Episode 4 - The High and Low of poor descisions

We all looked forward to it, the magical day of Sunday finally came. We all collected in the parking lot late in the morning. Now last time I mentioned that our adventures have become more popular, it’s getting a little extreme now. The final count for today’s journey is at 17 this is amazing it’s also amazing that we got them all into three vehicles.

Before we get too far into today let me give you a little background. At heart I am a twelve year old boy. I like toys, I like to do stupid things and I especially like to do stupid things with toys. As I get older the toys really just get more expensive; cars computers fancy electronics that I don’t really need but I like to buy. But some toys are timeless. Today’s examples are Nerf guns. now nerf has come a long way since I was actually twelve, but they are still as amazing to me now as they were way back then and yes I still take them apart to see how they work and "make them better". Well several of us have purchased what would equal a small arsenal if you put them all together, many weapons and hundreds of sticky darts.

So the pretense of today’s adventure is a full on nerf war in a ghost town. For our town fatman has selected Frisco, UT. It is an abandoned mining town well out of the way. Perfect for the trouble we are looking to cause.

Anyway, back to the beginning pack them all in including rev. pappy keeping two white girls in his trunk and having a guy in back dressed like a Columbian drug lord. Yes it is a normal Sunday for us. We gas up and fatman carefully make his candy selection choosing non other than the famous three musketeers bar. We take off. On our way I remark to fatman that really we should be charging people for these adventures. People do remember to always at least tip your drivers... we make a side stop at the petro glyphs.

Now petro glyphs are pretty amazing if you care about history or are even remotely interested in people that were here hundreds of years before you and your cell phone. If you don’t know what petro glyphs are they are petrified writing and objects and really it just looks like a group of school children were having picture time on the rocks. I find it really amazing, and just think hundreds of years from now people will read the shit we write on walls, that is assuming that the apocalypse doesn’t wipe everything off the face of the planet first. It could happen. But just think about that before you write some really stupid shit onto a rock... back in the car.

we have a nice drive for a little over an hour visit some nice towns, and by nice I mean they raise farmers and serial killers, one gas station and no traffic lights I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the town still had outdoor plumbing. There were some beautiful views of small mountain ranges to go with the horrible views of desolate godforsaken wasteland. Eventually fatman being our driver makes the statement "ok, it’s somewhere on our right, but I never see it until after I pass it." I think these would be the worst directions to ever give someone, unless you don’t want them to get there. What do you know we pass a dirt driveway and hear "that was it". So we circle the wagons and head down the dirt road of death. As we pull in we see an amazing sight, broken down buildings, rock and mud huts crumbling away. And the trash people didn’t or couldn’t take with them and time just hasn’t destroyed yet. 'nam gives me an excellent tip "those rock huts with holes in them... ya don’t climb on the roof." apparently there was an incident he might have been part of on a previous excursion here.

In the "town" part of this ghost town there is a single room building, some large drum looking contraption, and four of these mud hut things. We take a quick look around and the nerf guns are brought into town. cougar-bait even brought the nerf bow and arrow. Before war there are sights to be seen, a road leads off to the left being to the mud/rock huts. Now I can’t really speak much about other people’s experiences because with a group this large I do what comes natural I sneak off into the hills and don’t tell anyone where I’m going. But I do have a small hand radio with me we were using them for communication in-between cars on our way out "in case someone got lost". the irony I realized and pointed out to others was the radios are small enough that if one of the cars did get lost they would most likely be out of range of the radios, but they were fun to talk between cars and count the number of signs that had been previously attacked by a shotgun, I believe the final toll was ten. Yep we came to a classy place.

