National Parks Week 2018

Happy National Parks Week! I seem to need the wild lands and scenic vistas protected by the National Park System now more than ever, and I can't wait until I travel to a few new parks in the coming months. In the meantime, I daydream and plan, counting down the days until I'm hiking soaring peaks and exploring deep canyons yet again. For now, take a look at the gallery of a few of my favorite parks to visit and get out there to enjoy one or two yourself!


Canyonlands National Park

Grand Canyon National Park 

Zion National Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

Rocky Mountain National Park

I'm Thankful For... V.2017

Thankful. Sometimes I forget to be thankful. I get so caught up in life, in what is going on around me, in what I still need to do and what has to be done, that I forget how much I already have. And I have a lot. Last year I wrote about how I'm thankful for my fiance (now husband!), my family, my pets, my jobs, and my travels. And while I am still thankful for those people and things, this year I want to get specific. This year, I'm especially thankful for...

My Adventure Partners: Alisha, Jared, and Torrey
These three amazing people put up with me for at least a week each, alone in a car, in the backcountry, on a crazy cross-country trip.

I spent a week in the desert with only my sister for company, backpacking in one of the most inhospitable places in the United States, the Grand Canyon. We took care of each other and helped each other make it through the desert heat, thunderstorms, and scorching climbs, and I am so happy I got to share that experience with her.

I got to go with Jared on two-week a cross-country road trip to see most of his extended family, meaning he had to spend days in a car with me. Our reward for making it through such a trip was getting married! I am so thankful to have Jared in my life, to go on crazy adventures, to come home to any time I go alone. I can't imagine life without him.

Once again this year I met Torrey at Pike's Peak in Colorado and somehow managed to convince her to backpack for a week in Rocky Mountain National Park. Not only did she spend  hours in a car with me, but only had me to hang out with while in the backcountry. We relied on each other to get us through tough mountain climbs, and we got to share the experince of being faced with a bear. I don't know who else I'd rather have to share those things with!

I am so thankful for these adventure with each of you, and can't wait until our next trip together!

My Adventure Buddies, Callie and Ghost

What would I do without my adventure buddies? My solo travels would be a whole lot less fun and fulfilling without my dogs! Callie is always ready for an adventure, so much so that when she hears my alarm go off early in the morning she is up and ready to go by the door just as soon as I let her out of the bedroom! Ghost is learning the whole camping business, but I am so thankful for his boundless energy and his trust in me. I can't wait to take him to some amazing places, with Callie right by my side too.

My New Family

If you missed it, I got married! I am so, so thankful for my new family. To be loved and accepted as an addition to their own family makes my heart swell, and I am thrilled to have been able to spend time with them this summer on our adventures up north. Having everyone there for Jared's and my marriage is something I will always cherish.

Trail Toes

This one is material, but you guys, I am so thankful for Trail Toes. This amazing product has kept my feet happy on every hike since August, and I no longer get blisters! Where a ten mile hike in four hours would normally have left me with massive, painful blisters on my toes and heels I got away with none! I've used this stuff on every hike since Torrey introduced me to it on our August backpacking trip in the mountains and couldn't be happier. If you run or hike a lot, check out Trail Toes at their website here and use the code BCyber12 to get a discount!

The Skills and Experience I've Gained 

A less quantifiable item, the skills and experince I've built up over my years of travelling have allowed me to push my limits and made backpacking possible. It took me two years from when I started travelling to work up the gear and courage to begin backpacking, and I still continue to learn new things with every trip I take. I am thankful for every lesson I've learned, the good and the bad, because they make me a better traveller, hiker, and backpacker.

There are many more things that I am thankful for, but this list hits my highlights for the last year. I am going to strive to remember everything I have to be thankful for, even in the face of challenges and difficulties that may come. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A Snapshot and The Scoop: A Grand Sunset

Our final view of the Grand Canyon came right at sunset. Alisha and I had finished up our forty mile backpacking adventure across the Grand Canyon that very day, and had stuck around to get in a few more views of the Big Ditch before we began our journey home. We, along with a hoard of other tourists, hung out at one of the canyon overlooks as the sun began to set, each one of us determined to see the canyon glow as the light died from the sky. The evening seemed to linger at first, but time seemed to speed up as the sun neared the horizon. In a few short minutes, it was over. The sun had diped below the distant canyon rim, the light faded quickly from the sky, and it was time for my sister and I to leave the Grand Canyon and all of its adventures behind. We'll be back, though, ready to take on another epic journey. Maybe next time we'll see the canyon from the river.

