"Fooling Around" with my wife

Jennilyn and I had some more fun in southern Utah on May 3-5. We went down to the Hanksville, UT area and met up with the Spring Summit group from BYU-Idaho. My brother Joe is a part of that group, so it was cool to camp with him for two nights and do some canyoneering.

We spent Sunday driving down to Hanksville and Tuesday driving back to Rexburg. This allowed for one full day to tackle two slot canyons. We hiked, squirmed, and shuffled our bodies through Monkey Business Canyon and Fooling Around Canyon. Both were considered slot canyons. This means that the canyon, as it continually drops in elevation, gets very narrow in parts. We had to use our whole bodies to squeeze both sides of the canyon walls to lower ourselves down the canyon. There are sections of rappelling where we used humans to anchor the rope.

Fooling Around Canyon had a lot of still water in it. There was a section where we couldn't touch and were literally swimming through a 3 foot wide canyon. There was also another section where we were twenty feet above the canyon floor, scooting ourselves through the canyon by pressing up on both sides of the canyon walls. This made it so that we didn't drop ten feet in to a narrow 6 inch corridor where we could have gotten stuck.

Jennilyn and I above the last rappel in Monkey Business Canyon in southern Utah.

Jennilyn as one of the human anchors.

Jennilyn up the canyon a little ways; notice how narrow the walls are.

Tight squeeze through this section of canyon. We had to wedge ourselves in this slot and hand our backpacks down to each other to drop deeper into the canyon.

Salt Lake City Marathon 2009

Jennilyn and I did it. Our third marathon. We trained all winter to run an April marathon. I don't really recommend doing an early marathon, training in the winter is pretty brutal. However, getting the marathon over early in the year makes the rest of the year seem like breeze.

For our first two marathon, Top of Utah Marathon and Teton Dam Marathon, we ran them side-by-side. This marathon, we ran our own paces. We've been curious how fast we both can run. We're curious to see hard we need to work if we ever want to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

We both came across the finish line feeling good. We definitly had our moments of wanting to give up, but we ended up pushing hard and both came 15 minutes short of our goal time; both of us ran a personal record during this marathon. Jennilyn: 4:14:03. Ben: 3:47:09.

USA Climbing Competition in Pocatello

USA Climbing put on one of our regions sport climbing series competition on April 4. I, Ben, wanted to know what one of their competitions were like. So we drove down to Pocatello, ID and signed up to climb. Poor Jennilyn, she didn't get to climb because she was a sport and watched the boys as I climbed.

It was a lot of fun. It was a top-rope red-point format. The climbs ranged from 5.9 - 5.12. I was the only adult that competed. Luckily there were three teenagers that climbed harder than me. I definitly like doing competitions because of the aspect of submitting myself to a certain format and time frame. It makes me work hard and lets me see where I am at in my climbing.

My family after a full day of watching daddy climb.

Ben on one of his warm-up routes in the ISU Reed Gym.

Ben climbing a cool 5.10 or 5.11

March 29-31 Moab, UT

Our summer started in southern Utah. Idaho wouldn't let go of the snow and wind, so we headed south and took advantage of the sun down there. However, we did have some wind and quick snowflakes, but it was much better than the snow storm they had in Rexburg while we were in Moab. We had a lot of fun with Dean and Heather Lords, Justin and Beth Avenius, Emily Stedman, and Chad Alldredge. Sitting around the camp fire was just as fun as the actual climbing.

On Monday we tested out our weak ability to climb cracks on beautiful red sand stone. Then on Tuesday we did some bouldering. I highly recommend Moab. The area is wonderful. Just the drive down there was amazing with all the different and wierd rock formations.

Jennilyn approaching the off-width seciton of the climb.

Ben stemming his way to the splits.

Moab daycare.

Jennilyn laying it back up a sweet crack.