mojave wildlife

desert tortoise, rattlesnakes, kangaroo rat (cute), quail, jackrabbits, etc.

desert road trip

bye bye ut

hides

finishing up a week-long primitive skills workshop as part of survival school staff training. i chose hide tanning as my course.

did two deer hides.
steps: scrape off flesh. soak in lye solution. scrape hair and epidermis. rinse. scrape flesh side again to remove membrane. soak in brain solution. wring out, stretch, rack it up and soften til it's dry. smoke treatment. (smoking the hides will ensure that they stay soft even if they get wet later).

now gotta decide what to make out of these.

WFR

stepping outside the classroom...

Finished the recert class for wilderness first responder. Did lots of good scenarios-- various trauma and medical emergencies, and how to deal with them in the back country.

Now a week vacation before more staff training at the survival school.

of desert air and healing eyes

when i went to utah this year, i noticed a big difference in the air. i knew it was drier, but didn't expect it to bother my eyes so much. i stayed a month just to hang out and see. eventually decided that leading trips in the desert, sleeping in sand, having not enough time to baby my eyes the way they needed, was not a good idea this year.

since i wouldn't be leading trips, i decided to go hang out in california to give eyes a break from the dry air. several hrs into the drive, managed to scratch my cornea "substantially" (as the first dr put it.) fortunately found an optometrist around on memorial day weekend who came in and fixed me up. spent night in a motel and am now testing to see if my eye will be ok to finish the remaining 10 hr drive.

extremely appreciative of drs and nurses at various med/eye clinics here. and very kind, all of them. one nurse walked me out to my car. the first place didn't charge me anything, and the second guy only charged for a standard office visit even though he came in at night.

back in utah...

... for another season

stupid move no. 3

yeah, you know the kind--you say to yourself, "maybe i shouldn't do this"...and then you do.

so there i was last week hiking in capitol reef n.p. went on the "strenuous" hike so not so many folks went that way and the trail was hard to see. hiked along, eventually went up up up. lost the trail. no big deal. went down down down. found the trail going back. but saw a cool bunch of rock formation and decided to go over to them instead of heading back to the trailhead just yet. dropped down into them, now in a bit of a canyon type thing. cool.


well, i get to a drop-off. look down, seems like i can jump it--only 6 and half feet or so. probably can't climb back out the way i go in, but i can tell i'll be able to climb out the other side. so i jump. oh ouch my knee. not the one that's been clicking all summer, but the other one. fortunately the pain doesn't last too long though. now i climb up the other side and oh, what do you know, there's another drop. duh, what an idiot.

ok, this jump also looks doable, except now i'm hesitant to jump because i'm worried about my knee. plus, who knows what's beyond that drop? maybe something worse. so i go back to see if i can climb back up the first jump. hmmmm. it's an overhang, out of reach. i try it a bit, but my rock climbing skills are not top form. maybe i could have worked out the problem after a few hours but no spotter, and what if i fall back and hit my head?

right. i go forward to the second drop and check it out some more. if i jump down it, i won't be able climb back the way i came, but who cares since i can't climb out the previous one? i can hear people on some other trail some ways ahead of me. so it's not a life threatening situation, i could yell for help. but how humiliating would that be? actually it looks like i might be able to climb up the wall on the side if i do carry on and jump into the second drop. ugh, but my knee. oh whatever, just jump. so i do. oh good, this time no pain.

i go on a little ways more, and of course it's a dead end. of course. there's a huge drop off. many many many feet high. and down there is a trail--the "easy" one that takes hikers to the base of a natural bridge/arch. i'm treated to a lovely view of it from on high. cool, but how to get out? no way to go down. maybe i can get out the side? yes, i am able to climb up and over the side wall. phew. and with only a skinned knee and some nervous sweat.

now, by "number 3" i don't mean over the course of a lifetime. only so far this summer while in utah. oy, what's up with that?

survivin' celebs

i just finished working a private custom course for a woman who is a professional hunter and host of a tv adventure show. she wanted to test herself backpacking and also learn survival and primitive skills. she was impressed that some of our instructors (not myself) have been consultants to les stroud of "survivorman" and bear grylls of "man vs. wild". it was fun but also a very different dynamic having only one student.

we kept her impact phase short as she was only with us for a week. but that first night of no food and no blanket was pretty rough. even though i slept curled up to the other instructor, i got very little sleep--too cold. it was so cold that we stopped trying to sleep and just started hiking again before the sun was even up. by the time it was light enough for me to check the temp, it was still only 34F.

