Sunday, September 10, 2006

is bruce canadian?

in *america* we celebrate labor day, not labour day!

anyway, for labor day, i went to zion canyon in utah. i didn't actually go spelunking or even canyoneering. i went hiking for one day and then the next two days were spent on a canyon hike in 'the narrows'. this is what zion canyon looked like:


one thing i did learn was that if you're going on a two day hike, make sure you have shoes that won't give you blisters the day before the hike. it will be much less painful that way.

the narrows is a two day hike where you basically follow a river down a canyon. the first day of the hike, it rained and hailed and we had to take a break for a while to allow the inclement weather to subside. this threw off our timing and forced us to crash at the second campsite, rather than our assigned campsite #10, which was another 2 or 3 miles further down. the rain did make the river look like chocolate milk and started some water falls as well, but lucky for us, it did not start a flash flood.

flash floods were perhaps the largest danger when you're hiking the narrows, as during quite a few points of the hike, there's no high ground that you can really climb to.

there were even a few points where some people had to swim.

it was a pretty hard hike for me. the entire thing was about 16 miles and i had on a 40 pound backpack on. perhaps nothing for harry, but by the end of the hike, i had blisters all over my feet and had banged my toes on hidden rocks under water countless times. i think one or two toe nails may fall off, but what are a few toe nails?