the slot canyon, and the last two totalling about 300 feet together, we decided not to do it. Reece was sweet enough to stay behind with us, while the two other boys went up. We hiked Angel's Landing-which was very different not covered in snow and compacted ice! It was very beautiful, and well worth our time. We weren't in a rush, so round trip it took us about 4 hrs for that hike. We hadn't heard from the boys yet, so we took our time driving through the canyon and then hiking to Canyon Overlook. I was surprised at how simple and short the hike was for the incredible view that we had at the top. Very, very beautiful! We ran into this guy and his brother from Mexico at the top. The brother was enjoying the view from high points he could climb--he was very quiet. The other one though was very talkative. I was very impressed by his english. Sometimes it was hard to understand, but for probably learning english in Mexico, it was very impressive. He talked to us about a few missionaries he had met, and of a guy that he had talks on tape of (who was a member of the church, but he couldn't remember his name). He said that this guy had "something special" when he spoke, and that he could say things very precise and clear that most people cannot even put into words. We think its probably an apostle, but who knows. Anyway, this guy and his brother decided they were going to take a trip to Salt Lake City to see the temple! He is sooo ready for the gospel! It was an amazing experience. :) When we were done up there, we made our way back down to the car and as soon as we were in service range, we got a call from the boys.
They started their adventure at 1pm, so we figured they would take about 7-8 hrs to do the whole thing. When they called, they had been out for about 7 hours, so we figured they were done...nope! Come to find out, they had had a wonderful day until they finished their second to last repel (about 135 ft.) and when they went to pull the rope down, it was snagged on something. They ended up having to ascend the rope to unsnag it, repel back down, and then do the last repel (about 165 ft!) We were sooo glad we didn't go up there with them. While we waited, we found a nice ledge for Meg and I to learn how to repel. It was really windy, which made it pretty cold, but it was worth it! We did that until it was almost dark, and then headed over to where the boys would be coming out when they were done. We called to check up on them, and they were still ascending the rope. They said if we came over to the Emerald Pools trail head, we'd probably be able to see their headlamps. Sure enough, we drove to the trailhead, parked the car & turned off the lights, and straight ahead quite a bit up the mountain we could see two little specks of light. It was going to be a LONG night! We decided to sleep if we could--having only averaged about 3 hrs of sleep the night before. It was not a solid sleep, because we had so many interuptions, what with calls from Trav & Kara (Hot Dog's gf), and the ranger stopping in to see what we were up to. Needless to say, the adventure that would have taken them about 8 hours, took a lot longer. Four hours longer,in fact, and they made it back to the road by about...1am! It was crazy! We drove back to Cedar that night and slept solid from about 2:15/2:30am-8:15/8:30am--a marvelous 6 hrs! We were sooo sleep deprived this wknd, but by golly, it was fun! We all made it to our different homes that night--Payson, Elko, Fallon, and Alaska! What a way to end the semester! :D
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