At Your Own Risk

Well, Corey and I did something this morning that I would categorize as "rather foolish". It was not totally reckless, and thankfully nothing bad or life threatening happened, as evidenced by the fact that I'm here at home blogging about it, but I was uncomfortable and nervous for most of our trip. We biked up the canyon to the part where we usually stop, aka where the path is covered with broken trees from an avalanche, and Corey was like "Let's go over it." And he started to climb over. I stood there uncomfortable for 3 minutes trying to figure out how to climb over this rubble or to, preferably, bail out from following him.

He'd been waiting for a chance to get past this barricade, and today was it, since we had our extra baby sitters at home (aka Wes). He took my bike up but I couldn't figure out how to get under or over the first trunks in my way. I paced back and forth and then found a place where I could get myself up, and then I was like "I guess I'm following you..." as I continued to voice my opinion that this was a stupid idea. 

After we got over the avalanche, the path was clear and we were able to bike for a little bit. Corey seemed to feel quite triumphant. "Now THIS is mountain biking!" 

He tried to reassure me: "What's going to happen? An avalanche isn't going to get us now." I pointed out that on our way up we passed a sign that said "Canyon Open, Enter At Your Own Risk". The canyon has been closed for several days and I learned yesterday that it was because of a mudslide. "I don't think this is a good idea..." I said again. He replied "Well, we won't know that until we see what happens next..." ha. He teases me for being a little too carefree, but today I was able to point out that he was, in my opinion, not thinking things through. We made it past the trees and the trail was clear! He was excited to bike further up the trail. The victory was short lived, since after a brief path of clear trail, we came to un-bikeable snow...

And more snow...

And it was pretty much like that the rest of the way up. I did learn that it was better to walk on the middle part of the trail, where the snow was packed down from people riding on their fat bikes. If you walked on the sides of that, your feet fell down through a foot of snow. I called Wes but no answer. He called me back - I told him that we were going to be atleast another 30-40 minutes, so if he could get the kids all out the door...

So it turned into mostly a backcountry skiing-ish adventure, but hiking with bikes, and without the ability to ride back down, as I was NOT interested in going back the way that we had come. The fastest way to get this over with was to keep going. I was grateful when we came to the third bridge. This mean that the end was in sight.

The third bridge gets us across the river, and that gives us access to the road - so... "hooray!" we have a way home. Corey went up a bit more but the next part had been all dug up and there was quite a bit of water coming through. I was glad Corey didn't suggest climbing over and through that. We'll see how that looks in another month and if it's bikable. Yay, time to hit the road. It was quick getting back once we got back on the road. Corey joked that "I just wanted to beat Eric at something..." (we had a neighbor who last summer we often saw biking up or down the trail at much faster speeds than us, so Corey was joking that he was proud to be the first to get further up the canyon.) You win, sweetheart. Good job. So, that was an adventure. My toes were cold cause my shoes were all wet. And I will not be doing that again until the snow melts.  On the way down, we saw a bunch of workers looking at the avalanche, and I'm assuming they'll be clearing it? I'm glad that they didn't show up when we were in the act of climbing over the trees. But it was an adventure and I'm glad we didn't die in a mudslide or anything. 9.88 miles, 1 hour 23 min.

Ethan and Wes both got the kids out the door and took care of the little kids until we got back. They left Sunday and have been gone all week. Wes was glad to see Peter again. On Tuesday night, Peter had a moment to think and said "Mom? Where's Wes?" He was just noticing that something was missing. Wes gave him lots of hugs this morning. Ethan asked Natalie for a hug before she went to school, and he said she gave him a disgusted look and said "You look drunk..." as she walked away. Sheesh, that's brutal Natalie! They got home from their rafting trip at 2 am this morning. They went with some neighbors to Arizona to ride the Salt River. 

I think they had a good time and they said it was pretty intense. The leader of the trip, Jim, flipped his raft in the first two miles, so that was when they learned that this would be a rough river. Ethan and Wes were in the double ducky (an inflatable kayak for two passengers) and were fighting. Jim said "Now you know why they call it the 'divorce ducky'" Wes was nervous that they were heading into a class 4 rapid and were fighting/not agreeing on how to go forward, but they are home, so that means they survived, yay. We are glad that they're back safely. Ethan left today for St. George, and tomorrow he's flying out of Las Vegas to go to North Carolina to sell pest control. He's gotta do it to pay for college. Good luck, Eth. 

Date night tonight was going to be at Blue Lemon if it was open, but I called all their restaurants and they are all closed! None of them answered and you can't order anything online for pick up, so I'm a little sad. But we went to Aubergine, which now has a location in Draper (and I still think that Aubergine is a dumb name, but it's grown on me a little) and it was VERY good. So we might have found a good replacement to be one of our date night regulars. I got the spicy curry bowl, and Corey was eye-ing it, so I let him have it, and he got the cashew melt, and I took a bite and that was so good, so I ate most of that, and then we got a brownie layers for dessert, super yummy.