Blowing Out the Candles at 13,000 Feet

"We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain...And this fall -- this rushing annihilation...for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the most impetuously approach it."

-Edgar Allen Poe, The Imp of the Perverse

I have a strange fear of heights. I discovered this at a young age, when visiting Colorado with my parents. We were crossing the Royal Gorge Bridge near Cañon City, a 1260 foot suspension span that sits 1053 feet above the Arkansas River, when my dad turned around and found me climbing the railing. I remember this vividly, the sudden and nearly uncontrollable urge to fly. The empty space below me was hypnotizing. I wanted to feel the wind against my face, the weightlessness of the fall. Mortality meant nothing to me in that moment...flying almost felt natural.

The laws of gravity spell out a different story, however. Without the aid of a parachute, squirrel suit, or a fantastic pair of condor wings, I most certainly would've gone splat over the rocks below. No more Brian. This is a bizarre form of acrophobia that plagues a fraction of its sufferers. Not necessarily labeled as an acute "phobia," it is still categorized as such. Each time I approach a high precipice, I experience it. Through a series of disciplined relaxation techniques and meditation, I've learned to control it.

Since high school, my only viable solution of releasing this urge was to experience the thrill of skydiving. After my 18th birthday, I started calling signs on the side of the road advertising classes and lessons. I would collect brochures. I became obsessed. Unfortunately, money always got in the way. As soon as I had enough saved up, I would need to dip into it for emergencies. My car needed fixed. College applications sucked me dry. Classroom books and studio supplies dominated my expenses. And then, during my freshman year of college, a few of my design friends and I decided to plan a skydiving excursion near Cincinnati. The week before we were to go, my grandma passed. Without hesitation, I bailed on the trip and headed back to Youngstown instead to attend the funeral and help my family transition her possessions.

Years later, when I was about to turn 30, my girlfriend asked me what I wanted for my birthday.
     "Skydiving," I responded.
     "...Not a chance," was her curt reply.
I know now that she was not being cold-hearted or despondent, she was just worried about me. Again and again, she would ask me the same question, upon which I always gave the same response. Redundancy did not change her mind. Hardly the thrill-seeker, she was equally afraid of seeing me take a risk that would in any way shape or form put my life in danger. So instead, she bought me jacket.

Two years later, a good friend surprised me on my 32nd birthday with two tickets to go skydiving down by Wooster, Ohio. Ecstatic, we scheduled the jump for mid-August, two weeks after my birthday. The days couldn't go by soon enough.

We arrived at the airstrip on a hot, muggy, Sunday morning and immediately signed our release papers before heading into a small, air-conditioned trailer for training. It was here we would receive our jumping equipment and get a rundown of what was soon to follow. Literally, 45 minutes later, we were boarding the plane and straddling our seats before taking off into the bright, azure sky. As we climbed higher and higher, the humid moisture in the air dissipated and soon we were circling a chilly 13,000 feet above the cornfields of central Ohio. With my instructor assuring me that we were efficiently strapped together in tandem, my turn to jump suddenly arrived. Finding myself at the threshold of the door, the empty void of air expanding below me, I tilted my head back, peered wide-eyed into the blinding sun, and lept.

I can only describe the sensation as one described it to me; "As if being suspended upon a column of air, the sensation of falling being replaced by that of flying - the thrilling, addicting effect of terminal velocity."

I fell 13,000 feet and I celebrated every last inch of it. Overwhelmed with excitement, I laughed and cheered the entire four minute trip down, finally knowing full well what it must be like to fly. This was one of the top experiences of my entire life and I hope to soon repeat it, as I'm certain I will...perhaps this time, with the Cascade Mountains overlooking my descent.

The Bone-Norman Caves

In early 2009, a friend of mine invited me and two of our other friends to go caving in West Virginia into a hole in the ground called Rehoboth Church. About two weeks before we were scheduled to embark, she tore her ACL in a skiing accident, hence our trip was postponed until she was able to fully recover. About a year and a half later, she introduced me to some of the members in her Cleveland Grotto club and new spelunking location options suddenly formed in our minds. Because of a growing epidemic of WNS (white-nosed syndrome) that was mysteriously spreading amongst the bat population world wide, many caves were closed to the public by the NSS until a cure or cause of the disease was determined. Any cave exploration would have to be limited to a system not affected by WNS. Rehoboth Church was out.

