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Snow on the cars after the first wave of the storm.
It's been a wonderfully fast 6 days off here in Flagstaff. While time seemed to move in slow motion at times as the sky dumped down 2 feet of white bliss, I was constantly on the move, slipping and sliding from place to place.
No BBQ in our backyard this week
Wether it was sitting in the Wine Loft and drinking bottles of wine whilst playing board games with old friends, or skiing some fresh snow on Mt. Humphrey's solo, or playing pool for free with a bunch of new acquaintances, I was in a constant search of the fun that most people were ignoring because of the snow.
Sun setting on great afternoon of skiing. Grand Canyon is off in the distance on right side of picture.
Downtown Flagstaff seemed like a ghost town for about 4 days straight. Even though Flagstaff averages over 100 inches of snow per year it seems like as soon as the white stuff starts to fall people give up on life and stay home. However, I have found that most downtown businesses realize this and thus offer anything and everything to get you to go to their place. Whether this is free pool, cheap food, or almost free drinks, there are plenty of deals to take advantage of on a snow day.
The highlight of the week off was the 2 day NAU Slowfood Movie Festival which highlighted the environmental and social problems created by our current food system. There were some great movies and speakers as well as tons of great likeminded people who did not let the storm keep them from venturing out and supporting a great cause. A not so bad bi-produt of attending the festival was free gift certificates to a number of local restaurants.
Taking up a lot of my time this week has been applying for the Tahoe job I am hoping to get. The application process while not altogether difficult, is just tedious as I don't want to make a small computer mistake which screws everything up. However I feel I have done everything to the best of my ability and hope that by the end of March I will know I am going to be heading up to Tahoe for another awesome summer.
People braving the weather in downtown Flag while I fill out job applications
I head out tomorrow morning at 6 to drive to the canyon for 8 days of awesomeness. After I return I may be going straight to San Diego for 4-5 days to help with the big rock project going on down there. If not that, perhaps a trip to the North Rim of the canyon for a ski trip. Either way should be fun!
Truck and house after shoveling snow
That's all for now!
Our home for the 8 days we were in the canyon.
On Wednesday February 9th, after picking up my 11 volunteers from around the world, I drove off in the dark towards the Grand Canyon. It was like driving home after a long time in unfamiliar places. It is difficult to describe the feeling that the Canyon evokes in you when you spend so much time there. When you are 3500ft below the rim with no worries from the outside world it is a place of extreme tranquility and unrelenting beauty. This of course is tempered by the fact the weather can and does change in a moments notice and one can never ignore the power of the forces that created such a place.
We arrived at the trailhead at 8:30. Right on time to meet the mule packers. One of whom was one of my supervisors from the previous February. It was good to see her there and doing well. After loading the mules with our food for the next 8 days we headed down over the rim. It was a stark difference from last February when the trail had over a foot of snow on it. This time there was no snow whatsoever after a very dry January.
It was enjoyable watching the volunteers who had never been here experience the Canyon for the first time. They had endless smiles and would stop to take pictures at every turn.
I have ever been down in the canyon with such perfect weather for 8 days in a row. It was 50-60 degrees every day and we didn't see a cloud in the sky until the last two days. Most surprising of all was the lack of wind. It is normally very windy where we were camped, but we saw none of it.
I had a very diverse crew with 10 countries represented within our crew of 12: America(1 native american), England, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Austria, Italy, and France. Overall it was quite the cultural experience and I a blast learning from all of them. They were all very hard workers and a pleasure to have on my crew.
Of course the canyon was not without its wildlife encounters as well as amazing sunsets.
Scorpion we found at the worksite
It's somewhat camouflaged but there is a big buck near the foreground in this picture
A red fox roaming around down by the Colorado River
Sunset on Monday night.
Ledge from which I enjoyed the sunset
Work itself was pretty straight forward as we mainly did general trail maintenance work with some people doing rock work to armor one of the steep sections of trail as well as put liner rocks on the side of the trail.