Now I take off into the hills with a radio, hike up for a while and find some really nice views over the town and surrounding area. There are mountain ranges in the distance, some small mountains to the southwest. I get out my monocular to take a better look off in the distance; I spot the mining area in that same small mountain. Several buildings and such. I continue moving around, climbing over a couple of different hills. I stop with a nice view thru my monocular of the rock mud huts and see the large group moving in pieces up the roads towards them I have myself a bit of water and continue to watch them and also look around. They spent a while in that area and some small gunfights did happen to break out. Mostly it was rookie being ambushed by three or more people. the best one was when he ran for the fence and tripped right before it, once he was laying on the ground his attackers pounced and I almost felt bad for him being shot that many times. I decide to move again. Next time I can see them they are all moving back towards the rest of the town, I try to raise someone on the radio. Dead air. Well I couldn’t be the only person to bring one of the radios with me could I??? The answer was yes. Well screw them, I continue on my personal journey. At the top of the next hill I try the radio again and still nothing. There are some worriers in the group so I decide it would be a good idea to make some sort of contact with the group but I am way too stubborn to actually walk back there just to tell them I’m ok. I had used my compass earlier to get my bearings and the lid of it has a signal mirror and while this isn’t an emergency it is a fine use of it. I spot fatman, besides being one of the biggest people in the group he was wearing an awesome hat that you just couldn’t miss (if you don’t know I’m actually a big fan of hats as long as they are not onstage)... anyway I use the mirror properly and get his attention, I chose him because I knew he had binoculars and that was the only way he was going to see me at the distance. We waved and I continued my personal hike.

Just so we are clear I don’t recommend going off on your own in the middle of the desert, there are numerous things that could go wrong; snakes, spiders, rockslides, psychotic episodes, hillbillies. If you do, at least tell someone in your group where you have gone. Mostly to save them time searching for your body. This reminds me that I came down one hill and found a nice flat spot; I look around and start to notice those snake holes again. I start across in my destination on the theory that it’s too hot out here for cold blooded animals, and then the ground collapses a little bit under my foot. Well, I don’t wait around to see if I woke any little friends from there holes. I kick up my pace and find a new place to be.

Finally someone picks up a fucking radio. I ask what the plan is and if the plan could involve picking me up if it’s going somewhere I’m not. We rendezvous on a dirt road. Supposedly we were meeting near some kind of graveyard but I never saw one. We unload out of the cars again, this time we leave the nerf behind. I like that most people got more into the journey than the nerf war. Anyway most of the group head straight for what we will call the mining town. I stay behind, of course I do. Fatman bearfood and cougar-bait do the same we take the road less traveled. I find my first shotgun shell of the adventure and then another. We climb some large hills with spectacular views across the wastelands and to the mountains many miles away. During this time we notice a white minivan being a real creeper. Stopping then moving slow then drive away then turn around and do it again. They had a nice mugger/kidnapper vibe. Since we didn’t find a box of gold on our own we meet up with the rest of the group, sort of. Up a trail and around a bend is the mine itself. I don’t know if there were more of them around. Dilapidated building and old mining structures dot the landscape. Sensible people would say "hell no I’m not going in there", but we adventurous people say "oooh what could be down there???” to be honest i didnt climb my giant ass down the small hole, not for fear of it collapsing but mainly for two reasons; first i would have been at the back of the line and second because it looked like is was dug by i rare breed of midget that couldnt hit a normal person in the head with his pickaxe. This was also demonstrated later by some of the structures they had built here with five foot tall doorways.

Bear food and I take off up a hill made almost entirely of loose sharp rock. I find it amazing that my classification of hill has changed since living in Utah, what I used to call hills I think I will now call mounds of dirt. We scramble near the top of it roughly one hundred fifty feet or so. The view is almost indescribable. And so I’m not going to. We were actually trying to see what the view over the back side of this small mountain range looked like. unfortunately it would have taken us at least another half an hour or more and we noticed the group departing from the mine and headed back down except fatman, snakebite, and LPB (little pink backpack) they headed a different way and I applaud that. bearfood and I find another way down our slippery slope avoiding making a nice face plant in a cactus a couple of time we meet up. On our way back we investigated a couple of small buildings and some rocks but make it back. To celebrate the end of the journey fatman takes a shower of cream soda. Hey whatever does it for you I guess....

instead of stopping at one of the couple e.coli farms on our way back we go to a nice reputable restaurant. And yes I was that guy firing nerf darts out of the back window of a moving car at the car behind us.

