Ten Pounds of Awesomeness

Last year while hiking in a slot canyon, Elaine slipped and broke her femur.  Her FEMUR ladies and gentlemen, the strongest and biggest bone in the human body, a bone of King Kongian proportions, snapped like a twig, shooting her straight to the moon screaming in pain.

I’d already headed back to LA that morning and couldn’t offer my services to run for help, get lost and be eaten by birds, so Pete had to hike out and leave her lying there, alone, very possibly until the next morning when he could get a rescue team in.

:-/

Luckily, seven hours later, she was being lifted out via helicopter to a hospital in St. George where they stuck 3 huge pins in her hip joint and dubiously wished her luck.

So here we are, one year later, standing in another slot canyon, staring at a giant boulder in the middle of our path, wondering if it’s possible to climb over it.

As we’re discussing this with Elaine’s hip, a guy comes up behind us and waits for us to move.  We start explaining about her surgery and how we’re usually really quite badass and if it weren’t for her hip blah blah blah and the guy smiles and says, “I only have one leg,” then he and his fake leg shimmy over the boulder and out of sight.

Doop.  Dee doo.

Candyland!  Car accident!  Not really!

We camped at the bottom of this thing.

Then we did a 3 day backpack through Waterpocket Fold, or what would be more aptly named, God’s Vagina:

We backpacked down and through this thing.

We skipped merrily through these things.

We have an unfortunate obsession with rocks.  And Lower Muley Twist, where we did our 3 day backpack, is deadly for the likes of us.

They’re all over the place, in the most unacceptable colors imaginable, lying on the ground, winking at us as we stumble around beneath the crushing weight of our backpacks, drunk with choice, crouching down on sore knees to greedily snatch them up like drunken sailors in a whore house.

Rock Truth #1:  The more rocks you put in your backpack, the heavier it gets.

When we can’t bear it anymore, we take off our packs, empty out the rocks and have an emergency art show in high hopes that our fellow obsessives can talk us into leaving some behind.

Lower Muley Twist, where rock lives

Lower Muley Twist

We didn’t see another person for the entire 3 days, but apparently they were there at some point because Pete stumbled upon this mask washed up against a cottonwood tree.

Please note that it says TEASE in the center of the heart.  Nearly pissed my pants I did.