Leave me a comment below and tell me about an epic sunset you've witnessed. Where was it?

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Duck Rock

Do you see the duck perched at the top of this rock? There are some weird and amazing rocks in the Grand Canyon, and adults and children alike see shapes of familiar objects in them just as they would see shapes in the clouds. My sister and I were on our last day at the Grand Canyon, trying to soak in as many sights as we could while also trying to avoid walking or standing as much as possible, so we drove around the South Rim and made our way to the overlooks near sunset, including Duck Rock. Now, can anybody tell me the function of a rubber duck?

Leave me a comment and tell me that you got the Harry Potter reference. Please. I swear I'm not a nerd...

A Snapshot and The Scoop: The Brightest Night

There is just something about sleeping under the stars that speaks to a lot of people, and if you get the chance to sleep under the stars in an amazing place with some of the darkest skies around? Even better. Alisha and I had that chance on our Grand Canyon Adventure back in May, and our last night in the canyon was all the more beautiful for it. We had gone to bed with the occasional droplets of rain sprinkling the tent, but for some reason I woke up in the dead of night. Maybe it was the complete calm, which we hadn't had for three days. It could have also been the light; it was bright enough in the tent to see the outlines of my sister and our gear, and in my befuddled state I wondered what jerk was shining his headlights into our tent when we were clearly sleeping. I peeked out the ventilation window to take a look and was greeted by the clearest, brightest sky shot through with stars, and the cloudy Milky Way running across my field of vision. It was so amazing that I woke my sister up, wanting to share the brilliance of the night with her. It couldn't have been a better last night in the canyon.

Leave me a comment below and tell me, are you a star buff? Do you like star gazing?

A Snapshot and the Scoop: Sharing with Tadpoles

Whenever you backpack long enough to need to filter water, you just have to assume you'll be sharing your drinking water with something else. On our trip in the Grand Canyon Alisha and I had concrete proof that we were not the only ones using the water in the few streams we crossed . . . we were sharing it with a million tadpoles! Spring anywhere will bring the frogs and toads out of hibernation and to the water's edge to lay their eggs, and with enough time and the right conditions tadpoles hatch out and some of them grow up to be new frogs and toads. Well, every single stream that had any amount of water in it that my sister and I crossed while inside the canyon had tadpoles in it, which naturally meant we would be filtering our water in a space shared with tadpoles. We were extra careful not to suck up tadpoles into the filter, but it was fun and kind of cute to watch them wiggle around in their shallow environments. The certainly kept us entertained while we filtered!

Leave me a comment below and tell me if you ever caught tadpoles as a kid. Was it just me?

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Filtering Water

If you travel enough with me at one point or another I'm going to talk you into going on some crazy backpacking trip, and we're going to have to filter water. It's one of those chores of backpacking that is absolutely essential, but nobody wants to do it. My sister and I had to filter our water while on our backpacking adventure across the Grand Canyon, and we both learned a lot along the way. There are a multitude of different filtering systems available, but for our purposes a simple squeeze filter worked perfectly; all we had to do was fill the filter pouch up with water, attach the filter, and squeeze the clean water into our bottles and packs. We found out the hardest part of filtering was getting water into the pouch, and eventually figured out it is easier if you have running water that you can direct into the opening on the pouch instead of a pool of stationary water. The pouch, because you have to be able to squeeze it, lays flat when empty so getting water into a flat space proved difficult. We made it work in the end, and my sister became a pro at filtering water while I got the tent site ready and organized for our stay, or else packed up so we could get on our way. I'm sure that trip won't be the last time I use the filter!

Leave me a comment below and tell me if you've ever had to filter your water before. Why? Were you backpacking, or were you in a place that didn't have safe drinking water?

