More Photos From the Big Hole In The Ground

Just a fun shot overlooking Phantom Ranch on the Clear Creek Trail

Me on our way up the Bright Angel Trail

That little dot is the moon

The mules at phantom ranch

Dave sleeping after our hike down...the tent must have been to hot.

This is the creek right by our campsite...the water was so refreshing!

This is the Black Bridge...the one you cross coming off of south Kaibab Trail

A raven we met along the way

I have no idea why Dave was making this face...kinda funny!

Dave taking a rest

Two For Now

The view down the South Kaibab Trail:

Dave and I complete the hike on Monday afternoon:

Man, That's One Big Hole In The Ground

Some thoughts on our short vacation…amazing, beautiful, spectacular, peaceful, and very self satisfying.

We did it, we survived, and we’re here to tell you all about it. Tens of thousands of people go to the Grand Canyon every year but how many people actually hike to the bottom! We are very happy to be in that small percentage that makes it to the bottom. It was seriously the most amazing and ridiculous thing we have done.

We left the house on Friday morning and drove out to the south rim. We made a pit stop in Lake Havasu to have lunch and see London Bridge. The original London Bridge is there because a long time ago it just couldn’t handle the traffic in London anymore so the city of London decided to auction the bridge off. The winner of the auction was the city of Lake Havasu. We ate lunch at a brewery, which had really good Heffewiezen and White Ale. A couple of hours later we were back on the road to the GC. We set up camp and went to eat a nice big dinner before we started our long journey. Then it was off to bed early since we had to get up a bit before 6 to catch the hikers shuttle.

Saturday morning we got on the shuttle to the south Kaibab Trail. We were on this 7 mile trail right about 7:30am. The weather was perfect and a few clouds in the sky to try and help block the sun every once in a while. The south Kaibab Trail was beautiful! It follows a ridge so there were gorgeous views of the canyon all the time! I have to say though; going downhill really isn’t as easy as people may think. This trail is steep and boy could we feel it in our calfs and hips when we were done. My poor toes were in agony from hitting the front of my shoes. It took us 4.5 hours to reach our campground. Once we got there we found a great campsite right along the Bright Angel Creek. We set up the tent and got in the creek to cool and wash off…what a great treat for our feet! Dave was exhausted and took a bit of a nap while I explored some. Later that night we cooked our dinner on our stove. We had Honey Mustard Chicken, Corn, and Apple Cobbler (all dehydrated). Yeah we could have ordered dinner through Phantom Ranch, but we decided it would be nice to have the full backpacking experience. The Apple Cobbler was actually really good. We went to the ranger program that night then enjoyed some beer and wine at the Phantom ranch canteen.

Sunday was a day to just enjoy the bottom of the canyon, so we slept in. We were pretty glad we built in a rest day at the bottom. It was just so nice to be able to explore and relax down there. After breakfast (croissants and nutella) we did a small hike on the river trail. This short hike was beautiful…it follows the Colorado River and has spectacular views of the canyon. The temp was rising so we decided to go back and get in the river again. After soaking in the river I decided I wanted to take another short hike. Dave however was worried about not having enough in his muscles to get back up so he went to read his book at the Canteen while I hiked on the Clear Creek trail to the Phantom Ranch Overlook. My hike took a couple of hours, but my toes were killing me again so I headed back. I figured I’d grab Dave and we’d go back to the river, but I sat down in the air conditioned canteen and we started talking to this couple from Colorado. Two hours later, and a couple of glasses of wine the canteen was closing for the afternoon. We had a lot of fun talking to this group. Some people go to the Grand Canyon to hike from the north rim to the south rim, but they were doing north to south and back to the north rim! Awesome! Once the canteen closed we went back to the river and then cooked dinner. Dinner on this night was lasagna and mashed potatoes (dehydrated again). The lasagna was actually really good. After the ranger program we went straight to bed since we had to get up early.

