It begins.....July 9 - 25, Utah, USA

So the journey begins, well it DID begin - 6 weeks ago when I was supposed to start my blog, alas, I shall digress. Time for me to see some of the world I thought, so I upped and left my place of employment and current residence, beautiful Vancouver, Canada and embarked on a journey to find.....well anything really.

First stop - Moab, Utah, USA. 2 weeks of hot sun, intense mountain biking, thirst demanding running and idyllic, tranquil canoeing down the Green river beckoned. Myself, along with 2 willing combatants, Quiche and uncle Brian decided to come along and help me start my journey. They promised they would help deliver an unforgettable and challenging few weeks. And deliver it did.
We started off with 5 solid days of mountain biking. Up, down, around and sometimes face first - we raced around the awesomely intense, diverse and challenging slick rock and single track trails of Moab. Its amazing how hard you can ride when you rent $3,000 bikes. Covering between 4-5 hours every day in 38 plus degree heat, we really worked ourselves to our limit.

The pinnacle of the rides has to be our descent of porcupine rim trail. Shuttled up to over 10,000 feet, we descended 6,000 vertical feet over 34km through tight single track, wide and fast double track and some seriously hairy cliff side slick rock trail. 4 hours of stunning views, fast riding and at times - intense concentration to ensure we stayed upright. The trail dumped us out right at our campsites and I swear the beer has never tasted better.

edge of porcupine rim trail

Quiche showing off on porcupine rim

Porcupine Rim

Air Quiche

Playing in arches national park

Frollicking on slickrock

Moab is an intersting little town. Plonked in the middle of the desert, wedged between a few beautiful national parks, it really has a lot to offer the advenurous tourist. "Moab - where there is everything to do and nothing to do" and one local accurately and eloquently referred to his hometown.

After 5 days of morning's spent riding, followed by afternoon's spent eating and finding air conditioned refuges, (thank you City Market supermarket), we decided it was time to relax.....river style. 6 days floating in an improvised twin canoe style catamaran lovingly dubbed the "T - cat" seemed like just the tonic we needed.

"So - how much river experience do you have" says the tour operator.....this was followed by 3 very blank stares. I was pretty sure I went conoeing as a kid and Quiche and I did one overnight kayak last summer, so as far as we were concerned, we had this covered. What was the worst that can happen....."what do you mean there might be cougars about and rattle snakes....." oh well, off we went.

The 3 amigos

Can't beat the campsites

Quiche paddling hard....

Well I am glad to report that we descended the river without major incident. Well, except the fact that we packed far too little food and alcohol. The food we could understand, but really, too little alcohol? That was just silly. It seems that we were used to packing as light as possible for hiking trips and didn't factor in the fact that we could pretty much take limitless weight in a boat! Oh well - id did provide an outstanding opportunity to pass some river floating time with "what should we ration today" discussions.

All I can say is that we were all glad we saved the pancakes for the last day and equally impressed with our impromptu invention of a delicious desert "pineapple surprise" and "Quiches peaches". Basically a combination of all available sweet ingrdients including granola, pineapple, nutella, honey, peanut butter and whatever else we had left. *please note that photos are unavailable due to copyright issues*.



So float on we said and all had a great 6 days chilling riverside at serene and scenic campsites (albeit sometimes insect infested) cooling off in the river with beers, making Uncle Brain paddle while others slept or read and seeing who could come up with the most accurate resemblance of canyon rock. Its amazing how much imagination comes back when you don't have TV for a while. The canyons at sunrise and set were truly specatacular - a shade of red ever changing and providing a great backdrop for red wine, sitting by the campsite and discussing lifes most diverse and challenging issues....

Canyon sunset

All good things must come to end unfortunately and 6 days after eagerly pushing off, we were picked up by powerboat and briskly sent back the entire 160km we came in just 2 hours. 12 straight nights in a tent without so much as a hot shower or clean clothes and we were ready for an air conditioned hotel - and more than the odd cold beverage at the local brewery.
Long drive beckoned the next day all the way back to Salt Lake city where we would hang out for a few days and check out the local sites (the one good pub) and clean up, ready to part ways on our seperate adventures, myself to Mexico, Quiche and the Uncle off to Seattle for a few days of baseball and music festivals. A handshake and a hug later, i parted ways with my last connection to my home of the last 3 years and jetted off for my next adventure....bring on the tacos and tequilla.

Next stop, Mexico City....