The Coolest Thing I've Ever Done

Pictures from today's post are brought to you by the letter P for the Pelican 1010. Micro Waterproof Case Series. This thing was completely underwater and repeatedly banged against rocks. And yet--my camera lives on, unharmed.

So I've been called hard core before. But I really don't think I deserve that distinction. I mean, people just throw that word out because I rock climb or because I run ridiculous relay races. These things, honestly, are not a big deal. I can name dozens of people that do way cooler things than me, all the time. Today however, I think I turned a new leaf. I did something today that I would consider--truly hard core. My good friend Ryan Pepper took me to Pleaides Canyon today. It's a slot canyon with about six waterfalls. The trail is up in the La Sal mountains of Moab (a popular place for locals where it's about 20 degrees cooler and there are no tourists). There's a little hike in through a beautiful aspen forest and then you rappel down the waterfalls and hike out the other side. Oh man. It was awesome. Freezing. But awesome.

This is the hike to the canyon through the incredible aspen forest.

Here I am, about to go down the first rappel!

Here I am....rappelling down a waterfall! Gosh it was cold. Just so you know, this first one was the smallest one we encountered. I actually tried to take a picture of one of the bigger ones but I couldn't feel my hands enough to generate enough pressure to turn on the camera. Don't worry--all feeling has since returned!

And there's Ryan Pepper, the man of the hour, going down on one of our last rappels. I think this might have been the one where his rope got caught for a second and he had to sit under a pounding waterfall of freezing water for a minute and get it unstuck. I wasn't sure he was going to recover from that one.

Rappelling Pleaides Canyon? Literally--the coolest thing I have ever done.