Starvation Point

Jacqueline wanted to head back to the Virgin River Gorge to do a hike, so I found 4-wheel drive track that went out to an overlook of the Virgin River from Starvation Point. It was a warm Monday morning, but not to the point of what the low desert area can reach as far as temps. The flower's were out and so were the animals. I was shocked to see a very large lizard ahead of me. Luckily I had my interpreter fiance with me who exclaimed, "It's a Gila Monster! They are really rare and also really poisonous." We kept our distance, not learning until later that while being poisonous and lizards, they just so happen to also be really slow. We probably could have figured it out from the way that it walked where it seemed to be walking on its fist, similar to that of a crocodile or some kind of amphibous lizard. The main difference being that this thing lives about as far from the water as possible. It was awesome, something out of the Cretaceous. Around the corner, we were able to find an arch. I am sure that it has a name, but we are not sure so we'll name it Gila Monster Arch in honor of the rare desert creature. Not too far away from this, we spotted another interesting creature. The Leopard Lizard has spots like a leopard. We actually saw three total, but they were very awesome. It moved so quick. Supposedly they are very aggressive. Good thing it is only a few inches long. After all of this we finally arrived at our destination. Truly, I am usually not the type to go on a hike hoping to spot wildlife, but this one was sure a good one so far. We sat down and enjoyed the view of the Virgin River. I did not wonder why this was called Starvation Point because of the bare, dry landscape. There is most likely a good story behind the name, but topographical maps usually do not come with stories. We headed back since our road dead ended. Jacqueline looked up and pointed out a unique sight in the sky. There was barely a cloud in the sky, but the one that was right in front of us was basically a rainbow. It is a sight I have seen only one other time hiking toward Lyell Pass in Yosemite. On the way back, I looked to try to find the interesting little insect that we saw during the morning before all of the other interesting animals. Unfortunately, we did not get any more glimpses of the Arizona Blister Beetle. To round out our animals, we found one that was more familiar. The Horned Lizard can shoot blood out of its eyes at approaching predators, but this was one that we see in Zion frequently. It turned out to be a short half day hike of 8-10 miles with so much wildlife. It just shows the need to go to places where others do not go as this was right off the freeway, but still we could see with the diverse flora and fauna that it sure helps to enter the pristine zone.

Canyonlands SAR Training

I was a bit nervous approaching the week of SAR training at Canyonlands National Park. I had good reason because I would be hanging off ropes all week long. It turned out to be fantastic though. It is the best training I have ever been to. I learned more in that week than any other week in my life. I guess that your mind focuses a bit better when your life is on the line.

The first day was spent with introductions and knot tying lessons. Next we went through rappelling and ascending. Rapelling was old hat to me, but I screwed up ascending and set my ascenders far too high. After work I went down to Moab and watched Brian climb. The next few days were spent with lots of learning. We did lowers and raises with knot passes. Then we had to throw the litter into the mess. The hardest thing I did the whole we was be the litter attendant while everyone else went through knot passes. It was a bit disheartening to see my one connector strap piece of webbing as supporting me through life and death. We also got to do night ops, which included a night rappel. My group was awesome. We were so quick and our instructors fantastic. I was impressed the whole week with the thoroughness of the instructors. The last scenario, our group was an hour faster than any of the other groups. It gave me lots of confidence and I feel like I can be more of a help for the SAR program at Zion. In the evenings, I spent my time hanging out with the Hays'. They went climbing on Tuesday and then went down to Moab for the dinner where I won a free headlamp on Wednesday. Friday we went out to Grandview Point with another one of my friends from high school, Austin. It was good to see the views of the park while the three of them dreampt of all the things they were going to do during the summer. I was happy and sad to leave. Happy because I missed my sweetheart back home. There are many canyons to do in Zion this summer also and I am sure the newlyweds did not want me crashing on their floor any longer. Sad because my buddies would be there the whole summer and I would also miss the teammates who went through the week with me. I also am sad because I will never be able to take the NPS SAR training. While being an expensive operation, it is probably the most efficient government program out there. I can not sing the praises loud enough.

Trail Canyon

I got a call from Eric on Saturday morning and his idea was to go check out Trail Canyon. Since that is a place that I have wanted to visit for quite some time, I was excited. We headed out at 11:00am and were to the Right Fork Trailhead before noon. Right Fork was similar to last weekend except we found a trail to avoid all of the tough rock scrambling around the Left Fork. We ended up at the Trail Canyon junction and started heading up. Immediately we saw the signs of last year's massive flood. Trail Canyon flashed big time and the impact was rather severe. We could see where the floodwaters were twenty feet up on the walls. It was crazy. We continued our hike and expected to be cliffed out at anytime. We just never were. Once we had to scramble around a pour-off but then we saw something unique to find in Zion. A slope to access some higher country. It was rather easy going and the burn from a few years previous helped us to push on through. When we made it above the slope, we continued up the drainage until we ran into another slope to ascend. Above that was some of the most spectacular views of Zion. In one direction, you could see Tabernacle Dome, Firepit Knoll, Red Butte, Spendlove Knoll, Cave Valley, etc... In the other direction, there was the West Temple, Kinesava, The Towers of the Virgin. It was amazing and we both realized the exciting potential of Trail Canyon. From our viewpoint, we looked out to our left and thought about the broken steep slope and whether that was possible. It was possible, it seemed, just difficult. 

Instead we headed south to check out Cougar Mountain. Wondering whether we could reach the summit, we caught our view over the next ridge. The answer for this day seemed to be no as we were going to have a tough time keeping enough daylight. We were surprised to see just how flat it was near the top. It was also exciting to see all the hoodoo type formations that resembled Cave Valley. We decided to forget the summit on this day and instead headed over to an arch. From there we were granted with a view straight down into the Coalpits drainage. It was just awesome and we fully appreciated the spot we were located in. The nice part about it was that we agreed it was easy to get to. We did not have to risk our lives with any crazy maneuvers, so coming back was not a daunting task in any way. Turning around was a good idea as we popped out a little bit after six. It would not have been fun to get stuck out there just to reach the summit of Cougar Mountain.