Grand Canyon, Phantom Ranch

I had the unique opportunity to go with my sister LeAnn on a backpacking trip to Phantom Ranch, Grand Canyon. Her group had one member drop out and I was able to take her spot with just a week to prepare. It was such a fun girls trip and I enjoyed being with the women who were there, especially LeAnn. We took 7 hours to hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, as we were taking pictures and enjoying the scenery with all the snow! We all prepared well and were warm through the whole hike. We enjoyed dinner at Phantom Ranch which was stew and salad and then we slept in the bunkhouses and left the next morning. We hiked much faster going up, at least an hour faster. I stayed behind and helped one of the women get through since she was struggling the last 3 miles. We made it safely up and had a blizzard to drive home in. I learned quickly that the road I take to go home was closed from the weather and I had to detour through Las Vegas. I ended up spending the night in St. George at my grandparents 2nd home and got home the next day with good roads. I had two adventures! I hope to enjoy more trips like this soon!

Dinner at the top of Grand Canyon (south rim)the night before we hike down.

Playing around after dinner at the gift shops!

 Our gear is on, let's do this! Getting ready to brave the snow and start the decent!

Here we go! I'm at the back! It was pretty aggressive wind but the canyon blocked it when we started to descend and we were able to enjoy a calm hike down with snowflakes floating around us! Just gorgeous!

 Selfie! Yep we felt crazy to start with so much snow but it was beautiful and we brought spikes for our shoes and poles to keep balance!

We picked up another woman and helped her hike longer than she anticipated. Jen was traveling the area and was from back east.

 Me and my sis at Indian Gardens!

 Yes, there was this glorious RAINBOW! How magical!

 At Bright Angel Bridge! Almost to Phantom Ranch!

 Hooray! Time to relax and get dry!

 I got to sleep on the top. Funny enough, the window was open and the heaters were very warm! We all slept well, especially since another group joined us who were sawing logs through the night. It was pretty comical!

 Dinner at Phantom Ranch! Not fancy but very good stew!

 Starting the ascent with snowflakes at Phantom Ranch!

Finishing the last half mile!

Off-Roading with the Erickson's

 We were so excited to have my brother Jeff come down to go off-roading with us. Spencer was planning to come too but couldn't since his weekend was too busy. We wanted to go on the Red Mountain Trail since we had attempted it before but never finished. We drove up the first mile and were strongly disappointed by a fence with a locked gate. The attempts to keep the "wilderness" was not going over well with us.

 We had to turn around. The dog was wandering as we were deciding what to do and we called for her and she never came. We said multiple prayers and left her in the Lord's hands even if there were tears still on our cheeks. We saw two cars parked at the beginning of the trail so we put our name and phone number on a paper on the windshield and hoped they'd call us if she was with them.

 Next we needed a place to camp. QUICK!!! It was getting dark. We drove a few miles down the road and found another FENCE! So we decided to go by Sand Cove near our house since we knew there were no fences. We cooked in the dark, set up camp in the dark and hoped we could do some off-roading in the morning.

 Camp was cleaned up and we decided to take Jeff and his three kids (Ryan, Becca and Sam) on the Bowl Hike since it was just right there. The kids did great and were glad for some adventure but I think the men were ready to have some 4x4 adventure.

 We went back to our house, made lunch and set off to the road behind the Reservoir. Here we had some really nice rocks to climb! We got some good video too if I can figure out how to put it on here. The kids cheered and had to examine the rocks after each obstacle.

Jeff and his kids left late afternoon with some adventure. We were so happy they came. I don't think my kids will stop repeating all the funny jokes told at the campfire. I was pleased to have Ryan run up to me at the next gathering to make sure he gave me a hug. I would love to spend more time like this with our families.
I know you are all wondering about the dog. Well we got home and we had 3 messages on our machine telling us that she was found by a group of scouts, she spent the night with them and they had a great time. We had to pick her up at the scout leader's brother's house. There was a prayer of gratitude said as we drove to get her.

Valley of Fire

  We kept passing the signs that said Valley of Fire along the freeway and kept saying we wanted to go see what it was. We had never met anyone who had been to the Valley of Fire and only had the information that was on the web. Fall break came and it was settled, we packed and left for 2 nights at the Valley of Fire. 

First we had to find a camping spot. We drove around looking for a large tent pad and couldn't find one big enough for our tent. We found 3 walk in camp sites that were bigger and the one in the very back convinced us that we should camp there.