About two weeks later, I got an email informing me that two of the guys I met at the Cleveland Grotto club, Vic and George, were interested in taking a short weekend trip down to a cave called Bone-Norman, which was located in West Virgina, deep within the rural landscape of Greenbriar county. We left after work on Friday, July 9, meeting each other at Vic's house down in Hudson, Ohio, where George took over driving responsibilities as we embarked south towards the Appalachian wilderness of central West Virginia. Nearly six hours later, we checked into a motel about 15 miles away from the entrance of Norman cave. Leaving most of our gear in the car, we fell asleep early, ready and rested for the underground adventures the next day would produce.

Consisting of two main sections, Bone-Norman cave boasts over 14 miles of surveyed passageways. The Bone section is a mostly dry cave with a few formations and lots of dry, dusty clay silt, whereas the Norman section, connected to Bone by a narrow passageway nicknamed "The Devil's Pinch," is an active cave with stream passages, waterfalls, and a wide array of beautiful, intense formations, many of which we were to see that day.

George parked his car along the side of a dirt road, just out of sight of a nearby farm, buried within the folds of the rolling hills around us. Shortly after throwing on our jumpers, helmets, lights and gloves, Vic led us up a small deer path towards the side of a towering cliff face. Minutes later, we were introduced to an eight-foot wide horizontal gash between the rocks, just wide enough for each of us to squeeze through, one by one. Once inside the cave, you emerge into a long descending corridor absent of any form of light, it's floor consisting of loose rock and rolling ankle-breakers, and our way illuminated only by the lamps attached to our heads.

Once at the bottom, the way seems to be shut, with no where to go but back up. However, as Vic pointed out, the corridor held one tiny secret; a small opening in the ground, just off to the right side that drops about 20 feet into the top of an underground stream. As the four of us climbed down into the small room, Vic pointed out that we were now sitting on top of a waterfall. Leading us around the left side and down another scramble to the bottom, we suddenly found ourselves submerged waist-deep in a running stream. Turning back, our lights shone up to where we were just standing, only to find in the place of pitch darkness, a beautiful running waterfall filling the room. It took everything in me to turn away and continue on further down the passage.

The next quarter mile through the flowstone consisted of a long, low, limestone passage that forced us to crouch and wade knee-deep through a running stream about twenty feet across and pocked with potholes before dropping into a wide, shallow lake. We would run into many of these throughout the day, numerous black pools laying hidden deep within the earth, each one offering some new kind of rock formation and geological treasure. Finding a small passage leading upwards, we ascended into a large, dry room. After an hour or so of crossing through narrow and wide passageways that snaked back and forth over the stream, Vic led us into a medium-sized room that displayed a deposit phenomenon simply called "bacon," a label that visually describes it perfectly. These rippling formations within the cavern were further enhanced by the jaw-dropping sparkle of billions of shards of quartz, which, being exposed to our lamps, blazed in front of us with utter brilliance.

It was here that, by complete chance, we happened to come across a time-capsule of sorts, a 30-year old series of love letters from each half of a love-lorn pair, who seemed to bury their commitment to one another in hopes that it would only strengthen their bond. We did read a part of what they wrote, but in feeling that we were infringing on some form of sacred and private vow, we returned the letters to their hiding place exactly in the way we found them. I don't remember what exactly was written, but I do remember thinking that they were both beautifully written. Hopefully, their owners will one day return for them and find them safe and sound, just as they had intended after all these years.

As we passed out of that room, we soon found ourselves emerging into a completely different world unlike any we had passed through before. I can only describe it as if it was like we were suddenly walking on the surface of the moon, the cavescape taking on a pocked, alien-like appearance. The corridor was long, followed a wide arc, and the ceiling once again dropped to a height that forced us into crouching positions. However, the swiss cheese floor below us split the corridor down its middle, forming an eerie chasm, probably twelve feet wide and close to seventy feet deep, as far as we knew. After about 200 yards of crawling along the ledge just left of the chasm, Vic (whose friends have nicknamed him "the squirrel," due to his agile and scurrying techniques of cave navigation) suddenly shone his light down the chasm, informed us that this was the way through, and dropped out of sight. As I peered down after him, I noticed that the drop was interrupted by a series of ledges, allowing us to maneuver down it's walls four to five feet at a time. Following Vic's lead, we all made it down to the small gorge's sandy bottom floor and followed that into a large, enormous room...the largest we had seen so far.

