Dave here...I decided to squeeze in a week-long trip to the Phoenix area for some hopefully warmer climbing and mountain biking. My plan was to base out of my friend Greg’s house but also do some nice spring-time camping out in the desert.
In reality the week I chose to spend in Arid-zona turned out to be quite different than I hoped for – while I was there the Phoenix area received approximately 20% of its annual precipitation and temperatures were as much as 30 degrees below normal…
The day I left the weather forecast still looked great. But by the time I arrived, it had started to decay…
Regardless, I had a really good time hanging out with some of the Phoenix gang, climbing at some new areas, and mountain biking and hiking some of the local Phoenix trails that were basically in Greg’s backyard. I also spent some time shooting photographs of cactus, and local bird life which was really fun!
Many thanks to Greg and Felicia for their hospitality and the useful local area information. And thanks to Greg - some of the images posted here were taken by him. Greg was nice enough to take me (along with Fred and Quinn) climbing in the Superstition Mountains which offers a unique climbing experience in a true wilderness setting not too far from the Phoenix sprawl.
On the way home from Phoenix, I stopped in Sedona for a day to climb Coyote Tower with one of Greg’s regular climbing partners – Mr. X - and his friend Lydia. This 600’ sandstone climb was on a very cool desert tower. It proved a nice way to end the trip.
Check out Henri! He found the big almond stash when we were out of the room. Was he ever happy! This is life as usual at our household.
I feel like I'm neglecting the blog. But really I'm not. It's just that there isn't much that is blog-worthy going on. It's still winter. It's still snowing a lot (got 3" last night). It's still cold.
School has started so that is keeping me busy. I'm teaching my first online course. Everything about an online course looks to be really sweet from the professor's point of view. I find that I'm not the biggest fan of it. I'll keep my mind open and see if that changes though.
I've started climbing again which is great. I'm leading back to my normal level. Only a few moves stop me (smearing with left foot only hucks) but it's getting better fast. Right now what is stopping me are my hands. During the time off, my hands sloughed off all my callouses. All.Of.Them. They get rare now and I have to stop. They'll come back soon for sure. They'll come back in time for foot whacking #2 scheduled for March 15th. That means by the time school is out, I should be able to climb almost normally! Yay!
Dave has been busy with work as well. Lots of photography work, video work and the regular project management. We're both looking forward to the summer.
Just wanted to drop in and wish everyone a happy valentine's day. Hopefully the next entry will have some fun photos and a fun excursion to talk about!
Many have asked so I thought I'd post photos of how the hoof is looking. These photos were taken at exactly five weeks. I now have a pair of non-matching feet! The surgical foot is still stiff, a bit swollen and a different color. Still, in five weeks we are shocked at the great progress. I'm wearing my own tennis shoes (but can't fit into any other of my shoes yet). And walking, there is a small limp - a hardly noticeable one. Plus I can't walk as fast as I used to yet. I reach this conclusion because of the number of people who walk up on my heels and then huff clearly annoyed that I am apparently walking in a lolly-gagging sort of fashion.
I can't complain too much. It is the universe paying me back. I think in the past I've done the same to others I deem walking too slowly. What a jerk I've been. I've learned my lesson.
Foot two surgery is scheduled for March 15th. I dread it, but I also look forward to having all of the surgery done soon and knowing all that is left is healing. When summer comes, I can just be getting stronger and stronger!
Dave here...So, you've already spent more money on your trip to Maui than any other vacation (at least for us). What do you do next? Spend more money by going on the classic helicopter tour of Maui and Molokai.
We talked about taking a helicopter ride for at least the first week of the trip before we finally committed to a chopper ride our second to last day.
We weren't disappointed. Plus, with the money hemorage, we were the lightest (in terms of weight) people on board ensuring premium front seat placements! Our views were unobstructed!
Callie had never been in a chopper and I'd been only once before so the two island tour was quite a treat. Weather and wind conditions were excellent so the flight was most enjoyable! In other words, nobody used the handy little white bags found on board. :)
On the ride, one gets to see many sights from that are only accessible via helicopters. We saw amazing valleys, enormous waterfalls, huge sea cliffs, breaching whales, giant manta rays, Iao Valley, sugar cane fields and kite boarders.
Although spendy, we thought the flight was really worth it and recommend it to anybody going to Maui.
Dave here... Although Maui is a relatively small land mass, there are some great road rides to do that cover an incredible variety of terrain.
Perhaps the king of Maui road rides is the sea-to-summit ride up and down Haleakala. This is a 10,023 foot dormant volcano (though scientists say it'll blow again).
Starting from a very cool hippy/artist/surfer town called Pai'a, one rides steadily uphill for 38 miles to the summit. On the way, you are treated to fantastic views, changing climatic zones and very tired legs. The views along the way and from the summit are truly awesome. Then when it's time head downhill, it's 10,000+ feet of descending fun on great curves and very nice road surfaces.
One funny aspect of the ride was watching the downhill-only tour groups come down in waves with their shiny cruiser bikes and full-face motorcycle helmets as I sweated my way in the opposite direction.
About 7 hours after leaving the car, I arrived back in a somewhat less energetic state. But, I was pretty buzzed from having done the best single day ride ever. A couple of days before that, I did a very nice ride that essentially follows the shore on both wide and *very* narrow roads around West Maui. I finished the ride in Iao Valley (where Jurassic Park was filmed) where Callie was waiting for me.
I rented a bike to ride two days on the island. BEWARE that in my experience, West Maui Cycles has the lamest customer service of any bike shop I've been in. This on top of renting broken and dangerous bikes. Not a great combination. Instead, I do strongly recommend the Maui Cyclery in Pai'a. A much more professional shop with better equipment and employees who actually give a @#!@! about the customer.
Dave here...I decided to squeeze in a week-long trip to the Phoenix area for some hopefully warmer climbing and mountain biking. My plan was to base out of my friend Greg’s house but also do some nice spring-time camping out in the desert.
In reality the week I chose to spend in Arid-zona turned out to be quite different than I hoped for – while I was there the Phoenix area received approximately 20% of its annual precipitation and temperatures were as much as 30 degrees below normal…
The day I left the weather forecast still looked great. But by the time I arrived, it had started to decay…
Regardless, I had a really good time hanging out with some of the Phoenix gang, climbing at some new areas, and mountain biking and hiking some of the local Phoenix trails that were basically in Greg’s backyard. I also spent some time shooting photographs of cactus, and local bird life which was really fun!
Many thanks to Greg and Felicia for their hospitality and the useful local area information. And thanks to Greg - some of the images posted here were taken by him. Greg was nice enough to take me (along with Fred and Quinn) climbing in the Superstition Mountains which offers a unique climbing experience in a true wilderness setting not too far from the Phoenix sprawl.
On the way home from Phoenix, I stopped in Sedona for a day to climb Coyote Tower with one of Greg’s regular climbing partners – Mr. X - and his friend Lydia. This 600’ sandstone climb was on a very cool desert tower. It proved a nice way to end the trip.
