Trek 2009

Trek 2009

July 8-11


Trek started at 5:00 am on July 8th.

First of many adventures....broken down bus in Parley's canyon.



For those of you that read the Friend,
in the July issue there is a story on Oscar.
This is Oscar, and for some reason, he chose our group to attach to. (to view the story on Oscar, click on the word "story")

Martin's cove

This is Dean giving the cove talk to our 250 "trekers", 50 "trekers" at a time.


Crossing the Sweetwater river, reverently.....


and not so reverently


Of course, there was lots of square dancing.




Long story short, we didn't get into our camp ground till 10:00 pm, we had an awesome dinner, just a little later than planned.

Gay and Ivan Hill are some of the missionaries helping out the Trekers that come through this area. I've know them since I was 6 months old....I'll have to take their word on that, it's all kind of fuzzy to me as to when we first met!

Jaxon, Jordan and Jacob

Watching Jordan and Jacob try to squash the fly on the window was very entertaining...to say the least

One of the highlights of our trip to Kanab is playing with the kids. They are so fun.

4th of July 2009

Last night Braden went waterskiing and took a bad fall and ruptured his eardrum. He got home and was in a lot of pain. We drugged him up, and spent several hours on the internet trying to figure out what we could do for him, after all we had a race in about 7 hours!

Braden got up with us, and decided he was well enough to run the Riverton Country Mile (10k).

Matt and Jenn Hillam also ran this race. It was really fun seeing lots of people we knew.


Braden and Dean ran together, both getting their personal bests. Braden with a 46:20, and Dean with a 46:27....that earned Dean a 1st place in his age division. Jenn placed 2nd in her division. My goal was to finish under an hour, so I was pleased with my 57:57.

Erika, Dean, Matt, Jen, and Braden

EJ and Braden showing off our lovely tee-shirts from this weeks run

Fat Man's Misery

June 29, 2009

Fat Man's Misery

13 hours hiking....112.6 degrees....1500 ft climb.... AWESOME!

Jeff lined up this slot canyon hike for us. Terrell Honey led us on this amazing hike through a slot canyon, down through the river to some incredible water falls.

Erika, Dean, Julie, Derek, Brandon, Trent and Lance...and Terrell Honey taking the picture

It was really nice of the squirrl to pose for us.

In these pools there are thousands of these white frogs. They have suction cups on their feet...sooooo cool!

This canyon was amazing. Loved doing the rappels!

I'm sure I'm shorter than when we started....there were a few places we had to jump down.

oh, and did I mention it reached temperatures of 112.6.....and yes, I felt the .6!

Lots of water involved. Several times we had to jump into water, and we never knew how deep it was...all I know is that it was over my head. In the canyon the water was freezing cold.

We got to the spot in the narrow canyon that had a couple of arches, it was so beautiful, but had a really strong smell, I mean REALLY strong smell. There was a dead deer that had apparently fallen from the opening above, and was rotting right in the water that we had to go through. It was disgusting. Didn't spend much time taking pictures there. For the rest of the hike through the stream we knew that deer was in the same waters as we were. Gross!

Dean, at our lunch break. Julie and Derek in the weeds.

You notice there are no photos at the water falls. If you read the information on this hike, it explains that these falls are off limits...and I know why! It was amazing. We left our packs about a mile before we got to the falls. We needed both hands to "claw" our way out of the fast running "shoot" that headed to the falls. There was no room for extra packs, water bottles or cameras.

Almost done! At this point, there was only 1 1/2 miles to go back to the van. We were feeling pretty great about our day right now. We all got a few scratches, but soooo worth it! Thanks Jeff for lining this up for us, and thank you Terrell Honey for taking such great care of us!