In the end I covered probably only four miles. I would like to go back again and spend more time investigating the area. But I got to see some wildlife, rabbits and lizard and such I also took in some amazing views. I call it a success!

Shit you should bring with you

There is only one thing that is mandatory....Water! You are in the desert, you need to drink water.
I recommend a few things though because you never know when something will go wrong, or you might wind up lost or separated from the group.

1. Water - yes it is that important. I also like a camelbak because it gives you pockets to carry other things in.

2. A knife - I'm not talking about Rambo’s combat knife but something sharp and functional I just bring a folding Gerber. It is lightweight and sharp. If you think you should bring a knife to fight a bear off you should really read about how to deal with bears. For the most part you would just make a regular bear into an angry bear.

3. A first aid kit -(really only the group leader needs one but I always bring a small one of my own) like a couple other things I will mention, this item is useless if you don't know how to use it properly.

4. A compass - I bring a nice compass with signal mirror with me, to get my bearings before wandering off. The signal mirror is really useful for letting people know where you are even from miles away.

5. a snack - especially if you are doing a hike where you stop and backtrack once at the end of it its really nice to hit that stopping point and take a break have some munchies or jerky or whatever you like. It makes the hike back a lot nicer.

6. A camera - it’s always nice to document your journeys. Looking back on them and remembering the good times you had adventuring. Remember extra memory or film and also batteries.

7. A flashlight - I prefer a headlamp version it keeps your hands free. I find this piece to be important because you never know where adventure will call you into dark places.

8. a good attitude - you are supposedly doing this to have a good time, and a bad attitude will not only make the trip for you more painful, but probably sour the experience for the others traveling with you as well.
In general experience will tell you other things you would like to have with you. You will develop your own style of hiking. I also bring a bandanna a garbage bag for my own and other peoples as well (leave no trace), a pair of sunglasses and I carry a backup pair (UV damage is real people), a pair of binoculars or I like the monocular mostly because it’s lighter weight.

Introduction

My name is Eric, from now on known as smoker. after a couple of great hikes FatMan and i have decided to share our adventures and our views with you. at this point im going to assume i know you or at least you know me or someone involved, because why else would you be reading this??? If you really appreciate our writing we accepts gifts of all kinds our favorites are baked goods or anything deep fried, especially sweet potato fries... i write for the enjoyment of myself and believe it or not english is my only true language.

i hope you enjoy the read and if you dont, i dont care!!!

Warning!!! i swear and say uncalled for things if i offend you then please stop reading...

Episode 3 - Sausage wagon goes to the Narrows

Sunday morning comes and there were special plans in the works, we meet up and pile into cars to head off to Zion national park. The popularity of our adventures continues to grow and this time we take lucky number 13 people with us. This is three cars worth.

A special note, from now on you must earn a nickname by doing something extraordinary, this could be from something amazing or something terribly stupid. In a couple of cases it might not be related to hiking at all. The real reason is that I’m lazy. Unless I get something from it, I have trouble doing it and naming that many people sounds like work and doesn’t offer me much. Deal.

So as the cars pile up we look around and realize that in fatman's car there are four of us; myself (yes I come first) fatman, dick dick, and half a smoker. This car is now deemed sausage wagon. After half a smoker finally gets his shoes we are on our way. We stop by the local cesspool of commercialism and try to go. 'nam finally drags his sorry ass out of bed so someone goes to get him but this is where some pure genius is born (more on that later). On a side note today’s candy is a pair of peanut butter cups. I believe it was stated "these will make great shots later. We are now off and running. This car trip flies by as it is filled with penis jokes and the best horrible stories we want to share. A new (at least new to me) term is coined K.W.T. (kittens with titanium).

