Temperatures have been dropping down into the low 30's at night so we woke up to another cold morning, but someone had already started the campfire and Todd was making coffee, followed by pancakes. After breakfast we packed some lunches and pulled out to go explore Phipps Arch.
Phipps Arch
We drove back west on Highway 12 past the Calf Creek trailhead that we had stopped at yesterday...
We partnered up for our hike today so Fritz and I decided to walk together. First part of the hike was through a sandy red sand trail that wound through a canyon of sage forests and blazing cottonwoods. We also had several water crossings so most of us had "water shoes" as well as our regular hiking shoes.
We followed a dry creek bed, Phipps Wash, for awhile until Todd had us start uphill towards the Arch. After that it was a bit of a climb up to Phipps Arch.
Made it!
Of course my colleagues had to climb up every tall thing in sight...
... including the Arch itself.
We were on the backside of the Arch. I decided Fritz was pretty much a mountain goat, incredibly spry and sure footed. He started up the Arch. All I remember was Amber shouting up to him... Well how the hell are we going to get down? ...and I decided I wasn't going to go up because I tend to have problems climbing DOWN things. I have no problems going UP. It's the going down that I have difficulty; therefore, I much prefer going up things that I can jump off of... but there was no water or parachutes here so I stayed put.
Admittedly, when I saw that half our group ended up on top of the Arch I wished I would have gone up. However, by this time, there wasn't enough time for me to get up there and back down before we moved on so I watched them from another perch overlooking the canyon.
Back down to the canyon after that...
...eekkk!
Went back to Phipps Wash where we had a class on making improved litters to carry people out.
Amber is sitting on two sticks threaded through the space between the bottom of the backpacks and waist straps that Jon and Doug are wearing.
On the way back most of us decided to take a little dip in the creek. I got in this time. After 4 days without a shower the water felt refreshing. Cold, but refreshing!
Back at the campsite we had another class on improvised splinting...
... and beer... and snacks. We put our hands in the trail mix bag. We put our hands in the potato chip can. We put our hands in the carrot stick bag. Todd yelled at us. Repeatedly...
Dinner was pasta, salad, and garlic knots, with red wine out of a box. Sitting around the campfire that night Wes, Jon and I decided we were going to go for a run in the morning. We had driven over the Hogsback several times now and thought it would be cool to run over it at sunrise. Running the road with thousand foot drops on either side would be awesome at sunrise... There was some debate over how far away we were from the Hogsback though. In any case we decided we'd run at 7 am tomorrow.
I turned in a bit early since I had to get up early to run. I think Amber, Bert and the boys were still having drinks by the campfire when I turned in. We'd polished off the Wild Turkey the night before and moved on to something out of Nick's flask. In any case, I was drifting off to sleep when I heard a scream by the campfire, followed by more screams and curses.
Hmmm... hope no body fell in...
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