Tuesday's Adventure

I had the day off (Tuesday) so I primarily sat in front of this computer and looked at things. I accomplished pretty much nothing. The plan was to meet BF in the area after he got off work, have dinner, and then hike. Surprisingly, every thing went according to plan. I left the city for the area at 1515 hours and headed towards the area. There has been road construction constantly in the area for over a year. I sat in that construction for 30-35 minutes and I couldn't tell you what the hell they were doing. Luckily I had a book with me (Angels and Demons prequel to The Da Vinci Code). I arrived at my house, gathered my gear including two lengths of rope, headlamp, and radio, and laid down to continue to reading. I had prepared a wonderful meal of pork chops (we forgot the applesauce) and fruit salad. BF and I were meeting Flapper and G-Baby at the BR picnic area. Then BF and I were going hiking. Boy was it hot yesterday. We finished dinner and started hiking up the wash. Goal: To get up that slope to Little Gothic. Goal: Successful.

We arrived at the ledge where two logs were leaned up against the bottom. There were also two drill marks there indicating that someone had been up this before. BF free climbed up the ledge and found a stake up top. I tied our packs with one of the pieces of rope and he hauled them up. Then I tied the rope around myself and started my climb. I like to put him in danger first and then use him as my safety anchor. We checked out this side canyon first in the hopes that there was an arch there, however; disappointment set in when there wasn't.

And then we headed towards Little Gothic. It was up another canyon. And we had to walk along this incline to get to it. I made a mistake right away as we were walking across...I looked down. And then I went into panic mode. I felt like my feet where slipping the whole time. Finally I had to stop and Zen regroup before going on. We got to the canyon edge and were going to have to walk along another steep area. I started to go and then went back into panic mode. I felt like I was slipping and of course BF is 'barking' out commands to me. He is like spider man across the slick rock. I on the other hand am wimpy, wimpy wimp across steep areas. And as I have said before I can go across right, but going left is a whole other story.

And guess which was we would be going when we returned. LEFT. I tried to Zen up, but that didn't help. I tried not to look down, but that didn't help either. Once I reached a flat part I almost took off running to get to a safe zone. But then the steepness just returned again.

We got to the point of our initial climb and he was preparing to jump. I said do you think that is a good idea how your knees have been hurting. So he hooked the webbing and ropes together, lowered the packs, and he rappelled down. I followed suit. Well, kind of. He made me hesitate so he could take some photographs. Then I made it to the bottom. And we had to all figured out how we were just going to pull the rope and it would come easily. Of course Murphy's Law was with us as usual. He pulled and tugged and snapped the ropes. We snapped the ropes together, but to no avail did we succeed in getting down the rope. So I had to climb back up there to unhook the knot from the stake and then rappel back down. I offered my services because he could catch me a lot better than I could catch him.

The sun had set a long time ago and so unlike us we decided to would have to come back and explore more another day. We hit the road just before complete blackness encompassed the sky. And as he said when we got to the vehicle---that was so much better than sitting at home. For once I agreed with a male.