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My first week in the field was an adventure to say the least! The kids out there run the gammut of crazy and cool and most of them are just plain teens. My first day and a half started off as a rollercoaster. First with an awesome game of hackysack, then into turmoil when the group basically refused to hike and work as a team... the consequence? Well, we ended up putting them on separates (no interaction but only 10 ft away from eachother) for 36 hours and ate dinner in almost complete silence (boring!). Then we got to hike the next
day to this amazing campsite! The base was in a wash so perfect ground to sleep on and then at the end was an emormous rock cavern where we set up our coalpit. This may be the best base camp I see this entire summer. The way the fire illuminated the entire cavern; a beacon of safety from the furthest sleeping bag, was entirely heart-warming and beautiful.
Then I got shlepped off to a different group with only a few hours warning! I found out later that the transition was completely logical and actually very needed. Nate was leaving his group to accompany and guide the Graduation process, thus leaving a group of 8 with only 2 insturctors, but with me coming in and being the 3rd to balance things out. This second group of kids was surprisingly different and worked amazingly well as a group! In total, these kids have dealt with more than almost anyone I know and they haven't even turned 20 yet. It was interesting talking to them and spending every waking moment within shouting distance... welcome to the family!
Our First Week Off:
Of course there's no rest with the new playground of a whole new state to frolic in! So, we first stop at Zion and do a short hike, snap a few shots of the sun and eventually just decide to return for a longer 15 mile trek sometime in the future... to be continued!
We then drove all the way down to Flagstaff, AZ where we got a funky and sort of swanky hotel called the Monte Vista Hotel, but MAN was it nice to sleep on a matress after 2 months of camping! We stopped in almost every coffee house, though really just to use the internet, and eventually realized it was too late to do anything fun outside and stumbed upon the Orpheum where Dark Star Orchestra was playing that very night! So, we bought a couple tickets and jammed to the best Greatful Dead cover band in existance.
Next we came back to Utah and ran around the only /actual/ hike in the park (7 miles...) Overall, I would say that the Navajo and Partition arches were my favorite and the other ones just got old... Also, I would recommend doing the trail in reverse and starting on the primitive trail, rounding out the end on the regular whimpy one. It actually gives you amazing views with the mountains nestled into the enormous desert rocks. Pretty fantastic, but you could do most of the park in a day and then round it out with a liesurely drive the second day and see every arch in the entire place. I guess I was expecting more, but it was still a bunch of fun. We're actually planning on going back and getting a hiking permit to explore the Fiery Furnaces portion of the park - probably the coolest part, yay!
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