We arrive early afternoon and begin our walk. Its hot today, a real scorcher, but we only have to walk to a shuttle and head to the last shuttle stop in Zion. We prepare ourselves at the top of the trail and hike on down. On our way I decide to see who would be interested in a lottery pool about how many times bearfood will be falling down. It’s a pretty short walk and soon we are at a river. WITH A TON OF OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE!!! But what can you do?

We plunge into the river. It’s cold and has a pretty good current, but we are young and dumb and there is no match for that. Now we quickly realize that this trip makes kanarraville look like kids play. Which now I realize it was. This river is much stronger and filled with larger rocks to trip over. There are so many people at the beginning of the trip that it sort of ruins the views a little. I like to go places not everyone goes and everyone was definately here. But after about the first quarter mile the pack thins out and we leave the fathers with infants in carriers on their back walking in the river behind us. Also I have noticed how many people don’t come prepared for this, people it’s not a day at the beach. For a while we cross the river in and out of the water is actually a great hike with the exception of trying to break my ankles in-between rocks. some of the highlights include; nam getting stuck in the mud and after snakebite couldn’t pull him out, I go to help and it took some real effort, we took turns finding out how deep the pools off to the side were, most of the girls being horrified by the carcass of some former animal off to the side, finding a great couch in the middle of the river, and lest I forget the cliffs that climb up a thousand feet while only being fifty feet wide and the waterfalls that we must scale.

We get to a fork and have to make a choice; we break and wait for the whole group to arrive. I take a little time and investigate both sides. The left looks actually more beautiful to me but also looks deeper and more strenuous, since we have traveled a couple of miles we decide on the right (the easier one) and fatman says it has better views. For a while it’s a slow trickle of a river but opens back up and picks up pace. There are some beautiful views really amazing things. We cover a couple of small waterfalls, fun little climbs. Head another mile or so in and decide we have traveled far enough overall because it will just continue on farther than we are prepared to travel on this day.

We turn back, bearfood and I are in the lead and traveling at my pace and are making good time. After about a mile and a half we decide to wait for a little while. Wait a little more. Ok I’m getting impatient. then finally what do I see which I knew was coming, but none other than fatman, dick dick, and half a smoker traveling down the river on the inflatable rafts which were purchased earlier. It was truly amazing. As it turns out they spent two dollars on small inflatable tubes except fatman who went with the recliner and they were now sailing their fleet down the river. They inflated them at the fork in the path and rode about ninety percent of the river on them including over small waterfalls and into or around large rocks. By the end they were banged and bruised but had an amazing time on the best two dollars they have ever spent.

Everyone had a good time, total distance was approximately five miles and four of it was unbelievable . So you know bearfood only fell down eight times. We then trekked out still wet and made it back to the car. We had our now standard post Zion trip to Oscars for too much amazingly great food.

On our way back home there was a beautiful storm over the mountains in the distance, what a great way to end the day...

Episode 2 - is there really snow in this canyon?

The answer is a resounding NO!

On a scorching sunday afternoon we decide on the most logical course of action. we pile in cars drop down a few thousand feet and head into the desert. we head to a place called snow canyon, apparently its named after a person and not the weather there. you might ask what would bring us to such a place? i will tell you, LAVA CAVES!!!

