Monday, March 31, 2008

I spent friday night in a cave

long one today!!

So you may wonder what i do on the weekends. Here is one good example:

Last saturday when the fam was in town, Eric went hiking up Squaw Peak by himself and said he found a tight cave on the way up. He then decided it would be a fun idea to go and camp out in the cave. When he first told me about it, i said it was stupid and i wasnt doing it. Then 530 rolls around on friday afternoon, about 15 minutes before he was going to leave, and i decide that i'm in. I throw together some clothes and blankets and we're off! It was me, Dillon, Eric, and Colton. The hike turns out to be slightly...aggressive. Instead of hiking switchbacks all the way up, this trail went straight up the mountain. it was tough, but i guess it got us there pretty quick! it was about a 1.5-2 hour hike, and we got to the cave just as the sun was setting.

Once we got there, we decided to start a fire. not a good idea. We made a sweet little fire ring so that the fire could not get out and lit it ablaze. i kid you not, 7 minutes later, we were huddling around it and colton notices some light flashing us from the parking lot of Rock Canyon Park a long ways below. it was not head lights, but rather a single flood light, the kind you often find on Police cars. We then realized this particular light was flashing three short, three long, three short aka SOS. It dawned on us he thought we were in trouble or something. We then called BYU PD and had them patch us over to Provo PD and then after a long little while they patched us into the officer that was flashing us and we told him we were alright and we had put the fire out and not to worry. He told us have fun, no more fires, talk to ya later. We also observed that between 4 and 6 other cars had pulled into the same parking lot and parked right by the flashing officer, so we think we were getting close to having a rescue party come visit! We should have told them to bring up some smores or something.

After chilling and overlooking the valley, we went to bed. Well, Eric did. Colton, Dillon, and I laid awake, trying to sleep. it wasnt working. It was a little chilly, so it was tough to fall asleep. At 330 , dillon got up to go to the bathroom outside the cave and when he came back in the three of us just started talking. Eric eventually woke up and we decided to try and hike squaw peak. at 430 in the morning.

...after hiking through steep knee to mid thigh deep snow for a while, we paused to think if this was the smartest thing to be doing. just then, the wind started blowing and it started snowing, and dillon thought he heard two thunder claps. we then decided to turn back and head back to the cave. literally as soon as we turned around, the wind and snow stopped. divine intervention? perhaps. we decided not to walk down this deep snow, so we traversed over about 500 feet to a really long shale slide. i'm not sure which was safer, but the shale was fun sliding down and didnt get your pants wet and cold! We got back to the cave around 6 and hiked over about 200 feet to this other cliff that overlooked the south part of the valley. we all laid cuddled in our blankets for about an hour as we waited for the sun to come up. we were all kinda fading in and out, but around 7 we got up and packed up our gear and hiked/slid on down the path to the car. we left at 715 and were in the CANC eating at 815. I then went to bed and slept from 9 AM till 7 PM. what a saturday!! my sleep schedule is so messed up right now!

It is a great thing that i am still alive to write this post, and next time, we'll definitely fall asleep so we dont do something stupid like try to climb squaw peak at 430 through snow deep and steep!

i am also working on a list of 101 ways i could have died this week. skiing with the fam, i took a new fascination of jumping off large rocks and cliffs. that is about 15 reasons right there.

mitch says my three minutes are up. i have to go work on our magnet documentary!

adieu.
this is us yodelling. fantastic, eh?

here are pictures. just click here, you dont need facebook.


5 comments:

Camie said...

you are crazy! and i'm glad you're not dead. but i definitely think you are a great photographer brother!! impressive scenery.

Jared and Dani said...

The worst thing about waking up Saturday evening is realizing that all the daylight on your Saturday is gone! Sounds like a fun time - were you really just cuddling with your blankets?

ANJ said...

you write like me. i take that as a compliment.

snow deep and steep? beautiful.

and also... i can never sleep whilst camping either. it's a family curse, i'm guessing.

ANJ said...

and also, i had to type the word verification 3 times until they accepted it. and they call me an english teacher? i can't even recognize letters. sigh.

Curtis Williamson said...

Sounds like an amazing experience. I'm jealous, haha.