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Published: October 2nd 2009
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Hoodoos
Bryce Canyon Np I have finally found our niche in this life, for we are both incredibly competitive and travelling, hence the blog title this week. I have therefore compiled a short list of tips for a competitive hiker to abide by at all costs if they are to keep up with us.
1) Read all visitor centre guide times for trails and divide by two to find actual duration.
2) If its not more than 5 miles long, or les than 300m ascent it doesn't count as a walk.
3) Categorise all hikers into weight divisions so that it is considerably less likely you will be overtaken by an equal in terms of pack weight. (An overnight pack would class as heavyweight so if you are then overtaken by a lightweight day hiker that doesn't count. Needless to say we don't let that happen either).
4) If you're about to be overtaken be ready to enact an emergency break routine pretending that it is occuring right on schedule. Ensure this is believeable by tapping watch and muttering 'bang on time' or words to that effect.
5) Never show pain. Learn from Lance. He wears sunglasses to hide the pain in his eyes
Lindsay and bike
Moab, nr Arches NP - they never lie.
6) When performing an overtaking manouvre, steady your pace to catch the target and having reeled them in save a burst of pace to a) fly past in a cloud of smoke and b) pretend to be mid conversation and not at all out of breath.
There are so many more and I'll note them down as I think of them. And that's just hiking. Goodnes what a pleasure it must be around us.
You should note also that despite warnings to the contrary, Lindsay and I walked from the Grand Canyon South Rim to the Colorado river and back to the South Rim yesterday. We did the 16 mile trip in 6 hours 30 mins which is quite good actually, considering its a vertical mile down and then naturally back up again. But far more impressive was our desire for speed on the hike up. We overtook 85 people on that section and remained (wait for the new verb) unovertaken. We are unovertaken in the same weight category to date on this trip. In fact, I can't remember ever having been overtaken when one of the options above wasn't used.
To answer
The Dark Angel
Phallace, Arches NP some of your questions, yes I am compiling a hike milometer and we are currently on over 500 miles walked on the trip so far.
Since we last posted on here we've been to Cedar Breaks National Monument (what we would know as a park though yet to be upgraded to that status - there is no monument) which is a vast ampitheatre of eroded rock stretching down nearly 200ft to the canyon floor. We (I) desperately wanted to attend a star party that night but it was cancelled when the skies clouded over and we headed Tstorms (Thunderstorms - how cool are Americans) instead. I have a hidden astronomer in me and fortunately at Bryce Canyon NP it came out. We met with a park ranger two hours after sunset and gazed up as she lectured us on the stars, planets and satellites above. Fascinating. We've been to two more since, Lindsay LOVES them!
Bryce Canyon is a red rock ampitheatre with a difference. It's full of hoodoos (what we know as stacks for the geographically inclined) which are pillars of rock carved by the weather into incredible shapes. There are thousands in the park and they
are brightly lit up at sunrise and sunset. The ancients believed that the wily coyote turned all the greedy giants into rock centuries ago - I prefer their story but look at the photos and see for yourself. Here, I attended geology talks with the elderly. I was the only one not of pensioner age in the group - Linz sat reading a good hundred yards away, ashamed of our relationship all of a sudden. Sadly, I am now adicted to learning about them, so have made repeat appearances in every park. Tonight there is a Mountain Lion talk!
Enough of the national parks though - we went to Moab in South-central Utah for a week and from there commuted to Arches and Canyonlands (both National Parks - I lied before, as if there was no more NPs!). Moab is the US home of mountain biking and people come from all over tyhe world to ride on slick rock, a surface about as slippery as barbed wire. It's an ironic name apparently (grr those bikers) and is great fun even for novices. Well great fun for me. We choose a medium-difficult circuit for our first time on Mountain bikes and Lindsay promptly fell out of love with two wheels. She continually reprimanded herself for not being braze enough to ride certain sections. Her hissy-fits were hilarious from the bottom until I too got out of my depth and started crashing every few hundred metres! Fortunately the bikes were returned without the loss of our deposit - they were worth $2800 each!
We watched a home coming parade in Moab fro the high school football team who were back in town. I didn't understand where they'd been to be honest, or what had happened when they were there but we stood and watched anyway. It's ridiculous. The home-coming queen is driven along sitting on top of the back seat of a ferrari waving regally as the crowds (1000's) shout compliments. In return she throws sweets out to the kids on the sidewalks (sorry, pavements). But she has several 'assistants' or 'semi-queens' that follow behind her. The Queen had a pathetic throwing arm and so would toss the sweets about a yard into the street whereby hundreds of small fat american children would risk their lives darting into the traffic to retrieve them. As the home-coming 'queens' came and went they became increasingly ugly but had more and more powerful throwing arms until the final girl, a bear like giant of a 17 year old had an absolute canon of an arm and would launch chocolate bars at kids from 30 yards and have them reeling on the floor after a direct hit! It was carnage. I stole a couple of sweets that landed near us much to the disappointment of some kids- they were too slow.
Other activities include being acosted by an Indian, a venture into the fiery furness and unlimited discussions on future careers but that can all wait for now. We return to Vegas on Sunday for another breakfast buffet on route to LA. Lindsay and I can't learn from our mistakes. We visited a Navajo Indian deli they other day and I bought 12 glazed dognuts for 2 dollars! I ate 8 that day and Lindsay had four. I tried to stop eating them after 6 had been consumed but having offered them to some neighbours on a camp site they turned them down, revealing themsleves as diabetic, so I had no choice but to finish them off. Thing is, its a travellers bread and butter picking up bargains and to throw food away is a sin of the highest order.
Tonight will be our 25th night in a row in the tent. We now have three broken poles and its all starting to look higgledy piggledy but it doesn't rain here so all is well.
I almost forgot to say - Lindsay trod about an inch away from a rattlesnakes tail on a trail we did in Zion. She ambled on oblivious to her near death experience while I was left facing the evil serpent as it got angry. It slithered a metre into the undergrowth and sat there (if snakes can sit) and I decided that I had to take a picture. I've taken too but it is very well camouflaged. I can hear the doubters already - it is there, I promise!
Love to you all and thanks for all your messages, it really makes us smile when we hear from you.
George and Lindsay
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ELLIE LIGHTFOOT
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Well done!
Excellent work on the rattle snake fergs!!! Nice to hear ur tent is reliable! will serve u well in south america? any ides where about us will be round end feb/march next year? im going to work in an orphange in thailand so if ur in south east asia i wanna catch up! hope ur both really well!! Miss u lots! G - found an awesome movie of us singing after the chrissy ball yesterday! fond memories! elle xxxx