Our adventures are gaining popularity, today we take a pair of cars to keep our travelers with us. with us we have Rev. Pappy, 'Nam, HC, Snakebite, and little pink backpack.

today is a historic day for us as it starts the candy tradition. this began with a kitkat bar purchased at the local "sellout america but act like were a patriotic superstore". on the trip down it sat in the car and melted a bit. this doesnt become apparent until we arrive. there is only one course of action apprioate for our descision making skills, leave it on the dash as we go hiking in 110+ degree heat. yes it rocked!

so we start away from the cars and hike down into the desert scrubland, cacti assault us as the heat pounds down, but we march on. i like this cause it makes us sound way more badass than we actually are. instantly i start sweating, what can i say im a sweater, a wool plaid sweater. so as we travel there is a beautiful landscape of mountains out in front of us. we come up on the first cave. now what i see is a big black fucking crater covered in hot sharp rock.

we discover two ways into this cavern a larger way that takes a little climbing which most of us go for but not fatman, nope fatman invokes rule 7 and finds the other way, a small hole he must squeeze his ass into. we head deeper into the cavern bust out our lights and move deeper in. as soon as we get out of the sunlight the temperature begin to drop. once fully in the cave it has probably dropped a good 40 degrees. after the first section we get to a climb down point, its right about here i wonder if we will ever see fatman again he has not resurfaced so i back track a touch and he walks up i still to this day dont know what hole he climbed out of but i wish i was there to laugh at him when he did. anyway we now have a full party again, traverse down this climb point, now snakebite who has been thru here before finds a much more difficult way to climb down. we pass over some friendly grundling rocks and eventually come upon a larger cavern, this is where this leg ends. we hang out for a few minutes take a couple pictures and spread out to have everyone shutoff their lights. now this is the kind of dark even space cant offer, your balance goes to shit cause the floor is uneven you cant see, and every little sounds echoes off of the walls, it was awesome. lights back on and we head out. i trail behind like i always do one because i like to look around and two because i dont like traveling in big groups. i realize again that fatman has fallen behind, so i go back to look for him. i find him standing in the middle of the carvern still just looking around. its at this point that i start to wonder about airflow in an underground cavern and all of the people that have used this air before us. in looking at fatman man i was getting pretty sure he was going batshit crazy due to oxygen deprivation and i was going to have to drag his crazy ass out of here. as it turns out i was wrong and he was just staring in amazement at the wonder that nature can do, being all philosophical and shit. so i decide to philosophize with him for a bit, once done we decide its best to fuck with the people who have finally realized we are both missing by screaming like we were in a "b" horror movie. "ITS GOT FATMAN!!!!!" "OH MY GODDDDDdddddd" "SAVE YOURSELVES!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!" shit like that. it entertains us for another minute and we head out. nothing eventful happens untl we get back to the entrance people start finding the way back up and fatman has to once again prove he did actually fit thru his own tunnel. i think we should have put up an ownership sign for him cause noone else would choose that way or the relativly easy climb right next to his "tunnel". the rest of us call dibs for who gets to climb out last, back into the scorching heat, not because we dont want to move on but more because some people are slow climbers and we didnt want to be standing in the sun baking and waiting for the others. im second to last out followed by snakebite. back into the heat.

we look for the next cave, and find it.

climb on in, this one is shorter than the other but is larger on the inside, we play around for a bit finding holes to crawl into cause im sure nothing else could be living in these holes right??? i go about looking for a couch to take a nice little break and find one. fatman finds a hole in the back of this cave and of course needs to crawl his candy eating ass into it. its so small that we have to drop our packs to get in it. its a cool little place, the entrance is a slide that you have to go into forwards slide down right into a large sharp pointy rock that tries to eat your face! this cavern is fairly small and again we search it out people drop into holes that seem to connect under us. nam pink backpack and fatman man are all doing so. snakebite and i decide to look up we see some large cracks above us and that we have entered we are guessing an unstable cavern. we decide to leave... hc is still in the entryway, i impaitenly wait and scramble out of the rock closet of death as we are hanging out to see if the others die. we see another very large rock precariously hanging from the ceiling. this was cave #2. on out way out we decide to take a few pics and play in shit, no literally shit, that is probably covered in hanta virus. then we leave.

