An Extreme Summer

   This summer, I have found myself doing things that I normally don't think I would do. I'm not sure if it's because Jason is gone and I'm just doing pretty much anything to keep me busy, or if my circle of friends are just wild and crazy. The first adventure was an afternoon of climbing with 3 other girls.

Shannon, leading the way up a short crack in Vedauwoo, with Evelyn making sure she doesn't fall too far.

See? I said it was a short crack.

I'm not sure what's going on right here, but these photos are in sequence.

Shannon's trying to figure out how to make an anchor on the top.

Gunther was checking out the progress of the climb.

   The second adventure was going jeepin' in Jason's jeep. Some friends called me up and said I should pick them up and go jeepin'. I would just like to state that I have never been legitimately jeeping in my life. But we gave it a try.

Shannon and Justin got to ride in the back with no seats.

 

The scenery that evening was really pretty.

We found either a jeepin' spot or a dirt bike spot. We're not sure which, but we used it anyway.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but the folks in the back got the real roller coaster ride whenever we did go over stuff.

Shannon

Justin
We did go over some more extreme territory then what is shown here, including a water hole, but no one would get out and take the pictures. (I'd just like to mention that the driver forgot to roll up their window before going thru the water hole! I remembered a little to late.) Since the back seat passengers couldn't see how big the bumps and holes were going to be, they got a lot of surprises. They eventually asked for the person riding shotgun to call out a color for each bump, with the darker the color, the bigger the bump, so that they could prepare and brace themselves against being thrown against the ceiling. It was definitely an adventure, although I'm sure it wasn't near as daring and exciting as when Jason goes jeepin'.

    My most extreme adventure this summer thus far was the camping trip to the International Climbing Festival. I am not an avid climber at this point. I have only tried to climb because Jason wants me to try it. Jason is the one that should've gone to this festival, but somehow I got roped into going. There were 8 of us that went.

There were a lot of signs around town welcoming all the climbers. The first place we went climbing was at a place on a mountain called "Wild Iris."

Brittany and Nikki getting ready to scale a climb.

Justin climbing while Adam belays.

Adam had quite a cushy position for belaying that climb!

Jake

Justin letting Adam down after he finished a route.

Nikki enjoying some snackage.

Jake leading a crack climb.

Taking a short break to re-group.

Getting ready to try again. Jess is belaying him, while Nikki is holding on to Jess, just in case Jake falls. (If you are lighter in weight then the person climbing, and they take a pretty good fall, chances are you, the belayer, will come off the ground.)

Jake making pretty good progress.

Jess and Nikki doing their job.

Making his way to the top...

and clipping in to another anchor.

After Jake came down, Jess gave it a try and made it look super easy!

Shannon was the group onlooker and encourager. She had hurt her hand the week prior while climbing and had a pretty nasty rope burn going on, so she wasn't able to climb that weekend.

My battle scars for the first day: only my knee.

Of course, a climbing trip wouldn't be a climbing trip without dogs! My Gunther Bear.

And his best friend, Salem.

These two photos are from the drive down the mountain. I don't know exactly what areas they are.

On this trip, we spent two nights and two days. We had four tents in our group and it was Gunther and Salem's first camping trip ever. On the second day, we took down all of our campsite so that we could climb and then leave after for the 3 hour ride home.

We had already started taking down when I took this picture, but these two tents housed the dogs. (Both tents belong to Jason and I.) The tent on the left was known as the White House because it was so huge. That is where Adam, Justin, and Salem slept. The blue tent was known as the Pentagon, which is where Nikki, Gunther, and I slept. It was really funny the first night when we went to bed, because when I put Gunther in our tent, and Salem was in his, both dogs sat at their corner closest to the other tent and just stared. They knew the other dog was just across the way. It is so strange to see how they know where the other dog is, even when they can't see each other.

For our second day of climbing, we went to Sinks Canyon. Here is Brittany belaying Jake.

Justin belaying Nikki on another route.

 She's a really good climber.

Gunther didn't want to take a photo with me. :(

Brittany getting her climbing shoes on.

And ready to climb!

I think I only did one climb that day.

Thanks to Adam, I thought this picture was pretty spectacular.

This was probably the hardest climb of the weekend. Here is Nikki  trying to figure out the best way to get over the ledge.

And she just fell from doing an under-hang on the ledge.

   After she tried for a while, but couldn't get it due to being to worn out, Jake went up to try. I didn't get any photos of him, as I was belaying. He tried and tried and almost got it a few times, but it was getting really late and he was getting tired. Eventually, he gave up and came down without getting to the top. He fell a few times during this event and at one point, I got pulled off the ground and was swinging in the air. After that, Brittany and Justin rigged up some clips and tied me to a tree so that it wouldn't happen again. There is a picture of that somewhere, I just need to track it down.

Looking down out of the canyon.

And the wall that we had just climbed.

Our entire climbing/camping crew, minus Shannon, who had gone on a bike ride for the day.

And that is how extremely crazy and wild my summer has been so far!