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Hot Pink

My sister's and my trek through the Grand Canyon was full of unexpected lessons and surprising sights, but one of the ones I was most delighted about was the abundance of cacti. You all know I love cacti, and I especially love the different colors cacti can have. Inside the canyon we found purple cacti, light green cacti, dark green cacti, little cacti that looked like ropes, cacti that looked more like a tree or shrub, and then we found cacti with hot pink spines. This picture doesn't do them justice at all. The spines were the brightest, hottest pink I've ever seen! I've got a cactus similar to this one at home, but its barbs are red, not the pretty pink like this. We saw them all over the place, and I couldn't help but notice them even in the haze of our own weariness. Flowers are great and all, but this girl loves cacti!

Leave me a comment below and tell me about the coolest cacti you've seen. Do you know what it's called? I want to know!

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Rafting the Grand Canyon

I know it's hard to see in this picture, but there are two rafts on the Colorado River! On our second day in the Grand Canyon my sister and I finally got an overlook of the river, still more than a thousand feet below us, and we were treated to a glimpse of a couple of river runners down on the river. I absolutely love white water rafting, and rafting the Colorado River has always been a dream of mine. Some day I'm going to save up enough to take a week-long rafting trip along the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. It's one of my bucket-list items!

Leave me a comment below and tell me if you'd be interested in rafting with me! Let's start planning!

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Unfiltered Water

Ok, everybody knows this: don't drink unfiltered water, especially when you're in the backcountry and you can't get help if you become sick. Alisha and I were on our second day of backpacking in the Grand Canyon when we passed this little waterfall in Cottonwood Canyon. Pretty, right? Cottonwood is one of the few permanent water sources inside the canyon. Anyway, as we were passing this place by two girls, who had also backpacked in the area the night before, came up to the waterfall. I assumed they were taking in the view as well, until I watched one of them dip her toothbrush into the trickle of water, put it in her mouth, and begin to brush her teeth. I'm pretty sure I gasped out loud. Now, a tiny bit of water on a toothbrush that you're most likely not going to swallow probably isn't going to make you sick, but why risk it? All it takes is one pathogen, one virus or bacteria, to make a trip miserable. Maybe I'm being overly critical or whatever, but I couldn't believe she had done that. Alisha and I always made sure we only drank filtered water, used filtered water for person hygiene, and we even filtered water before we used it to cook our meals, though boiling it for long enough would have served the same purpose.

Leave me a comment and tell me if I'm being harsh. Too cautious? Would you take the risk?

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Ruins in Cottonwood

Can you see them? There are two little granaries in this photo, both at about 1/3 of the picture from the left and right sides, in the center. Alisha and I were hiking out of Cottonwood Canyon on our second day of our Grand Canyon Adventure when we noticed the ruins of two granaries on a shelf above the canyon bottom opposite us. We debated a little bit about backtracking and walking down the canyon to check them out, but ultimately decided they were best viewed from a distance. I haven't been able to find any information about them, though if Lisha and I spotted them I'm sure someone else has. It was a neat little piece of history right there in front of us when we weren't looking for it!

Leave me a comment below and tell me about a time you found something interesting, historical or not, that you weren't looking for.

A Snapshot and The Scoop: When Does Trash Become History?

Did you know there are abandoned mines in the Grand Canyon? Actually it's not that uncommon for parks in the desert southwest to have a few abandoned mines located within their borders. The mine we stumbled across in the Grand Canyon just so happened to be a uranium mine... there were signs up all over the place cautioning against going further in a particular direction due to radiation. At what I assume was a safe distance from the mine we came across piles of old and rusted cans. Most seemed like food or drink cans but we also saw old fuel canisters and some other unidentifiable things, and it got me thinking: when does trash become historical artifacts? At what point does somebody go "no, we can't pick up that litter any more, it's part of history"? I mean clearly the metal cans above were thrown aside once they had served their purpose, and nobody back when the mine was in operation thought any more about them, but why should we care?

Leave me a comment below and tell me your views on this. Is stuff like this history? Or trash?

