Diamond Fork Canyon overnighter

Here are some pics from our winter overnighter in Diamond fork canyon

Here's Drew catching some sweet air in his sled

Drew wrecking after catching some sweet air.

Drew lying there motionless in a thorny bush after catching some sweet air and wrecking.

Here's Spencer hitting the jump

Spencer hit the thorny trees about seven times, and here's the proof. Luckly his face took the brunt of the damage and protected his body from serious injury.

 Kaden and Quinton decided to show everyone that they are true "Homies"

First they did a barechested chest bump, which was a little weak and turned out to be more like a bump and rub.

Next they decided to make reverse snow angels.

Z-Dogg got jeleous and took off his shirt to participate but it was too late Kaden and Quinton were too cold to continue.

After a good nights rest we got up and made some of my World Famous authentic mexican american breakfast burritos.

What is Koy making you ask? well thats an entire dutch oven of bacon.

The boys were suddenly very helpful after finding out that those who didn't cook had to clean up.

Spencer cutting up vegies, he says if you gently pat them down it brings out the flavor. I'm a little skeptical of this theory, but it must have worked because the burritos were hella good, oops! I mean darned good, sorry about the profanity its a bad habit.

Drew and Jacob, the two newbies, cooking up a giant batch of delicious meaty porky goodness.

After breakfast we packed up our gear and tied all the sleds to the 4 wheelers and headed to the hot pots.

We had several technical difficulties involving the sleds, this was the first.

Denver trying to talk some sence into the boys.

I was pulling Koy, Drew, Jacob, and Kaden, and Denver rode on the back. We had the ghetto sleds, which also made it much funner, and funnier. If the person in the front sled (Drew) fell off then he would either get ran over or just make everyone else wreck as well.

The boys were covered in snow thrown from the 4 wheeler or the sled in front of them, Koys hands were so cold they started to turn purple.

Adam was pulling Zach, Spencer and Quinton, and Bryce rode on the back.

This is when I accidentally made Kaden crash into a rock which punctured a hole in my saucer, the second hole came from the same rock on the way back...No I didn't do it on purpose.

Pulling up to the trailhead.

After arriving at the trailhead we had a two mile uphill hike ahead of us, but it was totally worth the effort.

Once we arrived at the hot pots the boys went further up the trail to change into swim trunks. While Koy was changing an innocent hiker happened to walk up on Koy while his pants were down, that poor old man.

Here is Kaden after getting hit with what he called "Duck Poo" wonder who would have thrown that at him? That same person later accidentally hit him in the face with a big gob. Kaden sure looks dehydrated, it's too bad I forgot the bottled water.

While we were sitting in this pool, Adam entered the upper pool and pulled the plug, draining part of the upper pool into ours along with a bunch of green slimy crud, it also stirred up all the moss and algae from our pool and we were basically sitting in a sespool.

You want a peice of this?

We went up to the upper hot pot which was basically heaven, except for the sulfer/rotten egg smell.

Quiet! Koy and Bryce are praying (probably asking that the smell won't permenantly stick to them)

There is a sweet waterfall too, but that water is not hot, it's freezing cold!

Z in front of the snow doing his gangsta hand dance.

Here's Adam in the Lions mouth. I kept asking him where I could get a pair of those sweet jean shorts but he wouldn't tell me.

Drew lookin like a Lobster, I'll bet you can't tell how deep the water was on his chest.

There's nothing better than soaking in a natural hot pot in the middle of winter while it's snowing.

This is when my battery died so I couldn't get any more pics, but at least I got a few.

This is what was left of the sleds

When we arrived at the trucks both Adam and I had been issued a ticket for taking our 4 wheelers up the trail, it was totally worth it.

When we got home and I took a shower that horrible hot pot smell started comming off my body reminding me of the awesome trip we just finished!



Night Hike Aug. 19-20, 2011

NIGHT HIKE

Last Friday I took the Scouts on a Night Hike, which is a hike consisting of hiking at night.

We started out at the top of Farview canyon, hiked along Skyline Drive and ended at the bottom of Pleasant Creek (Mt. Pleasant canyon) our highest elevation was 10000 feet ending at about 7000 feet, there was a lot of downhill.

Me, Hunter, Drew, Jacob and Tim Skinner

Getting started at about 8:00 pm.

My parents were nice enough to shuttle us up to the top. It was the weekend of the Bow hunt so in the beginning we saw quite a few people, and got dusted by a few trucks, but after dark we didn't see anyone else.

There's still snow up there, I wanted to whitewash Hunter but I think he is still holding a grudge at me for accidentally hitting him in the back of the head with a volleyball last week. I'm also sure he's never forgiven me for that time I accidentally shot him in the forehead with an airsoft gun.

The moon was out but there are so many trees that shaded us we still had to use headlamps.

Dinner time, we stopped halfway down and cooked up some Mountain House meals. I had brought a ton of water but we hardly used any because it was nice and cool.

