Ouray Via Ferrata

Have you ever done a Via Ferrata? If not, you totally should!  This side trip worked nicely into our weekend plans, but to be honest, I was a little worn out by this point.  Driving the entire weekend took longer than expected and due to some noisy dispersed campers I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before.  We met the team at the Box Canyon Trailhead at 9am and hiked up to the staging area.

This was an unguided climb, but there was still someone at the entrance to make sure we had all the proper gear (closed toed shoes and helmet… looking at you Eric).  We’d stopped and rented lanyards but had our own harnesses and helmets. Important signage:

Eric went first to take pictures, and I went second.  The course started with a wire bridge (and ended with one too).

Then there was a lot of traversing, up and down and sideways.  We were clipped in the entire time, so no worries if we were to fall (we didn’t fall). Here are some pictures of the course

It’s a long way down

More route pictures

There’s a waterfall they use for ice climbing in the winter

Some fun shots…

And the rope bridge at the end

All in all it was a great day.  It ended a few hours later than it probably should have (the course took 4 hours instead of 1, due to the photo shoot) but I was still able to make it home by about 7pm.  To find out the new water heater was leaking gas.  Ha!  What a way to end the birthday celebration weekend. 

Horseshoe Bend – Page, Arizona

What a fun and unexpected side trip!  We were on our way to the Grand Canyon for my birthday Rim to Rim hike, when Eric mentioned we were close to Page, Arizona, and Horseshoe Bend.  To be honest, visiting Horseshoe Bend has always been on my bucket list, but I wasn’t quite sure where it was.  I had no problem taking a mini side-trip to see it. 

They’ve done some improvements in the past two years to the place.  Now you need to pay to get in ($10) and park in a large lot.  Then there’s a three-quarter-mile walk on a nice path to get to the overlook.

It was a nice day, no more than 80 degrees outside, so the walk was an easy one.  You kind of come right up onto the bend without noticing in, and then, wham, several hundred feet drop into the river

Wow!  This was so cool!  I took some video of Eric, he did his adventure speaker thing, and he took some pictures of me.

Of course I did the shadowselfie and selfie thing

And Eric and I got a selfie together

Here’s the jump I took videos/pictures of Eric jumping across. Even though the rock was grippy, I felt my legs were too short for the attempt.  Sorry, no pictures of the jumsp (they’re on his camera).

There were actually quite a few people there for a Friday September day (September 11) but it wasn’t difficult to get in a good picture, making it look like you were the only one there.

Ok, now we’re off to the North Rim to prepare for tomorrow morning’s hike!