Going back to Utah

Kendra on G2-07 (V8) in Joe's ValleyKendra on Big Joe (V7) in Joe's Valley Utah.

Today finds me getting ready for a trip coming up in a few days to Moab Utah with a group of college students from BSU for a week of climbing, hiking and mountain biking. Its kind of funny though that at this exact time last year I was getting ready to go on a another trip to Utah. That time was to the world class bouldering destination of Joe's Valley which turned out to be a bit of an adventure.

The trip started off after I had spent the day competing in a dart tournament that my team actually won. By the time that was finished and I was on the road with my friend Patrick and his brother the driving conditions were horrible, for at least six hours we drove through a snowstorm. After that though the rest of the drive was pretty smooth. Once at Joe's Valley we had to find the unmarked, unofficial campground at the Man Sized boulder area in the dark and then set up camp without disturbing everyone else. The biggest issue I dealt with was I brought the wrong sleeping bag with me for the conditions that we ended up with. I had packed for more of a dessert condition, not realizing that we would still be in the mountains on top of which we found out that Utah had gotten the biggest snow pack they had seen in 27 years.

Sunrise, first morning in Joe's

A Myspace friend of mine, Kendra,  showed up at the end of day 2 and things went pretty smooth until we came back to camp one day to find that the wind had mangled one of our tents. Turns out though that was a blessing cause I then moved into the car for the next couple nights and was finally able to get some decent sleep.

The only other problem we dealt with on the trip was the drive home ended up being just as brutal as the drive out. Once we got into Wyoming we got hit with an ice storm that slowed us was down. Now I really didn't get all the images I would have liked to for a magazine story I learned a lot on that trip about what it is going to take to become a pro adventure photographer and I am hoping to put those things to use one the upcoming trip to Moab.