jacks canyon again

Before we sent Mary on her way back to the Midwest we had to go back to one of our favorite climbing places, Jacks Canyon, about 30 miles S of Winslow AZ. It was a lot hotter this time around, so we spent a lot of the days chasing the shade but fantastic climbing.

family portrait- you'll see this one on the x-mas cards

Baxter and Goonie best of chums, when they're sleeping

Michael leading Genesis, super fun 10d

Carefully, carefully now...

This was an 11b? with some fun sideways moves

A scary little visitor, Goonie spotted this lovely rattler right next to our van- Luckily Goonie listened when we called him away from that intriguing noise

Family portrait number 2

Just hanging out...I'm so funny

Game face

Game face number 2

Sorry Mary, Baxter is not impressed

Crack climbing and leading a 10, no big deal

Well, can't be shown up by the little sis you know

And Goonie looks on...

Finally...more of the end...

After our fill of Easter candy we hung out and around Tucson for a few days

Free camping spot outside of Tucson, it was nice cause it was so close to town- but not so nice cause it was so close to town.

Look there are oranges everywhere- we couldn't figure out why no one was eating these from the trees, until we grabbed a handful from a bank parking lot. As Mike drove the get-away van he popped open the orange and shoved half of it into his mouth. Very juicy, VERY Sour, Very funny.

Cactus filled hillside- We were attempting to find a climbing area- long pretty hike, lots of neat rocks, no climbing areas to be found.

The red rocks of Sedona AZ

So the first time we took Goonie to a body of water he jumped in with reckless abandon. We thought, looks like we've got a water dog...This is what happened the next time...




A quick stop in Oak Creek Canyon, the Atlantis area. It was here where I had one of my scariest climbing falls. We were on a climb that apparently hadn't been climbed very often. While I was going up to the 3rd clip, my right hand hold broke...and then my left hand hold broke and suddenly I was falling backwards through the air, and still falling, and umm still falling... (there was some yelling and obscenities involved at this point) and then finally the rope went taught, and I was about 2 inches above the ground. (There was some blubbering and crying involved at this point). I made my way back up to the 2nd clip grabbed our gear and carefully down-climbed and got out of there.


We showed up in Flagstaff to pick up our mountain bikes that were being sent to a bike shop there. While we were waiting we got in some climbing and met the friendliest dog. Both Goonie and Baxter had a blast. We named him Big Dog.

As you can see, Baxter was pretty focused on one thing...

The New Bikes

Look at all those pine trees. The view from our campspot in Flagstaff right by the trail

More to come soon...

Finally....The end...well sort of

A quick sum up of the last couple months of the trip- After Las Cruces NM and trying out our first multipitch climb we decided to check out a climbing area in Southern Arizona called Isle of You. The name made it real interesting to try to ask about directions, Isle....OF...You. The place was fantastic- although the climbing was pretty tricky cause it was on granite. All in all great weather, great clouds, and great sunsets.

Itty bitty Emilie taking in the sunset on top of a long climb called pay day.

Even ittier bittier Michael. I think this is on a 10 called Stone Woman.

Mary making her way up Kit kat- the picture doesn't really show how much she's shaking. Not because she's terrified of the climb but because only a few minutes earlier I nearly squashed her with a giant boulder as I was coming down from the top. She was letting me down from the climb, my toe bumped a loose rock, and this boulder the size of our dog came tumbling down the cliff. Luckily, Mary had the wherewithal to move out of the way and still hold on to me. Thanks Mary!

Mike on what I think is a 9+ thingamajig-Are you catching the theme here- the wall is called Sweet Rock. Some of our other favorites were pop rocks and hot tamale.

Mike and Mary thought I was crazy when I was saying there are colors in the clouds, but now I've got proof.

Mike and Goonie heading home to the van

The moon lit up the whole campsite, and reflected very nicely off the hood of Mary's car- I mean a giant lake in the desert

After we had our fill at Isle of you we decided to head towards Tuscon, we didn't want to be anywhere too crowded since it was Easter weekend, but we wanted to be close to a city so we could fly in and get all the good sales on the Easter candy the next day. We found a place that was quiet, and filled with cows, but had a really nice sunset/clouds combo.

The dogs thought it was great that there were cattle running about and spent most of a day trying to herd them out of our campsite. Here Mary is trying to herd the dogs back to us.