Cochiseeeeee. We smile a lot when we come here

Cochise is full of fun plates to climb on aka chicken heads. I quickly learned how to sling these fun little (sometimes huge) chicken heads for protection. I think it is such an interesting way to protect a route.

We spend about two months driving to and from Cochise. We decided to drive back down the dirt road to make it to Window Dome. The road required higher clearance than my little Subaru Impreza could handle, but it was worth every minute and every dent my car received. 

We love it so much we decided to take some friends to share the Cochise love. 

And we even stayed the weekend at the top of the Sheepshead. We hiked up with 50lb packs that held all our gear, food, and about 5 gallons of water so we could climb as many routes on the back dome. 

Cochise is the place I got comfortable on granite multi-ptiches and odd gear protections. 

SLC adventures, but this time not crippled!

SLC adventures!

Icey descents after some splitter crack climbing.  

I love me some splitter cracks and I am learning to love granite splitters even more! We met up with a AZ friend that had just moved to SLC to get some quick climbing in. I mean... the drive was so long... 20 minutes tops. Must be a tough life for these SLC folk. 

The temps were good and the cracks were smooth. 

After some long hiking and driving we decided we should go to the local hot spring. 5 mile hike for some breathtaking views... So we thought. Until we got to the location to find out that the gate was closed and this would cause us to have to walk an extra 7 miles or so. So we decided to be smart and bring a liter of water, a beer each, and no snacks.... Smart... ya, that's the word. The road was covered with snow and ice and the entire trip was welcomed with rain. We were cold with wet shoes, wet hair and had no food.

We had convinced our friend Whitney to join us on the hike. Whitney crushed the massive hike, in the dark on, despite being legally blind.

But we were determined to make it and we had Roxy dog to keep us moving forward. She was our motivation. And though she finished the hike like a trooper, she ended up having swimmers tail for 3 days afterward due to being such an over stoker and constantly playing and running the entire time! 

We finally got to the spring and Joey dipped off to catch a quick photo, while Whitney and I soaked  our sore muscles.

Before we headed home we needed to catch a sunset photo! This one required no hike... We had no energy for that. 

The natural mazes of the world

 Canyoneering!!!

No splitters this weekend but still explored the desert and avoided the crowds too :)

We stumbled upon these badass sand dunes during a gorgeous sunset on Thursday. They were a nice stop after an 8 hour drive, before finishing the 80 mile 4x4 road into Robber's Roost & High Spur

     

I have always been a HUGE fan of labyrinths and I had never gone Canyoneering. I learned very quickly that I LOVE it. And seeing Joey so happy and goofy made it so much more enjoyable

The lighting in the canyon was amazing! Joey took so many amazing shots. There seemed to be an opportunity for a great shot around each bend!

We met a group of guys that had much more experience in canyoneering than we did, so they took us on a more experienced route. This one required you to repel off of a hook! Yep, a single hook in a divot in the rock- it was insane.

Here we are trying to pull the sand bag down to retrieve the hook.... We got the bag, but not the hook.

We are thankful for these guys for showing us how to do some real canyoneering!

 So many great photos!

We finished off the trip with checking out some goblins! 

I made sure they were staying in their place!

Who knew Crack could be so good for you and cobbles could be so painful

Indian Creek

Joey finally took me to Indian Creek and I instantly fell in love with hand jams, fists, finger locks, and whatever else I could get my hands to do to get me up these incredible cracks. I remember driving into the canyon and looking around at the endless walls of splitters. Finding myself with my mouth open and constantly thinking, 'wow, this place is amazing'. 

Prior to her first day at Indian Creek, Markie had experienced 4 days of leading on gear. 1 day at 'Pinnacle Peak', 1 day at Queen Creek - 'Atlantis', 1 day at 'Stewart Pocket' 1 day at 'The Overlook'.

She had onsighted everything she had tried except for a short 10+ offwidth. So she knew she wanted to try something harder and figured a thin hands splitter would be great... Michael Pang recommended 'Excuse Station', which protects with 10 red camalots (#1's) and a few 0.75s for the crux.

So, Excuse Station (5.11) became the extremely lofty goal for the trip... And after onsighting everything she tried in the 5.9 and 5.10 range, we both decided it was time to try it

I was quite nervous to watch her on this climb because I knew it could set the tone for the rest of the trip and it was a big step up from what she had tried in the past. Obviously, I couldn't allow her to see that nervousness but I am sure she saw it anyways... 