My crew hard at work
Putting in some liner rocks
Armoring the trail with riprap.
All smiles after finishing their liner rocks
We finished work early and on the second to last day we went hiking down to the river. I had heard of a big horn sheep trail that miners used in the old days to get down to the river. So I took the brave people, who for some reason trusted me to get them to the river, on quite the adventure. We almost gave up right away because we could not find the cairn marking the entrance to the particular canyon we were trying to get down. Luckily our patience paid off and we found our way in. Now we just had to find the rest of the way.
Happy we found our way into the canyon
The going got quite steep
From there we somehow made a number of very good decisions at possible junctions and made it safely to the river, except for the Austrian girl Nora who was hit by a falling rock. Luckily it was just a flesh wound and we patched it up and continued on.
Nora just before being struck by a falling rock
Yoann picking his way down the ridge.
This is a picture looking towards the route we went down to the river.
After hiking out I took my crew to a secret location that was shown to me last year where there is a very cool sinkhole on the canyon rim that you can climb down and it pops you out on a ledge on the side of the rim no more than 1 foot wide.
The Italian Samuele climbing down into the sinkhole
Samuele and Andrew on the edge of the canyon after climbing down the sinkhole.
Also nearby the sinkhole is an overhang on the rim with indian drawings on it.
Following this I took them to see the Grand Canyon IMAX which capped off an amazing 8 days.
I am now back in Flagstaff for 6 days off. I am currently getting over a calf injury I sustained on my birthday, but I hope to be able to start running again tomorrow. A storm is rolling into town and should dump a good amount of snow so I hope to hit the slopes as well.
That's all for now.
BREAKING NEWS: Congratulations to Kimmy for getting 8th at the US Cross Country Championships in San Diego! She may be heading to the world championships! It's great to see Mexico paying off. After seeing her and Addie run so well I can't wait to see how Brie does.
now for our scheduled program:
So I am now back in cold, beautiful Flagstaff. Although not before spending some quality time with family and friends. Last weekend I had the great fortune of being able to spend a night in Davis with some old friends. I also was able to spend a night at home and eat some delicious birthday cake my mom made for me.
I then made the 12+ hour drive back to Flagstaff over the course of the next two days. I slept in my truck in Needles, CA before making it back to Flag.
I was scheduled to lead a chainsaw crew out at Wupatki National Monument cutting down invasive tamarisks. However, that never happened. First I had to run down to Phoenix on the first day of the project to get 2 new chainsaws and the next 3 days of the project were canceled due to cold temperatures. We needed to spray the Tamarisks stumps with a pesticide after sawing them, but the cold temps froze the pesticide making it unusable. How cold was it you may ask?
The HIGH on one of the days was -8 degrees fahrenheit with the windchill. At night it was down near -30. The other two days did however get above 0 degrees which was nice. We ended up just working in Flagstaff at the office and apartments doing repairs and painting. This was a welcome treat for me as it meant I was able to spend my birthday here in town rather than out in a tent in below zero temps.
My birthday was a blast and has rolled over to the past two nights as coworkers have gotten back to town.
Last night in particular was incredible. I had no intention of even going out but it was the Friday art walk and there was free beer at the local bead store. So we went there and then over to the Lumberyard where they had $5.95 32oz mason jars of white russians. After 64oz we abandoned the terrible country music and went to Flagstaff Brewing Co. where there was an impromptu concert by two musicians playing a harmonica and resonator guitar. We danced there until 2am. It was awesome.
I am now biding my time in Flagstaff until I head out to the Grand Canyon on Wednesday for 8 days of work. I am so stoked to be going back down in the Canyon. We will be camping down on the Tonto Plateau about 5 miles down into the canyon on the S. Kaibab Trail.
My second home for the next few months.
I am hoping to do some skiing between now and then and perhaps some rock climbing and just enjoy life. That's all for now.
