Brian Hays came out for the weekend to check out Grad School up at Colorado State. Then, his plan was to come down to chill with Jacqueline and I for a few days. Having not hung out with Brian since last summer, I was excited to see him. When the time came for him to show up, though, I was coming down with a sore throat. We were hoping to do an epic mountain climb in the winter or something of that sort, but with my health we decided to lay a little low. So Brian and I headed up to Estes Park. (Jacqueline had to work) On the way, I got to talk to Brian's new girlfriend Angela. She sounded nice, but it is hard to tell on the phone.
He also got a call from Annette offering him the job with backcountry at Zion for the summer. Brian took it and I was rather disappointed because not even a thought was put into the fact that I was sitting right next to him hoping for a job there also. Oh well, who knew what the future would bring, but at least I was going to get to do it with my sweetheart working away at Ruby Tuesdays. We got to the park and used the old "I work for the Park Service" to get in for free. Then we drove up to Bear Lake and went to Mills Lake. This was a hike that I have done many, many times after working trail crew. On this day, though, being sick made it brutal. Especially since it was February in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was definitely below freezing and windy as usual. We made it up to the lake, but that was about the extent of the hike. The mountains around were beautiful and it would have been great to do a winter ascent of one of the peaks. I was not having it on this day, as with a cold, this was about as far as I was going to go. Brian made the best of it as he used the ice as his personal slip and slide getting both speed and distance. I tried it to after a bit of coaxing, but I could not quite get the momentum going on the ice of Mills Lake. We headed back down and took the long way rather than the fire trail that we took up. It was sad that we did not get much more out of a chance to scale some Colorado peaks in the winter. Hopefully there will be another chance for that, but it is hard to tell when that chance will come around again.
The next morning we were up early. It was time for us to start our backpack. The place that looked the easiest accessible and most appealing was to just venture down the Escalante River. It was already getting warm when we woke up, so it seemed like some water would be nice. Jacqueline was fighting a cold, so I wondered if we would make the trip, but she was definitely determined to get going. We set out down the river and sooner than later, we were having to cross the river. Jacqueline was not exactly thrilled about this exciting option. We were actually starting to cross very frequently. Then a thought came to my head once the sun was out beaming down on us, I forgot to pack the sunscreen. 
We stood around for a while debating what to do. Finally I decided rather than ruin the trip, I was going to run back to the car and get it. So I took off running. I did it as fast as I could, but it still amounted to an hour of trail running through obstacles. I made it back quickly, but Jacqueline was not that impressed. We continued hiking and the views were great. There were unique cliffs around every bend in the river. The going became more difficult with steep banks for crossing, much more vegetation, and some dark clouds coming in. So much for the sunscreen. Finally we made it down to river mile six. 
From that point on, it looked like a rafting expedition was the only way to go if you did not have a machete. We backtracked a bit and decided to climb up a little slope to gain the heights of the cliffs. We had beautiful 360 views of the whole place, but unfortunately left the camera in the pack. We scrambled back down and pitched our tent in an alcove we saw previously. It was definitely the right place to camp, because the cold wind that was blowing in would have made camp life difficult. So we spent a chilly evening in camp hoping that when we awoke in the morning, the weather would have turned. It did turn, for the worst. It was incredibly chilly. 
Jacqueline with her cold and the way being blocked, we decided that the best decision was to just head back to the vehicle. We started the trudge back and it began to snow a bit. It was tough going as we were trying to stay out of the river as much as possible to avoid Jacqueline getting pneumonia. She was still not a happy camper. I was definitely impressed though because I have been doing things like this for years and it is great to know that someone loves you enough to foolishly follow you into the backcountry crossing a river in the snow. When we made it back to the car, we headed from there to the town of Escalante. We had a few meals and a hotel room to warm us up. 
The next day we drove through Bryce, which with my shoes being completely soaked and the weather being snowy, it was not quite the Spring Break experience we were looking for. After that we spent a couple of days in Zion looking at the place we were supposed to live (not going to happen) and moving Jacqueline in to her temporary home. I put her in charge of finding us a place to live for the summer. Then it was off to Vegas to spend a night camping in the hills outside Vegas, a buffet breakfast, and a flight away from my beautiful girlfriend to spend the next two months teaching without her by my side. 
