One last morning in Arches before heading home and we couldn’t even stay in bed until the sun was up! After playing with night exposures for a while it was early to bed and then rolling out to Turret Arch before the sunrise. One of the guys we’d met while photographing Double Arch had said there was a great view of Turret Arch looking through North Window and with that in mind we set off.
Turret arch seen through North Window, pre sunrise
After our night out in Moab and a warm comfy hotel room the last thing we really wanted to do was to get up early! Our original plan had been to get up, drive the 2.5hrs down the Needles district of Canyonlands and hike in to Druid Arch. Well, after the disappointment of the Syncline Loop and not really wanted to waste 5hrs driving we decided to hit the Murphy Loop in the Islands in the Sky district and what a great choice!
Looking down into the valley with the trail visible
Once again we rolled into camp in the dark and were up and out of camp before the sunrise. This morning’s early destination was the much vaunted Mesa Arch. It really is an amazing sight to see and much like Delicate Arch a very popular location.
Mesa Arch at sunrise
Arches National Park in Utah is without a doubt one of the most awe inspiring places I’ve ever been to. With a four-day weekend over the American Thanksgiving, and having already gorged on turkey for Canadian Thanksgiving Jamie and I decided to take a mini-vacation and head out to the desert.
The drive out from Denver was decent and holiday traffic wasn’t too bad and we left right after work heading up and over the mountain passes and down into the desert. My first thought after passing through Grand Junction and over the Colorado/Utah line was “wow, look at all those stars!” and my second though was “I really should have filled up in GJ” (c: Fortunately after only 30min with the gas light on we rolled into a Shell station and I put 17.2 gallons into an 18 gallon tank!
Camping in Arches was easy to find, there is one campground in the entire park and it was only about half full as we cruised through at 10:30pm. The vacation had a few goals
Since #3 generally requires sunrise or sunset I had looked up the good times and locations for Arches and Canyonlands and the first on our list was Double Arch, at sunrise.
Double Arch before sunrise
I hopped on the bus again and went out to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was nice (c: here are the pictures.
Today was another day of “MBA” classes with a focus on financial stuff. Again, it was really interesting and if nothing else certainly opened my eyes to a lot of the financial goings-on in the world around me. I did have one flash-back to my University Econ class when we started talking about “Net Present Value” but it passed quickly and fortunately we weren’t being tested on it! The fire-alarm system however was being testing and it made for a very long day.
For my tourist-ing adventure tonight I figured I’d head out to the Pacific Ocean proper and see if I could get a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge. Unlike yesterday though it was surprisingly cold (~60F, 15C) but it was a “wet” cold, with all of the fog. I hopped on the 38 bus and travelled up Geary toward the ocean. In a Jon Classic™ move I got off the bus a little early when I saw some park area north of the bus and figured I could walk from there (c: I couldn’t… it was a lot further, so I stretched my legs a little and then got back on the bus (c:
Land’s End was as expected, rocky with ocean slamming into it. It was pretty sweet 
Land’s End
I landed in San Francisco tonight, I’m here for a 5 day course and get a little near-vacation time on the side (c: I spent the evening walking around the area of the hotel. Market St and Yerba Square were fun and I managed to net get myself lost too badly either!The Museum of Modern Art is right down the street from me and I snuck in 20min before they closed. There really wasn’t anything earth-shatteringly exciting but it was neat to see none the less.
Hopefully there are some fun people in the course who are up for some touristing after the course is done. I’d like to get out to the Legion of Honor and get a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Our week long trip to Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper was excellent! It started off with a bit of a low point though, our original flight was canceled and we got bumped to the next one at 9:30pm which meant we didn’t get in until nearly 1am! My mother was there to pick us up at the airport and it was great to see her again. We stayed up chatting until nearly 2am before finally crashing out.
Saturday brought a relatively early start and Jamie and I met up with Sean and Leigh Ann, another couple that would join us on this adventure. We set off for the grocery store, the beer store (of course), MEC and finally some lunch. I must be completely used to living in the US by now because the cost of everything seemed much higher to me. Alchohol and food were the two glaringly obvious ones but fortunately MEC remained less expensive than REI.
Once we were fully provisioned we set off for Lake Louise and the first camp of the night. At camp we had great weather for prepping gear and cooking dinner, but come time to eat dinner the skies cracked open and we scurried into our borrowed 6-man tent that I can almost stand up in! It was with high expectations and much excitement that we went to bed that night; with the sun still up I might add, yet another vast difference from Colorado. The next few days would be bring some excellent mountain terrain our way.
After Athabasca we took a rest-day in Jasper. The hot tub at the hotel was magnificent, despite the arguing German couple we shared it with, and the food at the pub that night was passable for starving folks while the beer was simply amazing. We spent the day sleepinng in, then out at the Miette hot springs, and finally on a roof-top patio with poor service and worse food! That night we slept at the Wabasco (wah-bas-co, or wahb-a-sco you decide) campground in preperation for Mt. Edith Cavell.
July 21 – Mt Edith Cavell (W Ridge)
On our rest day we had decided to swap out an icy Skyladder route up Andromeda for a more forgiving route up Snow Dome. But after our 14hr epic on Edith Cavell we found ourselves re-evaluating even the updated plan once the alarm went off at 3am. Sean and Leigh Ann had decided that they had had enough and were just going to head home and given our physical and mental exhaustion it just didn’t seem safe for the two of us to be on out the glacier in the pitch of night. Instead we went back for more sleep and settled on a leasuirely hike up to Helen Lake instead.
That night we found ourselves sweaty and dirty on the doorstep of sister’s place in Calgary. We had a quick dinner and met her and her husband at their softball game where at least one beer was had We retired to their hot tub and soaked sore muscles, told stories and lies, and generally kept the neighbours awake far into the night.
The rest of the weekend was a blur of visiting family, grandparents, aunts, and of course mom and dad. We went floating down the Elbow river on a raft, took in the new Bass Pro Shop out at Balzac, played lots of bocce, and sat on the deck chatting and eating and socializing.
It was definitely great to be back in Calgary, and great to see everyone again. We had some great climbs and a weekend of family that was just far too short! Can’t wait to go back.
Helen Lake with Cirque Peak reflecting
Mt. Edith Cavell