For our hike out on Monday we got up at 4am. It took us a while to pack up the campsite so we were on the trail at 5am. We did this to avoid the heat in the bottom of the canyon. The only downfall was we had to hike with our headlamps for about an hour. Dave was seriously awesome on the hike out. We was kinda worried about climbing about 5000 ft in elevation with a 30 pound pack and he thought it was going to take him like 12 hours or something to get to the top. I however, knew he would be great! The start of the hike follows the CO river and it was a bit eerie crossing the silver bridge in the dark and hearing the rush of water below you. We then hiked through a gorgeous canyon and reached Indian Gardens at 8am! The hike up to this point was so beautiful and it was amazing watching the sunlight hit the canyon walls as it rose higher in the sky. After Indian Gardens the hike on the Bright Angel Trail gets more difficult. You have to wander up 4 miles of switchbacks and gain about 3000 ft in elevation. But Dave continued to cruise on up. We reached the top at 12:40…it took us pretty much exactly 7.5 hours to go 9.6 miles and climb up 5000 feet in elevation. Dave was seriously awesome. I was so proud of him. The last mile was tough on him but he kept going the best he could. As we were coming up there was a group going down. These people were seriously my heroes….they must have been in their 70s and were hiking down with big packs just like ours. Really, I hope I’m like that at their age. When we started to near the top and while we were at the top, we had lots of people asking us about our hike. They seemed pretty amazed. Once we got to the top of the rim we made a beeline to the ice cream shop, but we also took some time to take a look at where we came from. What an amazing sight to actually look at the trail and the canyon to see where we came from. So amazing. And so satisfying that we did that on our own two feet and carrying all of the stuff we needed for three days. I just don’t know how to put it in words as to how awesome of an accomplishment this was. I’m so glad we did this hike. I had the time of my life!

After our hike was complete we made the drive to Laughlin, Nevada to sleep in a comfy bed in a hotel and enjoy some gambling at the casinos. We had lots of fun, enjoyed a wonderful cooked Italian dinner and a bottle of wine. Amazingly we weren’t totally exhausted, and ended up staying up till about 11pm. We slept in on Tuesday and then wandered around the casinos and had more fun together.

Pictures…where are they? Later this week, I promise. I will post some to the blog, I took plenty!

Recipe, as promised last week

So I made that corn chowder again last night. I'm looking forward to the leftovers for lunch today. I found the recipe on the internet, here you go...

http://www.silksoymilk.com/AppetiteAppeal/RecipeDetails.aspx?category=8&recipe=76

The great thing about making your own soup is you get to choose what goes in it! I hate onions…actually I dispise onions. So its nice to have onionless soup. Its so funny because people don't really believe how much I hate them. So they fix things, don't tell me there is onion and think I won't notice. But I do in the first bite. I truly hate onions.

This weekend is the big weekend…Grand Canyon. We leave Friday morning, hike down on Saturday, relax on the canyon floor on Sunday ( think were going to swim at a waterfall), and hike up on Monday.I'm looking forward to a couple days off of work and enjoying the awe inspiring views of the canyon. Check back next week for photos.

Makin' the Big Switch

I've decided to do it...I'm switching to Mac! My laptop has been doing weird things. Totally usable to internet searching and so forth, but I don't use it for photo editing all. So I've decided to take the plunge and get a Mac Book. Yipee!

Yummy Corn Chowder

So I've been on a soup kick the last few months. I've pulled out some interesting recipes from fitness magazine. In the past I've been making yummy and healthy sweet potato soup, which I later turned into potato soup. This week I made Corn Chowder. Now I don't normally eat thick soups because they are made with heavy cream and are way bad for you. But I love these soups because they give you that rich creamy texture, but by remaining healthy. Basically the trick has been to use soy milk. you cook the soup as normal then take half of it and purree it in the blender . Then you add it back to the remainder of the soup. Last nights corn chowder was so good that Dave and I practically fought over who would take the leftovers it in for lunch. Definalty making that one again, maybe at my parents house for thanksgiving. I may post the recipe a little later when I have more free time.

Basketball Season is Right Around the Corner!

So today I learned that our thanksgiving trip to Florida will actually be quite awesome. I never really look forward to going to Florida, in fact I haven't been back much since I left. Florida just wasn't for this original Mid-Atlantic North East kinda girl. (i.e I really like my cold weather and mountains). So I never get really excited about going back. But I just found out that the Maryland Terps will be playing in Old Spice Classic in Orlando the entire weekend!!!! OMG! How awesome! What luck! Seriously!

The first game is MD vs Michigan State. The entire tourney is chock full of great teams...Gonzaga, Tennessee, Oklahoma, etc... Yeah I'm like one of the biggest college basketball fans you will ever meet...go ACC! I immediately called Dave and he's pretty stoked as well. Over the years he's become quite a fan of Gary Williams and the Terps as well. I think we're going to have to buy a lot of tickets though since my family will be in town as well. I am so excited! Yeah!

