Friday, August 6, 2010

Day Five

It was cold last night, or at least it felt that way sleeping on grass and leaves under a space blanket. We were up about 7:30, all with some sleep and a little stiff from the accommodations. We hit the trail about 8:30 for the remaining part of our journey.


This part of the journey was only a few miles, but was more technical. There was swimming and several places with chest deep water.




Then towards the end there were the hordes of people moving upstream. When one of the young men first sighted people, he yelled out, “There are people.” Then again, when you spend the night in the forest without your sleeping bag or sleeping pad, the sight of people indicates civilization. We soon rode the bus to the park headquarters and then drove to Springdale to a sandwich and ice cream shop. After eating something besides trail mix and cliff bars the stories began to flow out of the boys. They were reminiscing on the events. With a couple of scoops of ice cream, there was lots of laughter and story telling. This will be an outing they will not soon forget.

Day Four - Zions Narrows

We began our hike early in the morning at Chamberlan Ranch



We hiked and hiked and hiked. Late in the afternoon there was thunder, lightning and rain. We quickly found a safe place to stop. We determined that for safety reasons we would stop there for the night. We created ourselves small shelter and set up camp. Not every person had a space blanket so we had to do a little sharing. We wished we had a game to play to pass some of the time the late afternoon. On young man mentioned that he had playing cards. Yes there was a game to play. The joke was this young man did not have a space blanket but had the playing cards. By 8:30 most everyone was laying down and quiet trying to go to sleep.

Day Three - Zion Ponderosa

We went south to the Zion Ponderosa to swim, play ping pong, pool and some basket ball. We ate dinner outside and camped under the stars.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

High Adventure 2010 - Day Two - Mountain Bikes







We went Mountain Biking today. We started just below the 11,307 peak of Brian Head.

For some reason the ride started out going uphill. This was the first fork in the road where we had to decide which way to go.


We had a group hide in the bushes and pretend to be a large animal. As two boys came up to the area of the large animal, there were branches breaking and large growling noised. The two boys dropped their bikes and ran back down the trail. I went to investigate and saw the head of one of the noise makers. As we stopped there, we changed a tire and took in the views. The moral of the story is to think about the enviroment and the large two legged animals that may be lurking further up the trail.


The views were so awesome that you just had to get closer.





This is a few miles into our twelve mile ride. We had already has one crash and burn that left a small scratch on the left ankle of one of the Kevin. In the picture below Kevin is rolling down hill with me further up hill.

A few of us radioed to the group ahead wondering which way to go. We asked, "Do we take the Left Fork Bunker Creek Road or the Right Fork Bunker Creek Road?" The reply was, "Left" We asked, "Go left on the Right Fork Bunker Creek road?" The rely was, "Yes, go left."

I was admiring nature in this photo.

A nice view looking down the trail.


At the end of the trail, it started to rain so we looked for shelter and a place to eat. The cost for shelter was the purchase of milkshakes for each or us. The were about 25 flavors to choose from. Root beer, raspberry, pineapple, peanut butter, camel and many more

Once we got back to the condo, most took a nap. Especially those in group known as the "Tang Gang." The "Tang Gang" was up at midnight raiding the kitchen and making glasses of Tang.

Our ride started on the upper right side of the map and ended at Panguitch Lake following the blue line. You can see how we rode along the ridge and down to the lake.


Monday, August 2, 2010

Monday - The Travel Day

There was lots of driving, some rain and an evening bike ride. Not much time to tell any story's, so enjoy some pictures. You can click on them to make them bigger.



We arrived at Brian Head, got unpacked and it started to rain. We did some learning. Everyone took a test. The one where the first thing is the statement - read all the directions before starting.



Everyone took the full allotted 10 minuets - except the one of us that had seen this type of test before. The one where the last instruction is to put your name on the top of the paper and you are finished. The idea was to teach us that it is important to follow instruction. Life is easier when you do. When the rain lightened up we then took a drive to see some sights.



The sights are at a fairly high elevation.



And some of the sights are on four legs.



The buck was nice and calm in the meadow until a couple of two legged types tried to catch it. When we got back, it was time for a nice evening ride.



Sunday, August 1, 2010

Final Preparations


What else needs to be done to get ready for High Adventure 2010? Pick a bike and pack a bag. Tomorrow morning we are off to southern Utah.