Grand Canyon

Last week Boyfriend flew back out here and we tackled one of the biggest items off my bucket list.  We backpacked the Grand Canyon along with my friend Dallas (my labmate Slim was supposed to come, but bailed too last minute for us to find a replacement).  We drove up to the South Rim Wednesday and camped there before hiking in on Thursday.  We did rim-to-rim-to-rim (45 miles) in 4 days, hiking out on Sunday.

For those who care about the hiking details: we hiked in using the South Kaibab trail.  While the least pretty in my opinion, this trail has the most stereotypically "Grand Canyon" views, and it's certainly not ugly.  At the Colorado River (i.e. the bottom) we picked up the North Kaibab trail to Cottonwood where we camped the first night.  That was a 14 mile day.  WARNING: the 3 or so miles south of Cottonwood are at low elevation and consist of extremely hot, dry, and exposed desert with essentially zero shade.  Hitting this stretch mid-late afternoon in 100+ degrees with 35 lb packs was brutal.  Plan better than this!  The second day we continued on North Kaibab trail 7 miles up to the North Rim where we spent the night.  The stretch 2-3 miles from the top was the steepest part of the entire trip.  On day three we hiked the entire length of the North Kaibab trail back down to Bright Angel campground.  The entire 14 miles were downhill, the first 7 or so of them really quite steep.  I was on the verge of tears over how badly my toes hurt by the end of this.  On the last day we hiked 10 miles up Bright Angel trail to the South Rim.  Bright Angel is far less steep than South Kaibab and we make remarkably good time.  This is the prettiest of the corridor trails in my opinion (unfortunately it's also the most popular - the couple of miles closest to the rim were crowded and annoying, not to mention my entire body hurt by that point).

Some people I talked to before we left thought we were crazy going with this itinerary - and there were some points during the trip when I thought we were too - but we met a ton of people with far crazier plans.  An astonishing number of people attempt to hike rim-to-rim in a single day.  Granted this is a lot easier to do with a 10 lb day pack rather than a 35 lb multi-day pack, but still insane.  We even met 2 guys who were attempting to do rim-to-rim-to rim in 24 hours.  They did crazy things like put a packet of ramen noodles in a ziplock of water and then strap it to the outside of their packs to "cook" in the heat and sun while they hiked.  The majority of people who get med-evac-ed out of the canyon are young, healthy people who try to do too much.  We saw one such guy being loaded into a helicopter on a stretcher as we were getting into Bright Angel.

Anyways, enough of the depressing/scary talk.  It was a great trip, and I'm immensely proud of accomplishing that hike.  Time for a photo recap:

Plus food made about 35 lbs...Roughly 10 of which were water.  Such a shame that it really was necessary to carry that much for some parts of the hike.

From the South Rim, just before sunset

The NPS has some pretty awesome signage.

Looking west from South Kaibab trail

From South Kaibab trail

South Kaibab trail

Switchbacks on South Kaibab Trail

Bridge over the Colorado River

Supai Tunnel, North Kaibab trail

View from North Kaibab trail

Rainbow rocks on the North Kaibab trail.  The zoom on this shot makes that rim look so much closer than it was...still about 3 miles away at this point...

Colorado River

More awesome signage.  Don't feed the squirrels!

Bright Angel trail

Bright Angel trail

Let this be a lesson to you.

If your hair is more than a few inches long, don't eat cupcakes outside in the wind.  Before you know it you will have chocolate frosting in your hair.

Miscellaneous Monday

It's Monday.  Blech.

Not a whole lot to report.  The weekend after I went to Oregon, the boyfriend came out here to visit over Labor Day.  We hung out at the pool and went on a pretty long, steep hike to prepare for the Grand Canyon.
 

We also drove out to Gates Pass to watch the sunset and some star gazing.  Check one item off the bucket list. :)

Since then I've been working and getting stuff together for the Grand Canyon.  We're doing rim-to-rim-to-rim starting next Thursday.

E and I cooked a bit last night - made our favorite enchiladas with green sauce made from CSA tomatillos and jalapenos.  We also made these deeeeelicious smores bars.  Sorry for the mediocre picture.  I assure you they're way, way more delicious than the photo lets on.

Tonight I threw together a gumbo with some leftover sausage, and a CSA basket of okra...some CSA onion and corn went in too...catching up with all my accumulated CSA goods...

There's a bake sale at school later this week to raise money for Hunger Awareness Week.  Seems a bit funny to be selling baked goodies to raise money to feed legitimately hungry people... Anyways, E and I are going to bake up a bunch of stuff tomorrow night - try to use up some of the massive pumpkin stores we still have from last fall.