these are the two big caves our trip leaders are aware of so since there is no more cimbing down to do we decide to do a rock scramble, and we all find different paths up a large rock and by large i mean roughly 100-150' tall. wide in different parts we hang out on it for a bit, snakebite fails at falling off the rock at least im pretty sure thats what she was trying to do. then i see one of the most beautiful things of the trip. a storm system starts rolling in over the mountains in the distance, i watch for a while as the wind starts to pick up. we decide to head back and the wind picks up even more but we are in no imminent danger. most follow the winding trail back towards the car, but not me. i decide to strike out on my own across the scorching wilderness, fatman decides he cant let me die in the wilderness alone so off we go. to both die... this is actually really fun climbing over loose piles of lava rock and avoiding cactus patches, it turned into a nice little hike. now i have seen snake holes before and i can usually identify them from just some random hole in the ground. well as we are walking along we find a nice flat spot and i see one and then another and another i realize we are now standing in the middle of 12+ of these snake holes we decide to leave before finding out wether they were occoupied or not. the rest of the hike out is pretty uneventful.

i was doing some reading over the next couple of days and it turns out the rattlesnakes that populate that area are nocturnal. the funny part is an hour later was sunset. good timing on our part i think!

back at the car fatman investigates his soup that has been brewing for the last couple of hours, and right now i think it might be a nice wafer bisque, but for best soup options he decides to break the wafers down like crackers in chili. i didnt witness him eat it but im sure it was delicious.

In the End this wasnt much of a hike but was a really fun desert playground adventure.

Episode 1 - Shit i almost died a couple times!

our first and defining episode we decide to take on angels landing!

so in preparation for this hike that we all know is going to be rough anyway, we take some time and get ourselves together on saturday night, AT THE BAR!!! after getting good and drunk the night before and getting not nearly enough sleep we embark on our journey around 7am. this time of day seems really stupid to me for quite a while, until i realize its pure genius(by midday everything is hot!), with us today we have wiggles, bearfood, and goat, this is a good group to go hiking with. now this hike is goats idea and i think hes the only one actually in shape for it. if you dont know anything about this hike its tall not the tallest in Zion but still... 1,500 doesnt seem like a long way to walk but when its 1,500' up over two and a half miles it makes for a calf pounding walk.

the beginning of the walk is fairly tame, its maybe 9am and already getting hot. i decide it would be a good idea to leave a trail i can follow back down later so i start sweating my balls off. up and up we go breaks for pictures and water. we get to one of the first of many AFUCKINGMAZINGTACKULAR views. bearfood breaks out the jurassic park them song, this song is amazing cause it can do so many things; make this inspiring view even more so, make you chuckle when you're tired and most importantly make you go batshit crazy when you have heard it for hours on end. hours. but we march on. we are getting a little tired with all this uphill bullshit but to make us feel better about it some children run up the mountain past us. and at some point we get passed by a couple of old guys and a dad with a small child on his back. oh yeah we are in some kinda shape. im not sure what that shape is but even jello has a shape. blob is a shape. after the longest 1.5 miles of my life we get to what is called "walters wiggles" sounds cute doesnt it. ITS NOT!!! nothing cute about. 21 switchbacks left and right and left and right you get the idea. two things happen around this time. first we come up with the name "smoker and fatman" as the others in our party bound up the hills and we gasp for breath and feel closer to death..., second we learn about bearfoods insane fear of rodents. they are half the size of her foot and yet win every single arguement, it is truly an irrational fear. those who can walk uphill stop a lot to take pictures and make sure we are still moving.