We reached the truck at 3:00 AM. The hike was approximately 18 miles. We were all pretty beat and ready for bed so we wasted no time getting to our camp site.

The next morning, we had a hard time getting up and going. The boys slept in hammocks and Tim and I slept on cots in the bed of my truck it was sweet.

The next morning we went to my parents house and my mom made us an amazing breakfast before we headed home.

Beaver High Adventure Base

Our High Adventure camp started out a little hectic. The Monday before we found out that all participants in activities were required to have a physical.

As you can see from the website pictured above it is a little confusing, so you can see how I missed that small detail. Our stay in camp was going to be less than 72 hours so I thought we were okay. I even called the scout office and confirmed that we didn't need physicals but when I called the actual camp director he said we would, he didn't believe me when I told him the website said otherwise.

Well fortunately all the boys were able to get their medical forms completed and we met the next day at 4:30 AM to leave early, unfortunately Dave slept in so we didn't leave till after 5:00. We still made it to camp, just a little late. The entire time the staff kept referring to us as the "missing group"

Our first day we did the COPE course

 One of the activities we did was a trust fall, where each of us had to take a turn falling backwards from a 5' table and be caught by our group. Koy was the first to go, he freaked out right before being caught and punched both me and Dave in the face, it still hurts.



In this activity we had to get all of our group across a series of stumps using only 3 planks. The leaders were allowed to participate but we couldn't help them figure it out, they did awesome.

 

 

The Ranger said he hadn't ever seen a group get across so quickly and efficiently.

We also had to figure out how to get all seven of us over the top of this 10' wall, some of us were not allowed to use certain parts like arm, hand leg etc.. The boys figured how to get everyone over without using anything at all, at the end we just had to use a log for the last guy to stand on so we could pull him up.

 Kaden...I think he's having a seizure.

HIGH COPE
In the afternoon we got to do the High Cope

Jacob Anderson on the "Flying Squirrel" Which was basically one guy tied to a cable going through a pulley, and the other end of the cable was being pulled by about 20 guys running as fast as they could. 

Drew Taylor

Kaden

Dave

Koy Dibb

This one is of me (Herm) I would like to say that the reason only my legs are in the picture is because they pulled me so fast that the camera couldn't take the pic. fast enough, but the real reason is that Koy is very poor photographer.

Skyler on the zip line, they said it's the second longest zip line in the state

Kaden trying to look like a player

Here is Drew on the beam after climbing a 20' long rope to get to the top. Good thing he brought his camelback for the whole five minutes it took to complete it.

I'm really not sure who this is, but he made it!

Kaden got the two ropes twisted up so bad that it took five minutes to get untangled.

He finally made it out on the beam

Jacob walking the beam like a pro.

On Wednesday did the Rock Climbing and Rappelling course, it was awesome!

Skyler doing some Rappelling

Jacob Anderson

Here's Kaden holding on for his life, I'm pretty sure he stopped half way down to cry.

Dave finishing a sweet climb

Koy Dibb

Yep, that's me. Kaden took this one.

Drew

Jacob

Koy Dibb

Apparently this is a rendering of my face, you can tell because of the sideburns.

After getting our fill of climbing and rappelling we got to go to the shooting range and shoot clay pidgins, 22's and re curve bows.

Here's Skyler shooting a 12 gauge for the first time

This is the shot that got me and Kaden kicked off the shooting range. Allow me to elaborate:

Well we had just finished shooting and had moved on to the archery range, Kaden and Koy were already on thin ice for messing around and bugging Preston, the worker running the range, which didn't help the situation out at all. After shooting for quite a while we were getting a little bored and started coming up with more creative ways to shoot. Preston was off flirting with some girls and wasn't paying much attention. I told Kaden to lob the arrow in the air and try to hit the target, which, at the time, I didn't know was against the rules, (pictured above) I then proceeded to take an action shot of said lobbing. Apparently lobbing arrows is frowned upon at beaver because when Preston saw what Kaden was doing he freaked out, he then came over to Kaden and said "That's strike three get off my range!" we weren't sure if he was joking or serious as he is one of those goofy guys that is hard to read. Our uncertainty was put to rest when Preston yelled "GET OUT!!!!"

Kaden exited the shooting area and we watched everyone else from the side. Of course It couldn't have just ended at that. We thought Preston seemed like a guy who liked to joke around and I thought a little laugh would smooth things over and calm him down so I told Kaden to go tell him sorry, shake his hand and pull him in for a hug. Theoretically this would have been followed by loud laughter, and Preston forgiving Kaden, however the act of laughing and forgiving definitely did not occur (at least not from Preston)

Preston was on the other end of the range still flirting with the girls, Kaden approached Preston,  stuck out his hand, and said sorry, but instead of receiving Kaden's apology Preston rejected it by giving Kaden a small but firm shove and yelling "NO" Well I guess Kaden was hell bent on getting a hug because he just bounced back and said "come on man, I'm sorry"  and then forced a hug on Preston. A hug as you know, is something you give to someone who you care about, and not to someone whom you are angry with, so you can imagine how well Preston received Kaden's hug, or perhaps a better term to use would be "rejected Kaden's hug"  Preston retaliated with an even harder shove.

