After much deliberation and indecision due to masses of homework and laundry we finally decided to just go and de-stress and get away for a while. Josh had a friend from school give us directions to a camping spot that he has been to a couple of times called Green Valley Gap.
I learned to that you should double check sketchy illegitimate directions from other people... always.
We eventually found the spot after driving in the dark across a large canyon on one of MULTIPLE dirt roads all converging and going in different directions. (Friends directions: Drive until the paved road ends, then take dirt road all the way to the site)..???? But first we had to find the dirt road because the paved road ended at a large dirt field. Let me remind you that it is 9:00 at night and there are no street lights. Good thing we were in the Rodeo or we would have NEVER made it up and down all those bumpy hills and valleys. Anyways, we get to the place where this guy said he and his family have camped. So you pull up into this dirt parking area marked off by a bunch of small boulders. We get out and with our head lamps look around for a place to put the tent, come to find it is a big rock and boulder field. Oh, and did I mention the ground. Yup! All rock. Try staking down a tent in sandstone. And then the wind kicked in. We noticed a couple of smaller tents being held down by rocks. (haha...that word is coming up a lot). Our headlamps only shine so far so after hiking around a little bit we head back to the car and decide to sleep in the truck. We couldn't see anything and there was no way our tent would have stayed put on top of a bunch of rocks, held down by rocks with the roaring wind. We ended up sleeping in the truck. We folded down all the seats and hung blankets in the window. It was actually quite cozy. I was thankful we had the truck when the temperature dropped lower than what google weather had said it would with the windchill. It was a little bit short in there even for me so we tossed and turned but it was quite the adventure. We both loved it.
The next morning when the sun finally came up we could finally see our surroundings. It was pretty amazing. Such a pretty view, and the rock field? Was awesome! We spent most of the morning playing around on the boulders and exploring the area. Later we went down into the actual gap, which is essentially a deep narrow canyon you would never see if you went walking blindly out in that direction. You have to climb down this steep path to get to the bottom. It was awesome too. We did a little bit of climbing on the bolted routes but spent most of the day climbing on the huge boulders, chasing and running from lizards and hiking through the canyon. (Im not kidding about the lizards...they were everywhere. Some were HUGE).
We got a lot of sun. Josh got a little too much. (There are no trees in St.George. Notta one). But once again, we loved it. Josh's dad came through St.George on his way down from Arizona where he was visiting his dad. So we changed into our one extra pair of clothes (sweat, dirt and all) and went out for Japanese/tai food at a little restaurant called Benjas downtown St.George. Josh's Uncle Brad his wife Jean and some of their kids came too. They were nice enough to excuse our outward appearance and eat with us. It was a lot of fun. We ended up sleeping on an air mattress in their living room that night. We left for home around 8:00 the next morning (Sunday). So that was our trip! It was a blast!
Our tent (haha).
Sweet Boulders
Me bein' a freak
So cool. Off in the distance you can see St.George
My husband :)
Getting ready to climb.
The gap.
Sweet bouldering.
HUGE scary lizard that came out of NOwhere! (Or out of the rocks...either way....)
DON'T DO IT!!!!
Ok, so my husband is obsessed with Bear Grylls... if you don't know who that is he is a guy on the Discovery channel on a show called Man vrs. Wild. He shows you how to survive in random places in the world, sometimes under extreme conditions. Anyways, he is always jumping across ravines, scaling huge cliffs, climbing down waterfalls and doing insane things. Mostly we watch him because of his saavy English accent. It is especially cool when he says words like "Slippy" and Vitimin "C" and glassier (glacier). Every episode starts out with a serious bear talking about survival. He is the unsung king of suh-vih-val (as Bear would say). So we made this for you Bear. The master... our hero...