On a complete side note...this weekend Dave started exercising. We decided Tennis was a good way and something we could do together. But what this means for me...I get double the workout some days. Like on Saturday I did my normal 2 hours at the gym in the morning, then played tennis for an hour in the evening. Tonight I get double duty as well. Guess I will be really beefing up my cardio. We were both super productive this weekend, but Dave was awesome! He knew I had tons of photos to edit and informed me that he was going to clean the entire house! And he did! He even mowed the lawn in 95 degree heat! But we did manage to sit down and watch the bears beat the colts last night. :)

Mmmm...Creme Brulee

So I'm totally a health nut. I exercise 5-6 days a week, and eat frequently (at least 5 times) throughout the day but pretty healthy. I don't eat any fried foods and always choose lean meats. So I'm always in search of healthy new recipes. I've gotten into a new habit of cutting out recipes from my Fitness Magazines and putting them in a album, as my own recipe book. But today I was thinking it would be nice to make a nice, healthy dinner tonight. So I was thinking about doing my low fat Carbonara recipe (that we love). Then I was starting to crave Creme Brulee...but it soooo ridiculously bad for you. I did a little google search and I think I'm going to try this tonight (or this afternoon, so it will be ready for tonight).

Low-Fat Crème Brulee with Raspberries

Recipe created by Art Smith, adapted from Café on 5, Bergdorf Goodman, New York City

Ingredients:

Serves 6

• 1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups 2 percent milk
• 1 cup low-fat egg substitute , like Egg Beaters
• 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar for topping
• 1/2 pint raspberries

Preheat oven to 325°. Cut vanilla bean in half lengthwise and take knife and scrape out all of the seed. Set aside. In a bowl, combine the milk, vanilla bean seeds (or extract), egg substitute and granulated sugar. Beat well. Pour the mixture through a sieve and strain well.

Divide the raspberries evenly among six 4-ounce broiler-safe ramekins or custard dishes. Pour the custard mixture over the berries. Place the dishes in a 13-by-9 inch pan. Carefully pour boiling water into the pan until halfway up the sides of the dishes. Place in the oven and bake 40–45 minutes, until the custard centers are set but soft in the middle. Remove from the oven and allow the custard to cool. Place in the refrigerator and chill well, or even better, overnight.

Preheat the oven broiler to high. Sprinkle sugar evenly over tops of custards. Place the cups on a baking sheet and broil 1 to 2 minutes until the sugar caramelizes (melts and browns slightly). You may have to move the custards around to get even caramelization. Refrigerate about 15 minutes to set.

How Art reduced the fat: Art substituted 2% milk for heavy cream, and Egg Beaters egg substitute for the egg yolks. He also slightly reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe. Art's changes cut the fat from 34.6 grams to 1.7 grams, and the calories from 432 to 132!

4000 Calories!

According to one of those activity calculator things, I burned something like 4000 calories hiking this weekend. That's ridiculous! I wonder how accurate that is? Yesterday I decided I had earned myself a day off from the gym, but tonight I'm back into Shadow Boxing Class. Thankfully that works my arms and back thae most, because my calfs are still a bit sore.

13,700 Feet

So I put off posting this, because I am a bit disappointed in myself. But not so disappointed when I realized the real reason why I did it. So here's what happened this weekend.

Saturday: we got up to Lone Pine at 9am after a big breakfast and picked up our permits and Bear Canister. We drove up to the trail head and started hiking at 10 am as planned.

Dave: at the start of the hike: doesn't he look so serious! I know he was ready to get going.

After a few miles into the hike, you reach this sign. I felt like I should be hearing music from the Twilight Zone or something. The wind was howling through the trees. I was worried about the wind before we even got there. So I had packed lots of warm clothes..mittens, ski hat, etc…As we were going up other hikers coming down were telling us how horrible the wind was at trail camp.So when we reached outpost camp we decided to camp there instead. Other people had actually gone up to trail camp and came back down because it was that bad. Winds were gusting to around 50mph! The downfall with camping at Outpost camp is that is adds 2 miles to your hike to the summit. So we set up camp a lot earlier then we had planned…about 1:30. So we just hung out for the afternoon, I took a few photos at mirror lake, and then we cooked dinner around 6pm.