When the flirting girls realized that Kaden was an enemy of their potential boyfriend they were angered as well, and if you have had any experience with angry girls then you know that they are completely and totally relentless, and  ruthless, and will say anything to hurt your feelings. The girls started ripping on Kaden using verbal attacks like "YOU'RE A JERK", "you'll never have a girlfriend", "you will never get married", and my personal favorite "Your clothes don't even match" (which actually was true as you can see in the photo he is wearing a tie dye shirt with plaid golfing slacks)

After being belittled and rejected in every way, Kaden returned to my side and we continued watching the others attempt to shoot bows. After watching for a few minutes Preston came back over and was observing Koy, Jacob, Drew, and Skyler. At this point Kaden decided to apologize yet again, he said "I'm Sorry, just shake my hand" but Preston wasn't having it and said "I'll punch you, get away from me" Kaden continued to try to shake hands which only angered Preston even more. Finally I said "Come on Preston, shake his hand. Be the bigger man"  After hearing this, Preston reached his boiling point and really lost it, saying,  "You're out of here Kaden, get out!" Preston then looked at me and said "You too, you're out of here" Kaden and I just stood there confused, we weren't sure if he was for real or joking. Preston kept yelling at us to leave for a bit but we didn't know what to do, so we stayed. Finally after seeing that his forced authority was not intimidating us he yelled for the guy in charge of the whole shooting range "Zach.....Zach.....ZACH!!!" he then ran off to tell on us.

 At this point Kaden and I just slowly walked off. As we walked away, the flirtatious girls started ripping on Kaden, saying once again "your clothes don't match", "you'r a looser", and "you'll never have a girlfriend", we just continued on and then heard Zach (the range master) yell out to those still at the shooting range "You guys need to respect Preston and do what he says, he's in charge"

 

We returned to our camp, alone, and I explained to Kaden that when you start messing with peoples heads they will respond in one of three ways. They will either laugh hysterically, do nothing because they don't get it, or get extremely angry (which is what Preston did). I also explained to Kaden that when a girl gets mad they become vicious, and will say or do anything to tear you down, or hurt you, even if their ridicule has nothing to do with the current argument, and to simply avoid girls for the rest of his life.

WHITEWATER RAFTING

Thursday morning we woke up to a cold rainstorm, we quickly took down camp, had a campsite inspection by an employee who obviously learned to camp from a book, and headed out to do some rafting. I was somehow able to convince the camp inspector not to make us take our ashes home with us.

While driving from Beaver to the whitewater place in big rock candy mtn. most of the boys were complaining and wining about the fact that it was raining and wanted to go home. I simply told them we had paid a lot of money for this and we weren't going home. Plus you will already be getting wet how will the rain make a difference.

What a great looking bunch, the sun must have been a little bright for Dave.

When we got out on the river the storm broke and it warmed up.

You may be asking yourself how I was able to take such amazing pictures and still be included in them, the answer is, I'm just an amazing photographer.

Actually These pics were courtesy of Deb, the owner of the whitewater joint, and when I say "courtesy" what I mean is, she charged me $20 for a CD of low quality photos taken by an armature photographer with an old 5 megapixel camera.

Our guide was Joe, he was kind enough to make sure each and every one of us was completely saturated. He also let us know that Deb's camera wasn't that great, nor were her photo capturing abilities.

By the time we were done all of us were soaked.

Everyone had a blast on the river and said that it was the funnest activity, good thing I "forced" them to go, and didn't take them home like they wanted.

MAPLE CANYON

For our last night we decided to camp somewhere else because we would already be leaving camp to do the whitewater. We were going to camp at some hot springs in Monroe, however for reasons that do not need to be discussed, I got pulled over. The officer turned out to be way cool and told us that the springs were totally ghetto so we decided to go somewhere else, he let me off with a verbal warning.

After some serious thinking I thought it would be sweet to go to maple canyon, where we got the last available camp site.

We went to my favorite Pizza parlor in Ephriam

We Hiked up a cool little slot canyon called Box Canyon, it was sweet, we were the only ones there, it was shady and cool.

what a fine looking group

Here's Kaden showing some "Respect"

Jacob looking extremely annoyed, or confused I really can't tell

Here's Skyler giving Kaden pointers on how to pick his nose

It looks like Drew is getting pulled down into a pit by some monster.

Koy, Kaden, and Skyler sleeping in hammocks

After packing up we went to my parents house in Mt. Pleasant and my Mom made us an amazing breakfast before heading home.