A Snapshot and The Scoop: First Look

When you think of the desert in late spring/early summer you usually think of blistering heat and no water. Alisha and I found the exact opposite on our trip to the Grand Canyon this May, and we were shocked at our first night in the National Park. It snowed. Seriously. Like, the little frozen white flakes that fall from the sky. We hadn't even been in the park for a minute before white flecks started covering the windsheild of the car, and when we got to the first overlook, our first view of the canyon, and got out while wearing the shorts and tank tops that had gotten us through our hike in Zion National Park that morning we both started shivering immediately. With the temperature around freezing and the windchill even colder, neither of us were prepared for the winter-like conditions we encountered on the rim. We didn't linger long at the first overlook, just long enough to snap a few pictures of the Grand Canyon on our first night in the park and see the river so many thousands of feet below us, before we all but ran back to the car and cranked the heat up. Temperatures between the rim and the inner canyon can differ as much as twenty degrees, and we knew that we would be warmer once we got into the canyon on our four day backpacking trip. I don't know about Alisha, but I couldn't wait for the heat.

Leave me a comment below and tell me about a time you experienced weather you weren't prepared for. Where were you? What happened?

Grand Canyon Adventure Day 4: The Ascent

Amazed. In many ways, our last day in the canyon seemed like the longest day, but also the shortest. We had several miles still to go when we woke up in Cremation Canyon and tore down camp, so we started as quickly as we could. We were both eager to get out of the canyon and sit down for a while without the prospect of more walking ahead of us, but I knew I was going to miss the trail; the lack of people and noise and distractions was incredibly appealing. Alisha and I still had a couple miles of rough trail to cross before we hit the South Kaibab Trail and our way up and out, and the two arms of Cremation Canyon we still had to scramble did not treat us kindly. The path was steep and loose, and we were tired. Everything ached and protested with each movement, and we didn't make as good of time as we had hoped.

That is, until we hit the more maintained South Kaibab Trail. We could see the trail rising up and out of the canyon from a ways off, and kept our eyes on it until we finally felt a smoother path beneath our feet. We stopped at the trail junction and rested, staring back across the landscape where we had come from and looking up at where we still had to go. There were several hikers already as low as we were, two miles and a thousand feet or more above the river, and they stopped for a chat before descending the rest of the way to Phantom Ranch along the banks of the Colorado River. They described a rough, steep trail above us, and some even advised hiking further to the other way out of the canyon, the Bright Angel Trail. Neither Alisha nor I wanted to hike more miles than necessary and we figured that we had already seen the worst of the trail, so we maintained our plan to hike up the South Kaibab. How bad could it be, really?

Compared to Grandview Trail and the remote, rugged Tonto Trail, the South Kaibab trail was a wide and paved highway. There were a lot of people on it, more than I thought there would be, and the crowds only got thicker the higher we climbed, but the trail was plenty wide enough to accommodate everyone. The South Kaibab is also the trail that runs mules up and down it between the rim and Phantom Ranch, and we got passed by at least three mule trains on our way up, two of them carrying supplies and one carrying visitors. We followed trail etiquette and stepped to the side, pausing as the mules passed us and exchanging polite hellos with the riders as they moved by.

Many people who stopped to chat said something about our backpacks, which almost always prompted a conversation about where we had hiked and how long we'd been out. When we told them what we had accomplished, that we had hike nearly 40 miles in four days across the barren desert, we could see their eyes grow round as they looked us up and down again. A lot of the women we talked to made exclaimation about how proud they were of us, total strangers, and how they wished they could do what we did. We got a lot of "you go girls!" and "wonder women!" from them all. The thing is though, nearly anybody could do what we did. Sure, there are some physical limits, but with the right gear and some experience there is nothing stopping anybody from achieving a hike like this. That being said, when Lisha and rounded the last few switchbacks on "The Chimney" and took our first steps over the rim of the Grand Canyon and were met by cheers and applause from the other hikers gathered there, some of whom we had told our story to on the trail below, I became overwhelmed. We had done something that we had been planning for months, something that we weren't sure we were up for, something that had felt impossible on several occasions both before we even got to the canyon, and once we were inside it. I couldn't help but cry, from relief, from happiness, from exhaustion, and from a hundred other emotions that I still don't have a name for. We had done it. We could do anything.

Want to read the whole Grand Canyon Adventure from start to finish? Day 1 Part 1 here, Day 1 Part 2 here, Day 2 here, and Day 3 here.