It was here that we decided to take rest once again, shut off our lights and absorb the silence and pitch black of the cave. It was a similar experience to immersing yourself within a desensitization chamber. Everything went away. Aside from the cold rocks pressing against my back as I lay on the breakaway, looking up into the ceiling that I was no longer confident was actually there, I felt nothing, saw nothing and heard nothing, save for the quiet breathing of my caving companions. I felt as if there were no other place like this in the world. We were alone and lost to the bowels of the earth, and just for a moment, there was a sense of extreme peace. As my friend and I seemed to have shared this realization together, Vic and George however seemed to grow restless after a few moments and turned their lights back on, suggesting we move on with our exploration if we were to expect to exit the cave in time for dinner.

We did move forward a bit more, finding ourselves to emerge into side passages of the extremely dry Bone section of the cave. We didn't go far here, but I was fascinated at how different our surroundings were in comparison to the wet and slippery Norman cave that we just left from. I remember a long, tall and thin corridor with sandy floors, interlocking, teeth-like ledges jutting out from the walls above us and holes in the floor as large as a volkswagons, subtly dropping down into the unknown. Not being confident of how to navigate that side of the cavern, Vic marked this as the point where we turn around and head back home. Being the rookie in the group, I was asked if I felt comfortable to lead us towards the way out, a challenge I was more than happy to take on. It was here, I felt free. I led us home at a fairly brisk pace, scrambling over the rocks and ledges, up through the chasm walls and along the long waterway corridor that led us back to the majestic waterfall that introduced us to the awe of Norman cave.

A few minutes later, following a near slip that could've cost me the function of my legs, we ascended from the observation room above the waterfall, into the wide rock-filled corridor that would lead us up and out into the light of day. Letting the others move ahead, I held back, taking the time to set up a few long-exposed shots with my camera, none of which came out quite the way I had wanted them to. After a few moments of experimentation, I quickly scrambled up the breakaway and emerged into the lush, green expanse and fresh air of the Appalachian mountains. It was an adjustment, to suddenly be exposed to color as opposed to the desaturated world of the inside of a cave. It actually took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing. Just a few minutes later, however, we were back at George's truck, changing into dry clothes and looking forward to the hot soothing showers our hotel would soon offer us.

That night we enjoyed a relaxed dinner at Applebee's, partaking in a few cocktails laced with stories reminiscing the events of the day. It was a great time to decompress, to sit back, chill out and even discuss what our next underground adventure would entail. Exhausted and back at the hotel, we all experienced an ideal, full night of sound sleep. Fully rested, we partook in a quick breakfast at a local Bob Evans before jumping back on the road towards Cleveland, Ohio. Seven or so hours later, our trip was at an end, our cars were unpacked and each of us separated back towards our homes when I suddenly became aware of the sheer amount of laundry I had ahead of me, as 90% of the clothes I took with me were caked in mud. With a smile, I spread them out on the lawn and took out the garden hose, knowing that rinsing away the filth would have absolutely no effect on the memories that I took away from that weekend...not a single one.

Bang.

How I spent my last day in Arizona presented me with two options, according to my Uncle Dave. 1.) Pick a trail to hike up into his hunting grounds outside of Phoenix, or 2.) Shoot guns in the desert. ...I've been hiking before. Guns it is.

I'm by no means a gun aficionado. In fact, I can't remember the last time I really shot a gun. Hell, it may have been with my uncle the last time I was in Arizona. Fact is, they make me uncomfortable, but I have nothing but respect for them. I always knew that something could go wrong so easily, that, with the smallest bit of carelessness, life with a gun would change in an instant. That's not something I take lightly.

We arrived at the target range, a patch of land about 30 miles north of Phoenix that is littered with old television sets, large sheets of painted plywood and run down pieces of furniture, all riddled with bullets. David picked a spot where, upon shooting, any stray bullet would bury itself within a small hill behind our target. I walked about 30 yards out and propped up a makeshift target that someone left behind as my cousins Jon and Danny loaded a few of the weapons we had at our disposal. Dave however, walked up to me, handed me a 9mm and simply said, "Shoot the demons out of it."

