Two Houstonians in the Canyonlands

So recently, my friend Mo drove from Dallas all the way to Moab, Utah. I've known him for about two years now and he wanted to spend his Spring Break up here, taking in the sites. We've been on a lot of adventures so far, but the biggest journey we've embarked on was the Island in the Sky portion of the Canyonlands National Park.

Breakfast of champions...

Complete with a juice box!

We started out eating a 

VERY nutritional breakfast...
(...at McDonald's)

We stopped at a gas station and hit the road!

The were several ruin-looking sites at the gas station. I'm not sure how many of them are actually authentic, but there were these tepees, as well as these:

Pictographs

Once we got there, we made several stops. At some of the stops, we just looked around, at others we hiked. From the first turn off we made, there were some AWESOME views. Mo kept saying he was concerned that I was getting too close to the edge, but after having worked at a guide for a while, my fear of heights has lessened incredibly.

Climbing up

On the edge of a cliff

Scaling some rocks

We also saw lots of ancient cave dwellings. I was more used to the Anasazi and Moki dwellings, but while we were at Island in the Sky, we saw some old Aztec dwellings and ruins.

Ruin at Aztec Butte

We also saw some really awesome land features that had been formed through weathering of wind and rain. 

Weathering of the rocks

As our journey ended, we looked at one last place called the Grand View Point...

...and on the drive back, we watched the sun set.






All in all, it was an awesome, productive day full of beautiful views and good company. It was really nice to get some hiking in on my off shift, especially in such gorgeous country. I think the best part of it was being able to show a fellow flat-lander around some parts of the country that are most certainly not flat.

Lessons of the Desert

I'm back from the desert! This last shift was incredibly intense. I learned a lot about myself and my surroundings. I finally got my internship over with and I'm now an assistant instructor, so I'm really excited to step up to that new responsibility. 

We had a lot of pretty strenuous hikes, but awesome views...

 There were also some pretty scary views









One part of the program is being in or out of agreement. If  I'm following the rules, I'm in agreement. If I slip up and make a mistake, I'm out of agreement. I'm human and naturally I slip up from time to time, so I was out of agreement early in my shift for leaving something by the fire after I had gone to my sleeping bag. 

Unfortunately, once you're out of agreement, the group decides what you need to do to get back into agreement and it usually ranges from kung fu fighting, sumo wrestling, writing poems, or drawing faces on your chin upside down.

This was my back into agreement condition.

Needless to say, I had fun trying to put sunscreen on after I forgot the face was still there and ended up with ink and sunscreen all over my face.

Another part of the program is sometimes we do animal kills. It's done in a very therapeutic way and it's framed to show respect for the animal and learn about the difference between canned, processed, mass produced meat as opposed to an animal we treat with respect, kill ourselves, and then use every part of the animal.

In the middle of my shift, we did a sheep kill. We ate all of the meat, heart, lungs and liver. We learned how to use the brain to tan the hide and how to use the hide for clothing. We used the sinew for string and learned how to boil the hooves down for very strong glue. We cracked the bones for marrow and very little of the animal was unused. Any meat that was not part of a primitive rotisserie, Thai stir-fry (made by yours truly), steaks or stew was jerked and spiced and hung on a primitive jerky rack.

That was the majority of my shift. I spent time with people I appreciate and learned a lot about the kind of person that I want to be. The weather warmed up for the most part - there were some nights I was too hot in my sleeping bag, but I'd much rather be too hot than too cold.

Ultimately, it was a very productive shift. I got closer to a lot of the staff and had a lot of fun. I learned a lot about the wilderness and I learned a lot about myself. This off shift, I'm looking forward to hanging around Moab and working at my other job. I have plans to go to the Canyonlands sometime soon, so hopefully there will be some pictures about my adventures in Needles soon!