Telephone Canyon

In May we took our annual trip to Zion and took on some canyoneering in Telephone Canyon.

This canyon was supposed to be "dry," but the record snowfall and precipitation this year has rivers running high everywhere in the state right now!

We start out on the West Rim Trail...

It was a long day for the 7 of us. 10 hours of hiking and rappelling through a beautiful canyon.

Nick, Brandon, Brittany, Emily, Chilly, Pete and Anthony.

Just one of 13 rappels in the canyon. With 7 people it took us quite a while to get through.

By the time we exited the canyon and still had to hike back down it was getting dark. Luckily the full moon led us down the path!

26.2

At the starting line 8 miles above the beautiful little mountain town called Eden: 5/21/11

Never thought I'd actually be at the starting line of ANY marathon.

The miles flew by as I chatted with these girls (Shyloh, Kellie and Kristin) and I really couldn't have done it without them! The course weaved around Pineview reservoir, across the dam and down the beautiful Ogden canyon.

26.2 miles after a lot of walk/ running, stretching my IT band and sore knee at every one of the many water stations, 5 hours after starting- the finish line finally came into view on 25th street in Ogden.

My aunt and uncle happened to be there to watch my cousin's girlfriend come in. They wondered why my bib said "Cheree" on it. Well, that's because the marathon sold out in December and someone wanted to sell the spot they'd paid for- so I took it!

Thanks for all your support Brandon!

Shyloh and I had our matching KT tape for our pesky IT band problems. By the time Shyloh and I were still in Ogden canyon, Jared blazed into the finish line. It was so fun to have the Belnaps in it with me!

Brandon's co-worker Bryan and I tested our minimal training strategy for this marathon thing- guess it worked!

My friend Kim from work made this experience so much fun and encouraged me all along the way. Hopefully we have many more of these to look forward to together!

Spring Ski Touring

We have endless amounts of footage from these past few weeks of ski touring in the back country. (But I won't bore you with all of it) Brandon has been exploring and then bringing me along to share in the fun. We get tons and tons of fresh turns all to ourselves. But it's not easy getting there- a good 2-3 hours "hike" up on our skis with "skins" on the bottom that help grip the snow as we travel up the mountain gets us to those wide open spaces.

While others are cursing Mother Nature as she delivers storm after storm when they want it to be warm and springy, we have been loving it! Utah has almost 200% of normal snowpack levels thus far and if May warms up too fast we're looking at major flooding problems this year. As for now- let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!