a while later we come around a bend with another amazing view feeling like we have accomplished a good bit already, the view opens up and there must be 50 people sitting around having a picnic and just a good time, then we see the bathrooms that have been installed on the side of this mountain. park service 1 - pride 0. we move past them and get to our first inspiring sign, the way i read it it said "warning falling off cliffs may result in death." the second and most inspiring sign was "angels landing .5 miles" A HALF MILE OF LIES!!!! this half mile was longer than the rest of the hike, slowly climbing around semi stable rock, scrambling up slopes, the good news is at some but not all of the most dangerous points they have installed posts and chains. loose chains mind you but chains none the less. there are a couple of points they forgot to install the chains into mid air because my ass was hanging on a rock more than a thousand feet up. there were also a few rocks i go to know very personally, physically, almost biblically really. one of them still owes me dinner for the terrible things it did to me. each time we get to a nice flat spot i think we must be almost there i look around and see the rest of our group a ways ahead moving along nicely. during this section of the hike i also perfect the awkward walk, its very safe for me but death to anyone with about 10 feet of me as who knows where i will flail to... i constantly look back and make sure fatman is still with me a couple of times we stop to wonder where the best place to fall off of here would be. not that we actually get a choice, but it makes me feel better about how close i am to death to joke about it.we get to a nice big flat spot, the biggest one we have seen in a while.

Smoker vs. Nature the Rematch! i stand and take in all of natures majesty, observe the mountains in the distance look at the details of the rock formations, look down at the small lizard running by me OH MY GOD IM FALLING!!!! NOPE, NOPE... IM GOOD!!! what actually happens was i spun my head around to look at the tiny lizard and my equilabrium spun just enough to mess with my balance and was not prepared for it in the least. so with a huge shot of adrenaline and a new appreciation for life. i decide its time to move on. nature, we will call it a draw again...

several more false ending to this exciting beautiful misery that i am dragging my ass thru. with each one i become more angry with the rocks and yell at them for multiplying right before my eyes. after what seemed like forever we reach the top! hell yes! i drink a ton of water and have a cliff bar which i find out gives me heartburn, cause it couldnt be the late night drinking or the fact that i eat like shit. nope it's the cliff bar. it slowly sinks in that once im here i now have to go back down. we sit and debate for a while about things like what to cost would be if we split the medivac chopper, or why fatman forgot his wingsuit, and last how awesome it would be to have a 1,500' waterslide coming down from here, loops and twists and all. since i lived all the way up here i decide it's a good plan to push my luck. (yes my descision making is very questionable) but i lay down and slide the top portion of my body out over the cliff for a better view. it was fun. sometime up here "bearfood" almost became "greasespot" because of that irrational fear of a CHIPMUNK! i dont know if this was before or after the epic lightsaber battle on the top.

we take some pics for nice people that dont speak much english and pack back up and are on our way back down the mountain. it starts out easy enough hop some rocks here and there and move along nicely down the mountain. then we get to the climbing portion and the second date with those rocks. mostly this goes pretty quickly fatman tries to slide off the mountain but fails he does succeed at almost pooping himself but we live and move on. did i mention its noonish at this point and the rocks have become very hot, so its extra fun to grab onto a rock that is really hot and not be able to let go cause its what is holding you up in the air. next stop the down wiggles. we get to the top of walters wiggles and it looks like 21 knee pounding turns with cliffs. what could go wrong? we set a nice picture of people cascading down the switchbacks and move on, the down is much happier than the up. we reach about three quarters of the way down and stop to look back on the journey we have just achieved, it was very gratifying. we finish the walk down and see the river and try very hard not to jump off the trail and into the river and succeed. we get back to the shuttle and have a nice little drive back to the entrance. its at this point i realize just how horrible i smell, i worked hard for that smell and im glad i could share it with you.

this hike was amazing, though difficult, do some reading and know what you are in for unless you like suprises like i do...

on a last note the following day i decided to look up Angels landing and read about the people that have had fatal accidents doing this hike (and there are several), i dont reccomend reading this before you do the hike.

Pilot Episode - Little did we know...

our new heros have embarked upon their first adventure little do they know the ramifications of what this little day trip will soon become...

Kanarraville - a stream? a small river? whatever the fuck you want to call it its water flowing over loose rocks. a perfect mixture for broken ankles and laughing at wounded friends.