You don't need to know precisely what that means, per say...just that the last bullet that left this gun did in fact carry a demon with it, and my uncle was asking me to exorcise every last remnant of what it left behind. So I did. And Danny did. And Jon did. And then I did again. And then, without so much of a word, Dave tucked it away in a small metal box and slid it back into the truck. I wouldn't be surprised if that would be the last time that gun is ever shot.

A Glock. A .45mm. A shotgun. A rifle. An AK-47...I'm not going to lie; shooting a semi-automatic AK-47 makes you feel like John Rambo, like a real man. Like, I wanted to sign my name in the side of a mountain with bullets and claim it as my own. This 7.62 x 39mm caliber assault rifle can shoot 600 rounds per minute and has an effective range of 437 yards. And, it was designed by the Russians. Bad. Ass.

Two hours and three empty boxes of ammo later, we were looking at what was left of the semi-identifiable furniture that we made our targets for the day. Packing up our stuff, we headed back to the house to engage in an enormous meal. Some of Jon and Danny's friends stopped by and before long, the house was saturated in the scent of roasting meats, savory enough to draw them in by the truckload. Soon enough, after a few glasses of wine, three heaping plates of food and a lot of laughter, we all slipped into our respective food comas and soon found ourselves retiring for the night. I don't even remember putting my head on the pillow.

The next morning, as tradition has defined my visits to Phoenix, I woke up just before the sunrise and quietly left the house, exited through the back gate into the Phoenix Mountain Preserve and quietly hiked up the three-tiered trail to the top of Shaw Butte, which not only casts a shadow over their backyard, but offers a beautiful view of the entirety of Phoenix as well. As the sun rose in the east, I descended off the back of the mountain and into the calm of the desert. The trail looped back around through the valley, right back towards where I started.

I was awake, invigorated and I hadn't been stung by a scorpion nor did I cross paths with a rattlesnake. It was a great start to the day, upon then which I said goodbye to Ellen, Dave, Jon and Danny before they all left for work and school. I had a bit of time to relax before heading to the airport for my flight, so I decided to spend it as wisely as I could; by relaxing beside the pool with Cougar.

Later that morning, I found myself looking out the window upon the city of Phoenix, not knowing quite for sure when my next visit will be. My cousin Jon, is now in his sophmore year of college of Gonzaga University in Spokane. Danny is currently looking around the country at different universities, but I have a feeling he'll end up attending the same school as Jon. Soon, it'll be hard to get everyone back together again so easily outside of holidays and mid-summer during their breaks. ...But I suppose that's what makes it worth it.

The Importance of Family

The next morning, I packed a quick overnight bag, shared breakfast with my cousins before they left for school and jumped in the car to drive down to Tucson to visit with my Uncle Rick, my Aunt Louise and my three older cousins; Matt, Tim and Adam. Two hours later down I-10, I was pulling into their house on the western edge of the city.

I've always enjoyed visiting Tucson. It's small, and granted, I've never really done much else there other than stay and visit with my family, but there's something very subtle about it that I've always enjoyed. Maybe it's that many of the mysteries of the Old West lie within just a few miles of its boundaries. Maybe it's that just up into the hills lie a multitude of hidden oasis's nestled between the desert crags of the Santa Catalinas. Or maybe, and most likely, it's because I have vivid memories of visiting Tucson as a child, my first visit to the southwest, and that those memories have created for me a unique charm about the area.

Unfortunately, some things had changed. About a year beforehand, my Aunt Louise was diagnosed with terminal cancer; pancreatic, I believe. Not long before I arrived in Las Vegas, her health had recently taken a turn for the worse and my uncle debated whether or not it would be helpful for me to visit with them at all. There were no nurses, no hospice staff to help...just my Uncle, and that's the way they both preferred it. Not wanting to impose, but also knowing that this would mostly likely be the last time I would see Louise, I agreed without question to stay in a hotel up the street.