Grand Canyon Adventure Day 3: The Trudge

Grand. The third day of our adventure dawned bright and clear, the amount of water flowing in the stream the only indication that we had gotten rain the night before. We ate breakfast as we tore down camp and stopped at the stream to top off our water bottles before heading out; there was no guarantee of water for the rest of our hike. We struck out at a good pace over fairly level terrain, looping around the back two arms of Grapevine canyon before making our way down toward the inner gorge and the Colorado River. A half day's rest, even with the storm, had done wonders for our bodies and minds, and we were ready to take on anything else The Canyon could throw at us.

One of the bad things about hiking along the Grand Canyon is the number of  tributary canyons. Sure, these canyons are what provide water in the parched oven-like inner canyon, and yes, humans have used those canyons for thousands of years as a place of shelter, food, water, and rest (like we did) but having to constantly loop in and around those deep tributary canyons proved taxing, especially when you could see the trail on the other side of the abyss below your feet. We had learned the day before that talking helps the time pass quickly, so we cast around for any topic of conversation that occurred to us and ran with it. We also set ourselves goals, hiking two miles then taking a ten minute break, which made the thirteen miles we had to cover that day more managable. Instead of sloping mesas and steep cliffs we mostly hiked on rolling terrain that, while fairly featurless, allowed thousands of cacti and thorny desert shrubs to take root. We had to navigate prickly pear cactus fields carefully, or risk coming out of one with blood running down our legs.

Around nine miles in our pace began to slow and we started to lose time. Our conversations became more forced, with longer pauses between topics as we drifted off into our own heads before one of us snapped back with the realization that we needed to keep talking or risk becoming miserable. We passed into a small side canyon called Boulder, where we came across what turned out to be the last water source on our hike. Luckily we topped off while we rested next to the cool stream, discussing camping there some day whenever we healed from this trip years in the future. Eventually we moved on, slowly, our ankles swollen and throbbing. My blisters weren't too bad, and I was glad I had tended to them the night before in Grapevine. My main concern were my knees and ankles. My sister, however, was having trouble with her feet. For her own reasons she chose to hike forty miles within the walls of the Grand Canyon in Chacos. Chacos. Like, the open toed sandals that are fine around camp, but for hiking? Yes, they are marketed as hiking sandals, but I don't think the company really intended them to be used to hike forty miles in rough desert terrain while carrying a forty pound pack on your back. Her feet might have been worse off in her actual hiking boots, but her feet were in rough enough shape in the Chacos to make her miserable. I was so irritated with her when I realized they were the only shoes she had, but to her credit we maintained the same pace together for the entire hike, and I'm pretty sure my ankles and knees hurt just as much as her feet, so we were reasonably well matched. 

The last two miles felt like twenty. There were plenty of times I just wanted to call it, sit down, take my pack off, and stay wherever we were for the night. We didn't give in though, and made one last push into the ominously named Cremation Canyon, the site of our last camp for the trip. We made an effort to find a somewhat sheltered spot next to a boulder, though we weren't high enough above the wide, dry creek bed for my liking. We set up our gear, still damp from the night before, and stretched our legs and feet as we heated water for dinner. We ate quickly, retiring to the now-dried tent when the wind picked up and rain threatened, though thankfully we only got sprinkles. I woke up in the middle of the night to perfect calm with a light bright enough to see dim silhouettes of my sister and our gear diffusing into our tent through the outter rainfly. I opened the small window vent to peer out and was greeted by the brightest stars I've ever seen, shot through with a swirling cloud that could only have been the Milky Way. Our final night in the canyon couldn't have been better. 

Did you miss Day 1 and Day 2? Read about them here, here, and here.

National Backpackers Day

Commemorative. You know, my hobby sure has a lot of days to celebrate. There's National Trails Day, National Parks Week, The National Park System Birthday, National Public Lands Day, and National Backpacker's Day. Am I missing any? Probably. Why should we celebrate days that are dedicated to the outdoors? If you're reading this blog you already know my answer, but to refresh your memory we should celebrate the outdoors because being outside is healthy; it is good for our mental and physical wellbeing; the outdoors provide so many opportunites for recreation including hiking, biking, boating, paddling, hunting, and fishing; and the outdoors brings everybody together in ways that an office party can't, nevermind the cultural and historical significance preserved in the outdoors and the fact that we need resources from outside to survive. Today we are celebrating something a little more exclusive, something relatively few people compared to the general population have ever wet their toes in. Today, we celebrate backpacking, and the kickass people who do it.