So I shut my mouth, she re-checked her rack (2 - #2's, 10 - #1's, 3 - #.75s), gave me a hug, looked at the route one more time for some weaknesses or rests, and then she started to cruise!

She swam through the 80 feet of splitter thin hands (her first consistent #1 sized crack), found the nice rests in the pods, and fired for the crux. On this route, the crack thins down substantially to #0.75 (ring locks/layback) at the top, right before the chains. She looked excellent going into this part of the route, but I knew she had never tried this type of movement... So I was mega worried, as usual, but I just tried to shout encouragement.

Unfortunately, she struggled with the layback transition and ended up taking a fairly big whipper before placing her first #0.75. She pulled back up the rope, got back on, and finished it up. She was extremely close to onsighting this line but was mega pumped and needed at least an hour to rest.

Here comes the excuse... It started to get windy and started to rain while she was at the anchor. I had planned on top roping the route to allow her to rest but we decided to play it safe and pack up. And unfortunately, we still haven't made it back :(

So the lofty goal remains. Along with a good bit of frustration balanced with excitement

Off to Maple Canyon!

After a quick trip to Maple I quickly learned that hard way that hiking off route in a cobble stone canyon needs to be done with care. I ended up taking a 25ft tumble off the edge and landed feet first onto a soft bed of maple leaves. Luckily Joey had some great friends in SLC, Sammy and Daryn, who let us crash at their place while we figured out how we were going to finish this trip off right! 

After connecting Bryce National Park to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument via backroads, 'invisible' roads, and 4x4 roads, we stopped in a terrible mexican restaurant in Kanab Utah. While wondering whether or not our food would kill us, we decided to see what type of shenanigans we could get into at Lake Powell. So we drove around 100 miles offroad all around the rim of Lake Powell and settled on this spot for the truck... 10 feet off the edge of the rim!

It was an interesting ride with a blown (exploded) shock but it was worth it to wake up to this! My crippled truck and crippled woman were happy in the morning

I wish I could explore all day, every day! These sights and experiences are rare for me.

We had spent all day traveling through Dixie National Forest, attempting to connect Bryce to Escalante via a series of off the map dirt access roads with no real plan. We weren't really expecting to be successful and we didn't have any plans after getting to Escalante, so we just searched for food. We ended up at one of the worst Mexican joints I have been to in a long time but during our meal we heard about some spots overlooking Lake Powell that were nearby. We figured that it was close enough to make sunset and at a minimum, we'd get a chance to photograph sunrise.

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We ended up at our camp around 10pm and we were bummed we missed sunset but encouraged by the moonlit views. I knew I had to wake up early and make the most of it. So I got up about 6 hours earlier than normal (4am), set up my D500, took some low light test shots and then set up the tripod. While waiting for the right light, a wide awake foreign man ran up to me out of no where. With a funny accent, he asked if he could join me in taking photos. I was shocked, mostly because I wasn't really dressed, but also because he literally appeared out of nowhere, running towards me.

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Of course I told him he could shoot together, even though he was shooting Canon and I had my favorite Nikon setup. After only a minute or two, I could tell he was displeased with the shots he was getting. So I suggested a further out point that he might find better. I told him I wanted to run over but was too lazy... He timidly asked me if it was really okay and I said of course! I'm wasn't dressed and didn't even have shoes on.

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Sure enough, he was on the point faster than I expected and I ended up capturing one of my favorite images of the trip, with him in it. Too bad I didn't catch his name

After waking up to a gorgeous sunset, we decided to....

Go back to sleep because the sun gets up WAY earlier than we do.


We slept until around 10am, when Markie decided she wanted some topless coffee with her wonderful view. Gotta keep those crutches nearby!

The entire time we were overlooking the edge,Markie was wishing she wasn't crippled, so she could climb/rappel/scrabble to the water.

I told her I would make it happen. 

So, with my crippled truck, we managed to 4x4 our way down to the water and eventually through the water. Once we were there, I had to carry her into the water because she couldn't hop in it with flipflops on. I left her out there while I walked around and took photos of the area. She never moved from this position

Thankful Joey was able to tend to my injured self and make the trip just as memorable as anything.