When Three is Three and a Half

After several years hiking out here I finally found a boot that last more than one year so I bought three pair. One I have a wide foot which isn't carried normally in stores in small towns and two my fear was that they would quit making them since they were so dependable and lasted so long they probably weren't making a profit on return customers. One set is 2012, one in 2014, and another in 2015. As it turns out when you have a pair of boots and one wears out or has a defect that just isn't fixable neither boot has value anymore. As it turns out one pair both boots did give out about the same time. A second pair the right boot gave out and the third pair the left boot gave out. So by taking the left of the second pair and the right of the third pair I still have a workable pair of boots. Don't know for how long but it's been an extra couple months so far so kind of cool. Then my new pair I'm breaking in far left.

Thursday Hike

No place in particular. I let Jax lead and we just wandered around. All the green foliage is gone right at eye level for deer and big horn so now you know what they eat. A single strand grows up out of the sand stone.

Wednesday Morning Hike

Mother of all Hogans which has been under construction for at least a year.

Sandbars popping up everywhere. Looking like won't be able to get around this side of the island in kayaks much longer.

Reflection of clouds in the river.

Jax and I hiked about a mile of the main road on the way back and picked up this much trash. It's so depressing.

Mama and Baby

Linny walks over to clean the female hogan and there is a mama and baby big horn grazing about ten feet away. When I got there a few minutes later they had moved a hundred feet or so. Bottom/middle left side of the photo.

Monday River Run

On Monday I drove guests in so they could do a longer river run, about 4.5 hours this time. Linny took the Jeep in for service and we got one of the Kymco side by sides back so she drove that back to the lodge while I took the truck and did a Kobae food stop. He's eating more every day. It's outrageous.

One more thing as I post these pictures. I notice they are 0013 and 0015 so congratulations to this Fuji XP that Heather bought me years ago and has taken a beating out here taking 10,000 plus photos and still working.

Some Splaining To Do

For about six hours two nights ago the post "A Short Hike" was titled "A Visitor". I wrote about dreams, one in particular that is becoming more frequent. I explained that to search for an answer to the Visitor I went back to sleep trying to get a possible solution for an answer to "did I do the right thing." As a result of going back to sleep Jax and I got a late start and it was a short hike.

When I woke up in the morning and re-read it I wasn't sure I was going to be able to prove that it happened in the first place and perhaps it's a little too personal for a blog that is suppose to be about Base Camp, not me. I looked and saw that only five people had read it so I deleted it.

Now, of course, some of those people that read it have emailed me and ask did such a post really exist or did they have a dream and or imagine it. So, I'll try and put it back together and however it plays out in the next few days, weeks, months, or years, is just the way it is. Nothing I can do about it.

The Beach

In one night the beach went from being an island to all beach with a little mud. Linny, Jax, and I visited Sunday evening.

Short Cut

The hike over the western portion of the Anti-Cline to the Wind Caves and back takes 3.5 hours. On Sunday morning Jax and I searched for a short cut to get on top and see if we could knock a half hour off the hike.

After three hours of searching for a shorter way up the only trail I found was a big horn trail I fell off (twice) several years earlier and wound up in the Emergency Room for a few hours with a chipped bone in my rotator cuff.

Short Hike

Jax and I just hiked around the property Saturday morning, the gravel pit, the boat ramp, the boneyard, the boat dock, and so forth.

Friday Evening

Linny, Jax, and I are digging new stairs down to the beach.

Wednesday Hike

Jax and I hike up to Hurrah Pass and back.

Evening

I'm cleaning the main house at Last Hurrah for guests checking in tomorrow. For just a few moments I got to look around and see the last rays of sunlight bouncing off various formations in the distance and it was nice, it was quiet, the bullfrogs hadn't begun their nightly song at the pond, it was the way it's suppose to be.

Monday Morning

Jax and I headed off to do Stairway to Heaven and then the big horn trail under the Anti-Cline but when we got to Stairway it was covered with a fine dust making it a little too slippery for my liking and particularly by myself so we took a climb Linny and I found ten years ago and an alternate to Stairway, sort of a Stairway Two. The Moenkopi is always difficult to hike in and especially climb. It wears in overhangs. Sometimes you can get up overhangs but getting down is not easy. Today we got up a ledge that broke under us preventing a way back down and then it got dicey. I'm not a fan of dicey anymore. I lifted Jax up several ledges and then dragged myself up them. The last one was chance. It looked solid and I tested it with half weight, three quarters weight, four fifths weight and finally made the commitment. There's just that brief moment going over the top that I'm just not sure the Moenkopi is going to hold me. Inching my way over the top to safety I could hear my heart pounding as I lay there trying to catch my breath. No more of that. Jax whimpered I was going to leave him and risking it all again I got about half way back down to him and then he just blew by me like there was nothing to it. Turkey.