Why would anybody want to strap their entire life to their back and walk a bunch of miles? Every single person has a different reason for backpacking, and I can't speak for them, but I can tell you my reasons for backpacking with the hope that maybe you'll find a reason to backpack at least once and try it out yourself. I backpack because the world isn't contained along the sides of a highway, and to really see I need to get out on a trail and explore. I backpack to find solitude or companionship, depending on if I take someone with me or fly solo. I backpack to test myself, to push past my limits that end up being mostly mental though I have found a few physical limits as well. I backpack to relax and get away from life and stress and my problems that shrink to nothing when I'm on the trail and the only thing I need to do is focus on packing well, putting one foot in front of the other, and make sure I'm at a good campsite before the storm hits. Trail life is simple, but presents challenges in ways that make you grow as a person. You learn to double check your packing list before you leave home, because if you forget your fuel canister you either eat cold food or go hungry. You learn to pitch your tent on a slight incline to keep water from pooling under you when it rains. You learn the value of something when you have to decide if you want to carry it with you, if it is really worth the weight. You learn that the best heat source on a cold night is a dog crammed into your sleeping bag with you, because damn they are warm. So many lessons on the trail that you would never learn if you stay at home.

To celebrate National Backpackers Day I've made a list of my favorite backcountry campsites, all requiring you to strap on what you need to stay in the wilderness for a night or more and hoof it into the middle of nowhere. No cell service, no electricity, no cars, and very few other people, if any. In no particular order, enjoy!

Copper Breaks State Park, Texas

If you're looking for solitude this tiny state park near the Texas/Oklahoma state line delivers like a ton of bricks. They only have a handfull of established campsites and offer just a couple of backpacking permits per night, ensuring you will pretty much have the park to yourself. The trail to the backcountry area isn't long, only about a mile and a half, but you feel like you've walk twenty miles into the middle of nowhere with the lack of noise around you. Fall asleep on a ledge above a small gully listening to the coyotes yip around you as the stars bloom in the deep sky above. Bonus points: you can bring your dog.

Little Medano Campsite, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Presesrve, Colorado

The hike to this backcountry site is not easy, requiring five miles of walking on loose sand, even if you walk on the somewhat packed-down primitive road, but the hike plus how the national park spaces out their backcountry sites all but guarantees you'll have a prime site for watching the sun set over the sand ramp and a good shot at seeing wildlife. There are numerous bears in the preserve portion of the park, so using a hang bag or a bear canister is required. We didn't see one while we were out there, but it wasn't for a lack of trying.

South Llano River State Park, Texas

This pretty little backcountry area has five "established" sites to choose from, once you make the two mile hike to get here. One of the few backcountry sites to provide picnic tables, it is a beautiful place to lounge around under the shade of cottonwood trees while the evening settles in around you. Make sure to get there early and you might see hummingbirds flitting around in the afternoon light while armadillos wake up for a night of foraging. Bonus points: Dogs allowed!

Grapevine Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

There is no easy way to get to this backcountry site, which requires at least ten miles of walking before you can call it a night. Usually done as the second night of a four day trek along the Grand Canyon, Grapevine retains its water flow through May and sometimes into mid-June. Water is life in the desert, so don't be surprised if you share your site with another hiker or two (though we had the whole canyon to ourselves when we went), and maybe some mule deer or coyotes. The stream is full of tadpoles during spring, though they grow up fast before their home dries up. A word of caution: never camp at the bottom of a canyon, wash, or gully in the desert unless you are certain it won't rain anywhere within 40 miles of your location. Flash floods come up fast and without warning even if it isn't raining where you are. 

Sea Rim State Park, Texas

Who doesn't love the sound of waves crashing in a rhythmic beat against the shore? If you can brave the mosquitoes (with the help of lots and lots of bug spray) a stay along the beach at this state park is well worth the effort to get here. While you can drive along the beach to a point, and those with four wheel drive capabilities can drive even further, you can also load up your backpack and walk to any site on the five miles of beach that suites your fancy. You aren't allowed to camp on the grass-covered dunes, but you wouldn't want to anyway; alligators and wild hogs call them and the salty wetlands the dunes protect home. Sunrises and sunsets above the gulf are like nothing else on earth.