My last time with my Aunt Louise was quiet and full of smiles. She was tired, but still as sharp as ever. My fondest memory of her occured during my first visit to Arizona, in which she introduced me to the magic of cinnamon-sugar toast, a breakfast delight that brings back that moment every time I bite into it. I had meant to tell her this, but never got the chance admist our last conversation. She passed away just a few weeks later.

I spent a lot of time with my Uncle over the few meals we shared together while I was there. He's a very soft-spoken, but direct man, reminding me of my late-grandfather more and more each time I see him. His stories are always shared with experience and a deep, moral purpose. I learn more about myself each time I see him. We talked a lot about my aunt and how he, the boys and their grandchildren are coping with her illness, and we talked at length about our family and the plethora of stories that we both regarding each one of us. He sped me up to date with how his three boys are doing and how my cousin Tim (his middle son) is still in pain, but recovering well from a freak motorcycle accident a few weeks back. Fortunately before I left to head back to Phoenix, I was able to see all three of them, even if for just a few short minutes, and that's all that mattered.

Following a nice breakfast that my uncle and I whipped up together, I said my goodbye's to everyone and jumped back on the road towards Phoenix. Just before I arrived into town, I got a call from my Uncle Dave telling me that they were on their way to Lake Pleasant, a local retreat about 25 miles north of the city. The timing was perfect. With my Uncle's boat in tow, we redeveuxed off the interstate and I drove the rest of the way to the lake in Dave's truck along with my cousins Jon, Danny and Jon's friend...crap, I can't remember his name. Cool kid, though. I wanna say Mike. ...Let's just say his name is Mike.

What does one do on Lake Pleasant? Speed boating. Cliff jumping. Water skiing. Wake boarding. Camping. Partying. Kite surfing. Hiking. Scuba Diving. Drinking. Sailing. Blatently oogling bikini-clad women (Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Danny ...Be. More. Subtle.) Kayaking. Tubing. Wind Surfing. ...the list goes on. In the few hours we were there to enjoy it, we got to do three of those things.

It's become a tradition of sorts. Each time my cousins and I go to Lake Pleasant on the boat with my Uncle, we go cliff jumping. The drop is close to 30 feet, sometimes higher depending on the level of the lake, and it's a great little rush to break up the day. I pride myself on my lack of fear of heights and cold water...two things which continually cause hesitation in my cousins for which I'm continually able to call them out on it, being about fifteen years their elder. Truth is, I just enjoy the banter.

After a few jumps, Danny broke out the wake board and we spent a bit of time speeding around the bay so he could practice his verticals. For a kid that I continually harass (in my defense, he does ask for it), I will say that he's pretty damn good on his board. My two younger cousins have really come into their own and it's come to the point where I can hang out and converse with them as adults, not as their babysitter. That's a really cool moment of realization when it happens. Following Danny's bout of showing off, we inflated the Inner-tube, which preceded each of us taking our turn being rag-dolled across my Uncle's wake while he laughs maniacally at the constant bouts of aquatic abuse that we all volunteered for. It took me an hour to dig out that wedgie.

With the sun dropping and the air becoming cool over the lake, we headed in, loaded up the boat and enjoyed a quiet ride back into the city. Exhausted, we spent the rest of the evening eating dinner outside by the pool, delighting in whatever new wild game that my uncle picked off as the main course of our menu. Discussions of what my last day with them in Arizona would entail dominated the end of the conversation. But that's meant to be discussed in another post soon enough.

My best moments in Arizona are because of my family. The time I spend with them is priceless to me, no matter how often I continue to visit. I will always go back. Every two years has been my goal since I've been in college. I don't see that changing. Not in any future I can foresee, anyway.

Summer Hike Series: Oneonta Gorge

In southern Utah, within the depths of Zion National Park exists a slot canyon hike simply labeled, "The Narrows," an ankle-to-chest-deep creekbed that narrowly winds between two solid, 1000-ft. walls of rock for fifteen miles upstream from the main part of the park. Twice I've been to Zion and as it's been a goal of mine to explore this scenic, rugged stretch of backcountry, I've been hindered by both a limited schedule and threats of flash flooding, the latter of which could spell disaster to any fool stupid enough to hoof it during flood season. In northern Oregon, within the western edges of the Columbia River Gorge hides The Narrows' little lost brother, Oneonta Gorge, a spectacular tease of the hidden treasures that the Pacific Northwest has to offer.