The view from just above our campsite that we chose

Here's dinner….sweet and sour chicken in a bag over a makeshift stove in a camping pot! It actually wasn't that bad. But we also had French bread and cookies!

Lesson #1: bring lots of food backpacking but if you have to use a bear canister, don't bring to much! We were eating food just to be able to fit everything into the canister. Definitely brought to much food! After dinner we played some phase 10 in the tent, since it was still windy. Lesson #2: our tent rocks…it’s a marmot and it kept us pretty warm in the cold wind blown temps. I didn't even put my sweatshirt on until I went to bed. We stayed pretty warm while sleeping too.

Sunday - The alarm went off at 4am, and we got dressed, grabbed our headlamps, grabbed food out of the bear canister and went on our way. Lesson #3: Camping at altitude can defiantly affect some people. We got about 20 min into the hike and realized Dave was having some horrible times. He just couldn't catch his breath. And he's hiked to 12,000 feet before. We think it was partly due to sleeping at a high elevation and being there for about 15 hours. So in realizing the summit of Whitney wasn't in his future for that day, we both decided I would continue on my own and he would go back to camp and relax for the afternoon. It really stunk leaving him behind. I powered through the hike and reached Trail Camp at 6:30. But just before that I watched a beautiful sunrise (see the next post)! That made the day worth it right there! I was wishing I had a tripod at that moment. Then I continued on up the side of the mountain through the 99 switchbacks! I ended up passing a few people but still really didn't see a lot of people up there which I thought was weird. I later realized I was just ahead of the crowd. So I reached Trail Crest at about 8:45am. I was at 13,700 feet…the highest I have ever been. I never felt sick or any signs of altitude sickness, but I started to get scared. I think going over that thing that some people called "deadman's cliff" did it for me. There was a lot of mountain below me at that point. I was sitting here contemplating whether to continue. I had less than 2 miles to go! I was definately scared since I was by myself. Other hikers said I could go with them. But I soon realized that getting to the top without Dave just wasn't as exciting as getting to the top with him. I really missed him at that point…a lot! And I wanted to get back to him. So I made the command decision to go back to camp. I do partly wish I would have just gone. I kinda feel like a whimp I don't think the trail was as bad as I was making it out to be in my head. I just needed some encouragement from Dave. But at the same time I am looking forward to going back and achieving summit with my husband. We are partners and doing stuff without each other just is not as much fun. So we will be back in the next 2 years. We made that promise to each other. Dave has told me he wants to get into better shape so he can handle the altitude better. It is a drastic change….8200 to over 14500. I was proud of him for recognizing that he couldn’t do it instead of trying to push himself.

I returned to the camp just after noon and Dave was waiting for me. In fact he was on a rock and saw me coming and met me on the trail. How cute! I was in tears at this point. I was happy to see him but upset at myself for not going to the summit.

All in all I ended up hiking 14 miles yesterday. I also climbed about 4000 feet in elevation in about 4 hours!. Over the two days I hiked 18 miles and covered 5500 feet in elevation gain. About 8 of these miles were carrying a 35 pound pack! My calfs are a bit sore but not horrible. I was exhausted yesterday and ended up sleeping about 12 hours! Three more weeks and we'll be backpacking the grand canyon. Although this time altitude won't be an issue and either will the bear canister!

Early Morning Hiking

This is why it pays to get up at 4am and stat hiking with your headlamp! Beautiful early morning scenery like this! Seriously how many people in the world get to see this kinda of stuff in the middle of the sierras!

The rocks literally changed from pink to gold in minutes!

More on Mt Whitney

I still can't believe were actually going! So here's our plan. Leave early tomorrow morning and eat lunch/late breakfast in Lone Pine. Then Drive up to the portal and finish getting our gear situated. We plan to be on the trail NLT noon so we can reach Trail Camp before it gets dark to set up camp and cook dinner. We bought a stove thing that we will be cooking with and have dehydrated lasagna and sweet and sour chicken as meals. We are also bringing bread, olive oil and parm. cheese. Desert will be cookies. We'll be camping at 12,000 feet so I think its going to be rather cold. Glad I bought that mummy bag! We plan to get up early (about 4am) to reach the summit in the morning. Then we make the 11 mile trek back down to the bottom, go eat a nice dinner, and drive home! Its definitely intense but will be so worth it. I asked my mom to call first thing Tuesday morning to make sure we made it home okay. So 22 miles in 2 days and we'll reach an altitude of just over 14,500! I am bringing my xt and 2 lenses, so there should be lots of photos.