Tarantula

We noticed that many of the park visitors did not have children so being in the back corner would allow our children room to make noise and the amazing rocks to climb on made our kids extremely happy. We enjoyed our camp site for the rest of the day and slept under a FULL moon. The tent did not have the rain fly on so we could see the stars and the moon was so bright it was actually hard to sleep but we didn't see a need to complain since it was sooo BEAUTIFUL!

The next day we went to the visitor center so we would know what our options would be for the day. The chipmunks were entertaining and the kids were already convinced that the rocks were good enough to climb on.

 We hiked White Dome where we ran into a large bus of Italians toward the end of the loop.

This is where we started and took the most pictures since we were so fresh.
The rocks were all different colors and sizes and we were able to crawl through many of them. My favorite picture is the one that looks like waves.

Then we went to Rainbow Vista where we saw 7 big horn sheep (Kevin's favorite).
Mouse Tank was fun since we continued to run into a Swiss couple (David and Andrea) on vacation. We stopped and talked to them and thoroughly enjoyed David's description of people from different countries (one including how loud Italians are and another of how American women smell of coconut sunscreen).
We learned that Mouse Tank is named after an Indian who was a nuisance to the settlers and they nicknamed him mouse since he would steal and bother them and hide in these rocks.

We decided to go to the Lost City Museum in Overton for the afternoon since it was getting HOT.
When we got back to camp we saw that David and Andrea were in the same campground and we invited them for dinner. We made Navajo tacos and enjoyed playing games, Uno and Pass the Pig, and the kids tried to tell some jokes.

1930s Valley of Fire visitor housing

Our last morning we saw the Atlatl Rock and Petroglyphs. The visitor housing was interesting too.
Then we saw the Petrified Logs. It is random to have 3 logs in the middle of sage brush and rocks...
We also saw the Elephant Rock and we ran into David and Andrea again. We parted there as we drove home and they went to Zion.

Petro Glyphs

 We went on another hike to see these petroglyphs.

 There are numerous rocks with random amounts of carvings.

 This ledge is where the petro glyphs are looking over the river.

 I think some of these look like feet or hands. There are quite a few animals too, so they're probably tracks.

 Kevin found this on our way out while he was looking for a water bottle. We signed it and put it back. We still need to go online to report that we found it. It was wedged in some rocks, hidden.

This hike was great since Kevin had the day off and could come with us. The older kids were in school so we took KayDee. Two ladies from the ward went with us too!

Hiking to the Bowl

 Yes, I hike with old people from my ward. They are the people that are retired, and I can do stuff with them during the day and with KayDee too! I love it and they are such great people!

 We hiked to the bowl and KayDee said that these puddles looked like tracks which reminded one person that they were actually dinosaur tracks. So the whole way down we saw several, these are the most defined. Pretty cool and great observation little 4 year old!

 KayDee was fun to take pictures of. I didn't even bring my camera but those grandparents couldn't help themselves.

Someone got her started on carens that mark the trails (the rock stacks, not sure how to spell). After that we had to stop every 5 feet to allow another one to be made... We did make it through the hike-eventually!
KayDee and I have gone on some of these Monday hikes and it has really been fun to do something with other people. I tend not to go since I don't think it is safe for me to hike by myself with a young child. I am grateful for the opportunity and the friends that go with us!

Owen's Loop

 The kids had Monday off from school and so I took them all on the next hike. We went on Owens Loop in St. George and we hiked to "The Lamb of God" with "God's Hands". The history on it is: When the pioneers settled St. George the children went hiking around and found Indian burial sites and took bones and skulls home. The bones were just laid in crevasses in the rock like the one the kids are in above. And then they were covered by more rocks to keep animals out.

 I did expect it to be bigger but it really is interesting.

 They took the bones out and buried them somewhere else and dedicated the site and the pioneers put a petro glyph of a lamb and hands to show respect.

It was a good hike and it was interesting to hear the story behind what happened and why the pioneers made a petro glyph.

Petro Glyphs at the Overhung Cliff

 We had an outing with my parents and grandparents. They wanted to see the waterfall from the reservoir overflow and so we hiked along the dam and overlooked the falls from the top.

 Us with the girls (Derrick opted to stay in the car since the wind was SOOO cold).

 My grandpa Erickson took us to see these petro glyphs. We heard that there were some but we didn't know where. Apparently, my grandpa had been there years ago so we hiked up the steep dirt road at the "overhung cliff" and Kevin scoped it out and found them. They are right on the edge of the cliff. The one rock is really amazing and there are other rocks with just a few.

KayDee

 Kevin and Samantha next to the rock.

 Me. You can see the road below.

 Samantha

 Grandpa. It's hard to get pictures of him so I HURRIED!

Derrick