Where: From Portland, drive eastbound on I-84, past Multonomah Falls, taking exit 35 towards Ainsworth Park. Backtrack 1.5 miles west on the scenic byway until you pass Horsetail Falls, followed about .2 miles later by a foot tunnel on the left side of the road. Park in one of the spaces just beyond the tunnel. The trailhead begins on the Oneonta Creek riverbed just underneath the roadway bridge.

Oneonta Gorge, a mossy, fern-lined chasm that is so narrow, the 30-foot wide Oneonta Creek actually fills it from wall to wall, is the incredible result of what happens when water cuts through the area's basalt lava layers along a fault line. Hiking this gorge could be one of the coolest short hikes in all of Oregon.

Being sold on a single photograph of the inside of the gorge, I had to do it. When my friend Kyle, who was visiting from D.C. for the weekend, suggested we go on a hike, this was the first option I thought of. Knowing that there is a bit of tricky footwork at the mouth of the gorge, I threw a harness around Kino, packed up a few supplies and a mere 45 minutes later we were parking the car below Horsetail Falls in search of the entry point into Oneonta Creek. A few minutes later we were already ankle deep in water and approaching a jumbled cluster of a log jam unlike any I had ever seen.

I read about this part of the hike while researching the gorge, as its an obstacle that often daunts the faint of heart from continuing on. A twenty-five foot high, twisted Jenga puzzle of fallen trees, the log jam is obviously the product of a long-passed number of flash floods, the oldest memories of which are buried deep within its tangle. It almost resembles a strange, Escher-like maze when trying to navigate from one end to the other, with dangerous pockets and naturally-created pitfalls between the sticks that seem to be straight out of an Indiana Jones adventure. Concerned that I may not even be able to cross it with Kino, I explored a few routes to the other side in search of the safest option that would allow him to pass. With Kyle's help and the aid of Kino's harness, the three of us performed a bit of a leapfrogging technique that helped Kino wind his way over the beams and down to the creek on the other side. Even though another owner was letting his dog navigate through it all on his own, due to Kino's old ligament damage and his back legs being as weak as they are, I wasn't taking any chances. All in all it took us about 15 minutes.

Once we passed the log jam, I released Kino from his tether and stepped into the heart of the gorge. With fluorescent lichens and maidenhair ferns gracing the walls that were towering over 150 feet above us, our view upstream was like looking through a window into Narnia. Being almost 11am, the sun's rays were starting to breech the top of the canyon walls, little by little, streaming down to meet the riverbed floor. It was simply breathtaking.

Running up ahead of us, Kino soon discovered a 1/4 mile later that the creek, mostly ankle deep up until that point, plunged into nearly shoulder-high depths for about 100 feet. Only after I waded in to the 52-degree pool with my bag held high above my head did he build up the nerve to actually dive in and cross with me. Even then, he found a way to scramble up onto a small ledge to my right and billy-goat his way to the other side. ...I have a dog that hates swimming. Go figure. Kyle followed shortly behind, and once the three of us were through, we continued along the gorge's twists and turns until we reached the final pay-off: Oneonta Falls.

Plunging into the creekbed from above, the 120-foot Oneonta Falls is simply spectacular to behold. You can see it from a distance as you approach the end of the gorge, the roar of its two tiers of water echoing through the canyon. Regardless of the hypothermic-like water, I plunged into the pool beneath the falls to try to get some better, more closeup photographs of the falls. Instead, I ended up attempting to coax Kino into the water with me for a quick swim. He visibly and vocally objected to such a notion, clearly wanting to have nothing of the sort while being so close to the rushing waterfall. It was hard to determine which freaked him out the most; the fact that there was a ear-deafening column of water behind me, or that I was swimming so close to the base of it. I couldn't help being entranced by them though...the falls are so pristine, it's hard not to want to swim up and just touch them.

After taking a few quick shots in front of the falls, I started to notice a crowd of people begin to make their way towards our end of the gorge. It was close to noon by now and as it was a Sunday afternoon in the midst of summer, this was beginning to become an immensely crowded hike. The solace of the gorge no longer offered to us as an option, Kyle, Kino and I began to head back through the wading pools and over the still-carefully-maneuvered log jam before reaching the road and heading west past Multonomah Falls and back to Portland.

