August 10-12

August 10-12

The morning of august 10th we woke up and headed out to red rocks canyon with Marcus. We had planned on doing some hiking and climbing while we were there. On the drive in it was pretty obvious where the red rocks were as they completely stood out against the rest of the mountains. We got in to the park and checked out the visitors center then started our drive around scenic road which loops through the park. We made a stop pretty early into our drive and started free climbing up the rocks. The climbing was dangerous and probably not too smart of us to do but we did it anyways. At one point I was climbing straight up a 10 foot wall which was pretty fun. We eventually made it up to the top of the formation and could see approximately 8933 miles. We got a perfect view of the entire city of vegas and of the desert in the other direction. The view was incredible. After hanging out up top for a few minutes we started our descent. The way down was probably even more fun than the way up. We found our way into some canyons and tiny crevices. Eventually we found our way down after some side and back tracking. The rest of our time at red rocks was spent hiking a couple of trails. One of the trails went out to a small water fall that was mostly just a drip of water, but it felt good after the hike.

We spent that night hanging out and heading back to the strip. We sat down at some slot machines and played for a few minutes. Mostly we just walked around though and found cool places to hang out.

The next morning we woke up and drove to the grand canyon. The drive there kind of sucks because you have to cross the dam to get there. Traffic over the dam is stupid since no one can drive without stopping to look at everything. When we got to the canyon we checked out the trail maps outside the visitors center and decided which trail we would do in the morning. Of course we picked the hardest one. After looking at the trails we just biked around the south rim and found a good point to watch the sunset from. The sunset was pretty cool with the way the light played on the canyon walls. After watching most of the sunset we headed back to the car and noticed that the clouds looked incredible. There were more colorful clouds than ive ever seen. The coulds were purple, blue, yellow, orange, and pink in different parts of the sky. We left the canyon and headed out to camp.

We found a pretty good spot to camp and set up our tent. After laying and watching the sky for a while we got out of the tent to get something out of the car. We realized that the sky was ridiculous looking. There were more stars in the sky than I had ever seen in my life. We could also see the milky way which was intense and something I had never seen before. It basically just looks like a band of light through the stars. Its hard to explain but its awesome.

We woke up for our second day at the canyon and prepared for our grueling hike down and back up. We packed about 5 pounds of food, filled our water bottles, and lathered ourselves up with sunscreen then drove over to the trail. We parked, got out, and found the trail. We started hiking. At the beginning of the trail we passed several people, all walking much slower than us. There were checkpoints for water each mile and a half so we stopped to fill up at each and made sure we were drinking enough water. We kept passing people til the second check point then the trail got a little less populated. We made it down to the bottom of the trail, 6 miles down, in about 2.5 hours. The view of the canyon and the river from that spot was worth the hike down. After hanging out, eating lunch, and taking pictures we started hiking back up. We passed several people on the way back that were going up when we were going down. People walk really slow. The hike up was hard work but we made it in the same time it took us to get down. 5 hours and 4 minutes for the whole trail. The suggested time to allow was 8-12 hours.

After hiking we decided we’d like to have a bed for the night and drove to phoenix. My cousin Aaron helped us out and got us an apartment for the night. The apartment is ridiculously nice and the pool looks like something that belongs at the playboy mansion. We hung out, showered, watched tv, and went to the pool before going out for the night. We decided to check out the bar scene but it was dead on the Thursday night. We headed for the apartment and went to bed.