We spent last night going to the stores to get all our last minute stuff we needed. It really does take a lot to get ready for a backpacking trip. Now we'll be ready for Grand Canyon though.

Mt Whitney, Here We Come

OMG…so things are really going my way lately!!! We were planning on doing a practice backpacking hike this wekeend to prepare for the Grand Canyon hike. So, I just had Dave call the Mt Whitney permit office to see if anyone cancelled for this weekend! You have to have a permit to hike Mt Whitney. It's a very controlled area. Anyway, they just had 6 permits come available….so we are hiking Mt Whitney (the tallest peak in the continental US) this weekend!!!!! Glad we did Half Dome ealier in the year. I can't believe were going! I'm so freakin excited!!!! about 6000 feet elevation gain and 21 miles in 2 days.

Olympics and Thailand

Friends/Family:
Gosh, it's almost that time. Some of you have expressed interest in going to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with us in Vancouver. It's about that time to really think about it. Tickets go on sale in just a few months. Plus Dave and I will need to look into lodging. If you are really interested, please let us know very soon so we can keep you in the loop and keep tabs on how many people want to come. This is something that requires lots of advanced planning. Trust us...the Olympics are a blast. While we were in Torino for the 2006 games, Dave and I promised each other we'd go to the 2010 games. We had so much fun in 2006!

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So have I mentioned how excited I am about Thailand...yeah I think I've about killed that point huh. It's going to be a great and long trip. Looks like we're going to leave on Christmas day and hope for a not so crowded flight. We'll be coming back on Jan 13th! One thing I know we are going to do right away is take a Thai cooking class. These are apparently very popular and we thought it would be something different, plus then we can cook Thai food at home together. Dave also wants an opportunity to bath an elephant! can you believe you can do that....they teach you how to feed and care for elephants! How cool!

Here's the photos that won!

The Verdict Is In

Dave and I just got back from the AV Fair. We went over mainly to see how our photos did in the competition. I ended up walking away with three awards. First in the wedding category for Sarah and Brandon's photo, second for one of my poppy flower photos, and second for my Costa Rica frog photo. Some of my other photos didn't win at all....and one of those I thought for sure would win. But I think it may have been a bit to non traditional for the judges over there. I need to remind myself these contests are always very subjective. Dave's did not win...and I was shocked! His was by far the best out of all of them in his category. Again it either wasn't traditional enough or maybe they thought it was to good for the amateur category. It really did amaze me at some of the things that did win....some of them had poor composition others just were not exposed correctly. Oh well... at least I got three awards this year.

Thailand!

We are getting so excited about Thailand.I think Dave wants to eat Hot and Sour soup like every day! I am excited about the fascinating scenery and awesome activities. Kayaking. snorkeling, elephant riding, and lots more...I so can't wait. Check out some of these photos I found on National Geographic and Lonely Planet.

To The Pool!

I'm writing this down, and hopefully I'll stick to it. Not that I don't want to do it , I just know I have so much to do at home and I'm afraid I'll talk myself out of it. But I need to make sure I take time for myself.

Tomorrow....I am back in the pool! The newest pool in our area has lap swimming from 12-2...and I plan to be there. In the next week or two I'm hoping to join the masters swim team, but I don't know if I want to get back into for a bit before I start the practices. I'm in great shape, but swimming is a hard workout. I so can't wait to get my suit, googles, and swim cap back on. Who knows maybe I'll be at a meet soon. :) I really do miss it. I was a hard core swimmer when I was younger. The place that I did winter swim team has actually sent people to the Olympic trials. But that was part of what pushed me over the edge and made me quit. I just didn't enjoy it anymore when I got to that level.

Vacation Planning

OMG! So scrap Europe….we're going to Thailand!

How awesome! We've been chitchatting over email with our friends about places to go on vacation in Dec- Jan. There were some great places mentioned, but I think the consensus has now been Thailand! Good thing I like Thai food! We are planning on going Elephant Riding…how cool is that! I can't wait. It'll be a totally new Continent for Dave and I.