If you have the opportunity and don't mind getting a bit wet, this hike is definitely worth the effort. It's been hard to top the absolute majesty of Tunnel Falls along the edge of Eagle Creek, but Oneonta Gorge offers a unique experience unlike any other trail hiking options around Oregon. No question about it, I would definitely put this on the top of my list, and needless to say I plan on going back.

Back into Civilization

For three days, I removed myself from mostly all contact with the outside world and lived among the Havasupai natives within the remote, outlying depths of the Grand Canyon. It was an experience that I'll not soon forget, and hope to relive again in the near future. Even more than a year later, the memories of that oasis amidst the desert live vividly in my mind, with its turquoise water, blazing crimson rock and lush green foliage surrounding my every step through the narrow valley. Such places are only meant to exist in dreams and yet, there it was, a living reality. It makes one's obligation to leave all that much more difficult.

After three days of meditation, exploration and hiking along the valley's numerous and picturesque waterfalls, it was time for me to pack up and head back up the long, hot, 10-mile path to the rim of the canyon and begin the third leg of my trip towards Phoenix and Tucson to spend my final days within the southwest with family. That morning, accompanied by a new canine friend I named "Quixote" (fitting, as I was reading Cervantes' book amidst my stay) I enjoyed a quick breakfast, packed up my tent and began the trek back towards my car. Quixote, who had been shadowing me all over the valley for the better part of a day and a half, followed me for about two miles past the village, my last view of him being atop a small ridge behind and above my path, regally watching me as I passed into the great crevice that would lead me home.

Four hours, ten miles and 2400 vertical feet later, I was finally able to rest alongside my car, gratefully ending the brutal climb to the top of the rim. Without wasting much time, I hopped in my rental, cranked up the AC and headed south down Indian Rd. 18, then east towards Flagstaff. Due to a small mishap with my dinosaur of a phone and the pools underneath Mooney Falls, I was unable to make outgoing calls. Using this opportunity to final invest in an iPhone, I made a quick stop into an AT&t store, made the quick exchange, and jumped on Interstate-10 to head down the big hill into Phoenix.

Two hours later, I was pulling into my Uncle's house and after a vibrant greeting with my boy Cougar (the resident Golden Retriever that becomes attached to my hip during each visit) and their new addition Blitz, I was ready for a nice, comforting, hot shower. Just after I finished cleaning up four days of desert filth off my skin, my cousin Danny walked in the door, followed a bit later by my Uncle Dave. Not long afterwards, we found ourselves heading up the street to a local wing joint to gorge ourselves on a few baskets of wings and a bit of beer. My Aunt Ellie and cousin Jon joined us a bit later on their way back from a college visit for Jon. We ate like kings.

The night continued on back at their house, watching a few movies with a couple of Danny and Jon's friends, heckling each other over Facebook and discussing what the next few days were going to include. Those plans would have to wait, however, as the next morning I would be traveling even further south into Tucson for a day to visit another aunt and uncle and their three grown boys, Matt, Tim and Adam, all of which I hadn't seen in almost five years. Until then, only one thing was saturating my mind; the promise of a good night's sleep. Promise: kept.

The Return of the Traveler

My last post was over fifteen months ago. I'm not quite sure why I phased myself away from keeping up this blog, especially with all the traveling I've accomplished so far this past year...I may have had a lot distracting me at the time, or I was more accustomed to updating the devil in us we all know as Facebook...either way, I've made it a point to make it back here and start playing catch up...one post at a time.

So like I've said, I've done a lot of traveling this past year, from creeping into the depths of the Bone-Norman caves in West Virginia to competing in the Chicago Triathlon to fulfilling a decade-old dream of exploring the western horizons, not to mention everything in between. That's a lot to cover, so here's what I think I'm going to do:

Each week, I'm going to cover, chronologically, my exploits over the past year and three months, starting from my trip from Havasu Falls down to Phoenix, AZ to see my family. If I do some traveling in the meantime, I'll take a pause from the previous coverage in order to detail the current trip, only to afterwards pick up where I left off, and to finally catch up to where I am now.

Mark this as the Return of Jack Traveler, the return of the great adventure.