I'm scheduled for jury duty on Thursday...this is the fifth time I've been summoned in the 8 1/2 years since I registered to vote.  FIFTH TIME!  I know loads of people who've never been summoned.  What's the deal??  I got called in Massachusetts just a couple months after I registered, but I was going away to school in St. Louis, so I postponed to the following summer...when I had to postpone again because I had class...and then I got rescheduled for a few days before I was leaving for France, so it's unlikely I would have been able to actually sit on a jury.  Fortunately I wound up not having to actually go in.  Massachusetts summoned me again after I'd moved to Arizona and registered here, so I obviously got out of that one.  This is the third time Arizona has summoned me.  One I went for half a day before being let go because they'd already gotten the jurors they needed and once I got called off.  We'll find out Wednesday night if I'm spending Thursday at the court house...

I was finally home tonight to catch Eureka, but at this point I'm weeks behind...definitely missing a few things... A few months ago I suggested Eureka to my aunt and uncle, who prompted fell in love with it.  They in turn suggested I watch Warehouse 13, which airs after Eureka, but I'd never noticed because I had only watched Eureka online.  It took me longer to get hooked than it did with Eureka, but hooked I am.  I kept watching when Warehouse 13 came on after tonight's Eureka...but man am I behind on that one.  I've only made it to the beginning of the 2nd season...so I'm waaaaay out of the loop on this one.  Disc 2 of season 2 comes Wednesday...

Well that's all my rambling for tonight.  Have a good week people!

Crater Lake National Park

While I was up in Oregon visiting Angie and Tony, we went down to Crater Lake National Park for a couple days.

The blue color of the water in these photos is true.  It really is that perfect, brilliant blue.  It's amazing.  We hiked up Mt. Scott, the tallest peak in the part, with great 360 degree views, which obviously include the lake.

Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States, and precipitation (and snow melt) is its sole source of water.  There are no streams or rivers that flow in or out of the lake.

 

 

These people were hilarious.  We pulled off at one of the lookouts over the lake and found them.  I know the picture's not great, I was trying to be inconspicuous.  They've got stuffed animals lined up on the wall and they're taking pictures of them in front of the lake.  Really.  We convinced ourselves that this must be some project for the amusement of their grandchildren.  Because what other plausible and not totally bizarre reason could there be?  But no, a few minutes later we overheard them telling somebody they were taking pictures for their annual calendar...

Killing Time in Vegas

Last weekend I went to Portland to visit my college roommate and her husband, and found myself with a 3 1/2 hour layover in Vegas.  For such an over-the-top, ridiculous city, the airport is really, really crappy.  So to entertain myself I wandered around with my camera before settling into a corner to do what I usually do when I'm bored - call my sister.

For your entertainment, a photo recap of my wandering around McCarran International Airport:

We flew right over Lake Mead and Hoover Dam on the descent into Vegas.  Yes, this was after the "turn off all electronics" announcement.  Shhh...

There were a couple of cute displays on the history of the airport, and some of the airlines that used to fly there.

Howard Hughes' airline had a great color scheme going on.  Such a shame flight attendants no longer wear knee-high yellow boots.

 

 Bonanza is a fantastic name for an airline.

 

The one time I've actually been to Vegas, I drove, and the only other time I've flown through McCarran was after dark, after an exhausting conference.  I never realized the airport was a stone's throw from the strip.

A few times in college we'd get dressed up and go out to the casinos, but I mostly just found them kinda depressing.  Lots of older people, lots of white trash (for lack of a better term), just staring at the slot machines for hours on end in a dreary looking place without any windows so you completely lose all track of time that smells like stale cigarette.  Aside from the window and cigarette thing, McCarran was about the same.  Sad.

I would like to know how many of the guys in this show are actually Australian.  Just curious.

It's like I never left campus!  Apparently girls make terrible fashion decisions everywhere you go!

 

These looked totally disgusting.

Snickers Cupcakes

Today was my labmate's last day - she's off to a bigger, BA-er post-doc in Switzerland (Switzerland!!) where she's going to make crap tons more money than she makes as a post-doc in the U.S.  Anyways, conveniently her last day also fell on group meeting day, so I made these delicious Snickers cupcakes from Annie's Eats.

It's a chocolate cupcake (very good cake by the way), filled with caramel coated chopped Snickers, topped with caramel buttercream frosting, more caramel, and a piece of Snickers.

This was my first attempt at making caramel myself, and based mostly on the color and a little bit on the flavor I don't think I cooked it quite long enough.  The instructions said to cook the butter and sugar until the sugar bubbled...but when it bubbled it hadn't gained any color at all.  It was still the color of straight-up butter and sugar.  So I cooked it a while longer, until it had some color, but for fear of flat-out burning it I erred on the side of caution and didn't quite cook it long enough.  Oh well.  The final product was still delicious, and I'm not even a Snickers fan.