Dune field, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado

Everybody wants to play in a giant sand box, and when you can camp in it? Even better. The play of light and shadow among the thirty square mile dune field makes staying the night even more dramatic, just be sure to stay up long enough to catch the sunset over the dunes and wake up early enough to watch the sand begin to glow with the morning light. The hike into the dune field is strenuous, and adding a pack doesn't help. Most people don't cross the first ridge of dunes and that is considered the day use area, so you are required to hike well beyond that before you can call it a night. Give yourself plenty of time to reach your site, but if you do hike in the dark a headlamp is a must. Just be sure to get off the dunes fast if there is an approaching thunderstorm, you truly are the tallest thing out there.

Cottonwood Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

As one of the few permanent water sources within the canyon walls Cottonwood Canyon is a popular backpacking destination, and is easy enough to reach for a single overnight. That doesn't mean you should pass over it though. In the desert, with water comes beauty, and Cottonwood is well named for its abundant cottonwood trees, as well as junipers and other desert flora. The hike into the canyon is not easy, however, and there are signs and rangers everywhere reminding people that going down into the canyon is optional but coming back up is mandatory. 

What do you think? Can you handle staying in a place like one of those mentioned above? Backpacking really doesn't take a special kind of person, it just takes someone willing to try something new with the possibliltiy of learning a few lessons along the way. There are bad things about backpacking, sure, like the bugs and the heat (or cold), the distance from help if you get into trouble, or the possibility of running in to angry wildlife, but the benefits of backpacking far outweigh the risks. I taught myself how to backpack, devouring every book, magazine, article, and blog I could get my hands on before I felt ready enough to try it on my own, and even now I am tweaking my technique every time I load up for a new trip. Lucky for you, I've got most of the hard part figured out and am more than happy to bring newcomers along for a night or two under the stars. I've somehow managed to talk a couple of my friends and my sister into accompanying me on backpacking adventures, and they keep coming back for more so I can't be scaring them off too badly. Congratulations ladies, this day if for you as well! Want to join our ranks and give backpacking a shot? Let me know! In the meantime, Happy National Backpackers Day!

Grand Canyon Adventure Day 2: The Storm

Tense. My sister and I woke up refreshed. We had gone to bed near the bottom of the Grand Canyon before the light had faded from the sky and woke up with dawn ready for a new day. We weren't in a rush to get going, hiking just under six miles to our next camp, but we also didn't linger. First up on the chore list was filtering water out of the little stream next to where we camped, which was a learning experience for both of us. Neither of us have filtered water before, though I had been carrying a filter with me ever since I began to travel and hike; I've practiced in the kitchen sink, of course, but it is a bit different when you're getting water from a wild stream. We were slow and clumsy but we left Cottonwood Creek with full water bottles and higher spirits, though we knew we were leaving our only guaranteed water source in the next three days. The hike along Cottonwood Canyon was pleasant as we followed the stream on its way to meet the Colorado River, though we found ourselves on a bench well above the bottom of the tributary canyon before we knew it. We soon passed into the main corridor of the Big Ditch, and then we felt the wind.

The force of the gusts almost knocked us over, and our big forty pound packs sailed like ships. We struggled to stay upright and keep our feet under us as the wind seemed to come at us from the side no matter which way we turned. We took more breaks than either of us would have liked as we were still sore from the day before and we were trying to protect ourselves from the gusts that threatened to knock us off the trail. It didn't help that Day 2 showed us our most exposed portions of the entire trail, sometimes taking us so close to the edge that we could glance to our right shoe and see hundreds of feet below. The trail led us to slivers of soft sandstone covered in loose gravel, barely more than two feet wide, with an overhanging cliff on one side and a drop into nothing on the other that had us crouching against the cliff in a desperate hope of finding a handhold. In the midst of our anxiety about falling we finally saw the river! We had seen the Colorado River from the rim when we arrived at The Canyon, but hadn't seen it since we started on our big hike. Now, still more than a thousand feet above it, we could see the deep green river as it carved its path among the sandstone layers of the inner gorge. It was this inner gorge that we would follow for the next two days, though with many meanderings as we looped around deep side canyons until they were shallow enough to cross.