Lets take a look at our cast of characters; first our leads,
The Smoker (yes i go first cause im writing the story) Crazy tall, Makes choices about as well as the pilot of the titanic and old. by old really i mean older than i think i can possibly ever act and most people i run around with. he has been smoking for way too long... i believe he bummed cigerettes to cesar... whatever... you will figure the rest out as i write.

The Fat Man, above average height and about 5,000 pounds and the shit that comes out of his mouth could make a corpse blush. he is really the leader of the pack here. this is mainly for two reasons; he has a car that goes places and much more importantly he almost knows what the fuck he is doing out there.

todays supporting cast includes; 'nam, Bearfood (who with a little luck will never earn her name), and wiggles (who hasnt earned her name until our next episode). oh shit and that girl i almost forgot.

we drive for a bit which really means i sleep so i dont know exactly what happens here. there are six of us so we put 'nam up front cause he's a big fella, but we have to two stack the smallest ones so wiggles and bearfood pile up! before i know we have arrived.

a nice walk over some hills down a former driving path. i'm told some bullshit story about how its closed to traffic for water conservation but as i look down and see huge cracks in the ground i think its really they don't want to be responsible for a car falling off a collapsing cliff. soon after we get to the water my memory fails me but i'm sure someone can fills me in. by the way i have leaned the best way to go hiking is to be really hung over or maybe just a little drunk still because the beginning is absolute hell but about 30 minutes into the hike you sweat out the rest of last nights alcohol and everything becomes much more pleasant. there is a waterfall that i cant now remember so we'll skip it and move on to the first landmark i can remember "the slide". Fatman runs right up drops his pack and down the slide he goes. apparently fat kids love two things; candy and waterslides. i see i rock i could probably fall off of so i climb on top of it to have a nice smoke break i mean it has been at least five minutes since my last one. everyone goes down the slide some go a couple times. i sit on my rock of judgment. some boring cutesy shit happens and we finally move the fuck on! somewhere in here is where i invent the awkward smoker walk, soon it will be famous to all the people walking by and laughing... we approach waterfall #2, fyi getting up things is always easier for me. its only about 6 semi treacherous feet tall. everyone climbs up safely and on we go. we walk for a while pretty views and such things then we get to what i will call waterfall #3 which is really where 2 big ass rocks fell out of the sky into the middle of the river. most of us see a better climb up around to the left, but 'nam charges forward and hops up the waterfall. so what does fatman do? he think i can climb up a wet rock with a shitton of water pouring down on me... to his credit he does it but is then stuck on the top of this rock which he then has to ass slide down. and again we move on. we have now learned not many people move past this point. until now the paths are well worn but now we have entered a jungle of groping bushes, cactus and fallen trees, all because this goes somewhere and we are too stubborn to stop. after bushwacking for another mile we find the elusive waterfall #4 a couple of us try to scale it but eventually we decide this is an excellent place to call the mission a success. we celebrate with water and some well earned jerky.

we head back over the mine field of loose rock and groping sticks pass by waterfall #3 no problem and move along, until that fated moment where smoker picks a fight with nature. let me explain traversing waterfall #2, there is a rope for the top half and a rock covered in water this leads to some sticks nailed together that people deemed a "ladder", this is standing on top of a log. let me say it again this "ladder" is on a log in a fucking RIVER!!! so as i begin my way down i get to the top of the ladder i cant get my giant foot onto the tiny sticks properly so the balance starts to go and i just say "fuck it!" i hold tight onto the rope push off the rock and out into the waterfall i go, let me tell you water is heavy! It feels twice as heavy when its cold. but i survived. fatman sticks to rule number 1 and follows the same path i do down the waterfall. after a short walk we are back to the slide, i give it a go and much to my suprise its actually a pretty good waterslide made smooth by ages of water and thousands of asses running down it. waterfall #1 goes smooth and we are soon on our way out.

in the end its a great little hike (we guess somewhere around 8 miles RT), takes some friends and some painkillers and have a blast!