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Well. Kalah and I had been planning for nearly a year to join some fellow MJR folks on the Rubicon earlier this month. My final shakedown run for the Jeep was a fun little trail here in AZ on July 13th. I had the Jeep loaded down with my Brother-In-Law and his 3 kids who were visiting from Kansas City. On the way up I kept hearing a clunk from the driver rear... I got out to check and found that the Upper Control Arm mount had ripped off of the frame and torn a giant hole in the frame... Eek. We rigged it up so do some mild wheeling and then...
The Jeep was towed back the 2 hours to where I live and dropped off to be repaired. I still don't have it back yet.
Thankfully I have awesome insurance and out of the $14,500 the estimate came in at, I'm only in for $250. I know, I know... I should have kept the money and fixed it myself, but sadly I don't have the time to hassle with everything so I just left it at the shop for them to do the work. I'm told I'll have it back by early September with a brand new frame and a few other things.
Any whos. Kalah and I figured since we had the time off from work, and some spare $$ we'd do a different sort of adventure. Backpacking the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Parks. We drove over 1100 miles, covered 41 on foot, and gained and lost about 13,000 feet in elevation; I even got to do some mild free climbing.
The photos were taken with our GoPro (we'd never used it as a camera before) and are all unedited. I think they turned out pretty well, except we managed to always get the edge of a finger in the shot.
Start of Bright Angel trail at 4a. We wanted to make sure we hit the river by 9a to avoid the midday heat.
Looking down towards Indian Gardens campground.
Looking up from where we'd just come from.
A little over half way down, still no sign of the river below.
Finally!!
We only had another 1.5 miles, mostly in sand, from here. We set up camp and relaxed in Bright Angel Creek and tried to stay cool. The summer time temps down here were registering about 115.
This was on our trip back out. We were only covering about 5 miles to our next camp at Indian Gardens, again we were on the trail at 4a to avoid moving in the heat.
Believe it or not, that's about a 15 foot waterfall by my right foot.
These little dudes were crazy. If I'd of had a 22 with me we'd have ate squirrel. Woke up to this guy trying to get in my day pack, inside the tent. Ran him off only to have him come back a few minutes later.
Our evening at Indian Gardens we did a short 3 mile hike out to a point overlooking the river. We made dinner and enjoyed a nice sunset.
At this point of our final hike back out of the Canyon we thought it would be funny to pose next to the "Up is Mandatory" sign... Kalah had to pick her legs up with her hands the last couple miles as her hips were pretty sore, I managed to screw up my left knee as well. That made it rough coming out with all our gear.
The Jeep was towed back the 2 hours to where I live and dropped off to be repaired. I still don't have it back yet.
Thankfully I have awesome insurance and out of the $14,500 the estimate came in at, I'm only in for $250. I know, I know... I should have kept the money and fixed it myself, but sadly I don't have the time to hassle with everything so I just left it at the shop for them to do the work. I'm told I'll have it back by early September with a brand new frame and a few other things. Any whos. Kalah and I figured since we had the time off from work, and some spare $$ we'd do a different sort of adventure. Backpacking the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Parks. We drove over 1100 miles, covered 41 on foot, and gained and lost about 13,000 feet in elevation; I even got to do some mild free climbing.
The photos were taken with our GoPro (we'd never used it as a camera before) and are all unedited. I think they turned out pretty well, except we managed to always get the edge of a finger in the shot.
Start of Bright Angel trail at 4a. We wanted to make sure we hit the river by 9a to avoid the midday heat.
Looking down towards Indian Gardens campground.
Looking up from where we'd just come from.
A little over half way down, still no sign of the river below.
Finally!!
We only had another 1.5 miles, mostly in sand, from here. We set up camp and relaxed in Bright Angel Creek and tried to stay cool. The summer time temps down here were registering about 115.
This was on our trip back out. We were only covering about 5 miles to our next camp at Indian Gardens, again we were on the trail at 4a to avoid moving in the heat.
Believe it or not, that's about a 15 foot waterfall by my right foot.
These little dudes were crazy. If I'd of had a 22 with me we'd have ate squirrel. Woke up to this guy trying to get in my day pack, inside the tent. Ran him off only to have him come back a few minutes later.
Our evening at Indian Gardens we did a short 3 mile hike out to a point overlooking the river. We made dinner and enjoyed a nice sunset.
At this point of our final hike back out of the Canyon we thought it would be funny to pose next to the "Up is Mandatory" sign... Kalah had to pick her legs up with her hands the last couple miles as her hips were pretty sore, I managed to screw up my left knee as well. That made it rough coming out with all our gear.
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