The hike to Grapevine Canyon and our stop for the night seemed to drag by, even though it was our shortest day of hiking by far and we knew an entire afternoon of rest awaited us if we could just get there, but we were exhausted and every gust of wind seemed to suck more strength out of us. After rounding the millionth steep slope of the canyon mesas we looked down onto a welcome sight: a patch of bright green still some distance below but unmistakably some sort of tree or shrub. Grapevine was near! As we got closer we could see the flash of sun reflected from the bottom of the small canyon, telling us we were going to be able to refill our water bottles again that night. We didn't have the energy to run the rest of the trail down into the canyon but we still put as much spring into our limps as we could while negotiating the steep trail. We took some time deciding on a camp site for the night, exploring a bit along the canyon bottom before deciding on a place to call home. Part of me wanted to find the perfect spot, secluded and away from any potential neighbors yet high enough above the water to keep us safe from any flash flooding that might occur if it rained up-canyon, and the other part of me wanted to do it right. We hadn't looked for a good spot the night before but had dropped our packs at the first place we found, and we had passed up other sites that were prettier. If we were going to spend the rest of the afternoon in Grapevine Canyon I wanted it to be perfect. 

Grapevine, as it turned out, was smaller than Cottonwood and our options were a bit limited, but I picked the spot that best suited us and called it good. We set up camp slowly, not in any hurry, and took time to stretched our sore muscles. The stream wasn't far off and we brought our lunch with us as we found a shallow pool to soak our aching feet and ankles in, sighing in relief as the cool water washed away the day's dirt. We found ourselves sharing the stream with a million tadpoles and entertained ourselves watching them wiggle around the little pools and eddies while we ate. After a while we left the stream to stretch out next to our tent, trying to loosen our bodies up and stay off our feet as much as possible. I also needed to sort out my feet; two days of walking had wrecked havoc on my heels and toes and I had massive blisters that I had left alone the night before, but had decided on the hike to Grapevine that I needed to do something about them. I could hardly walk the way they were. Thankfully I carry a first aid kit and set to work on my feet, hoping I wasn't doing more damage than good. They still needed to get me twenty more miles up and out of The Canyon. While absorbed in my work I failed to notice the sky was darkening and the clouds were getting thicker; I brushed of the first few drops of water thinking it was sweat. Alisha and I sat up at the same time, however, and instantly became aware that we were in for a storm. We rushed around camp, picking up our scatter belongings and tossing them haphazardly into the tent as the sprinkles became a little harder and a little more persistent. We ducked into the tent just in time for the skies to open up above us, scrambling to zip the rainfly doors shut behind us. The first shower didn't last long, and that was a good thing: in our rush to get into the tent we had thrown everything in to it before us and were sitting on top of it all. During a break in the rain Alisha went to filter water, knowing we might not get a chance in the morning, and I stayed inside to arrange our living space. It looked like we would be spending our time at Grapevine trying to stay dry.

Alisha hadn't been back inside the tent long before the storm hit. We had heard thunder echoing off the cliffs around us but it had been a distant threat, something to think about and hope that it wasn't coming for us. Now, however, the storm blew up around us and we were exposed; there was nothing like a shelter anywhere within running distance, and we were painfully aware that we had picked a site way too close to the stream. Thunder rolled around us as flashes of lightning threw the contents of the tent into sharp relief. Wind and buckets of rain buffeted the tent and I found myself hoping that the tent would stay staked in the ground, that the poles wouldn't snap above us, that we wouldn't get hit by a random bolt of lightning. We both sat upright in the tent, hugging our knees to our chest and staring straight ahead into nothing without talking; we were both listening intently for the telltale roar of a flash flood, though how we hoped to hear it over the peals of thunder and the drum of rain I had no idea. Eventually, gradually, the storm blew itself out of our small canyon and continued across the inner gorge to bother people on the other rim. We listened to the echoing booms of thunder as it rolled away from us, giving way to a soft tattoo of rain. Just as slowly as the storm moved away we became less afraid of flash flooding, though we knew by the sound of the creek that it had risen quite a bit. We didn't bother getting wet to find out how high it was though, but drifted off to sleep listening to the stream running over little waterfalls and the patter of gentle rain on the tent canvas.

Did you miss Day 1 of the Grand Canyon Adventure? Ready Part 1 here and Part 2 here.