teaching the thermo regulation lesson was a bit different than usual. normally after discussing heat loss, we tell the students we slept a bit warmer than they did the previous night because the instructors "spoon" to conserve radiant body heat. we then encourage the students to do the same with each other. it felt really awkward to suggest that the sole student sleep with us. so we didn't. we gave her a blanket for the second night.

we taught her friction fire, cordage from natural plant fibers, bunch of local edible and otherwise useful plants, water procurement, navigation with a topo map, knife use (though she pretty much knew that), making stone blades, catching fish with her bare hands which got her very excited and she caught a trout. also taught traps and snares, though we didn't try to catch any critters because we had enough food by then. did a sheep kill--no big deal for her, but she wasn't used to skinning and butchering so showed her that stuff. i even did the silly but kinda cool trick after we gutted the animal of blowing through the trachea to inflate the lungs. kinda interesting to see.

this woman is a big game hunter and big fish fisher. she has great stories about being stalked by hyenas, charged by hippo, attacked by elephant and mauled by a grizzly bear. she sounds like a bad-ass, but we kicked her butt hiking. enough that she called me the bad-ass. nice.

hail storms

and snow and rain and sun all within a couple hours.

and did i mention the wind? sends a fine dusting of orange sand all over everything inside my tent. kinda cool looking. i don't bother to clean it up anymore.

staff retreat...

...boss style.
basically hike and hike and hike for 3 days. scrape through tight canyons, slip in mud while crossing through waist deep water. sleep in the dirt, deluxe accommodations being a cave on the second night. lentils and gorp just don't taste the same back at home. end of trip, bottom of feet feel like hamburger meat. and the tan lines are just from this trip. love it.

after the "retreat" had a few days off, so i and a couple coworkers took a canyoneering course just for fun. learned to set various anchors and rigging for rappels and such.

zion

couldn't believe i'd worked in utah 3 years and still not been to zion np. took some time to get over there and do a bunch of hikes. this is kolob canyon area

bathtub full of chicks

i'm once again in the states. spent a month visiting friends and family. went from sf, ca to boulder, co to sf, nm and boulder, ut.

back at the survival school in utah where i'll be teaching this summer. courses don't start until may, so for now i get to hang out at the field office in town. we actually have running water, but no bath because it's being used as a brooder. very cute, but will be nice when they're out so we can shower again.

bye, utah...

it's 1am and i'm briefly on the computer waiting for the students to come in from their final night hike. we'll have a primitive sauna tomorrow before graduation. then i leave boulder, utah for this year.

i was sorry to be on the last course of the year, but it was a good one--a 7-day field course and the students were great. had wonderful attitudes and good group dynamics. i'm appreciating more the people watching i get to do on these. this group had bunch of different folks. cool to see the young morman couple, the gay yoga instructor from new york city, the southern prosecuting attorney, the "mr mom" photographer from boulder colorado, the air force guy and five others all getting along great and pulling together to help each other out.

some memorable quotes for this course: the new yorker..."nature in 3-d is really different from nature on tv." the air force guy..."it's all fun an games until someone in my unit sees a picture of me doing yoga."

earlier in the week we had another narley night hike without moon through trees. "hiking by brail." this one only went til 1am. no bull, but we did have lightening.  

one day off on my own, i heard a bunch of high pitched sounds, then saw a fawn come running right towards me. i finally said something so it would know i was there and it turned and ran a different way.

must go out now to be there for greeting whenever students arrive.

apricots

best way to drive from boss to denver is through capitol reef national park. now how could i go through the park and not stop for a bit of the scenery? plus it's apricot time. there's an orchard there in the middle of the park/desert, near a river in the town of fruita, utah (not to be confused with fruita, colorado where i stopped later for gas--depressing.) anyway, you get to pick your own fruit. how fun is that? so i climbed a tree in my cowboy hat and got a fat bag of little orange fruit. yum. 

land nav

just finished up the mountain navigator course. no more red rock, sand & sage brush. now aspen, spruce, mosquitoes.

good group of folks. had one guy who was a navy seal. funny to think of him as a student. sea air and land, but as he says, "seals aren't know for their land nav." this course was hard for some, but was like a vacation for him. he also teaches sky diving. had another navy guy, a royal canadian mounted police guy (mountie on a mountain bike rather than a horse.) couple of brits, couple of boss alums, and couple young folk. fun group though half of them quit right before the solo.

had to shadow the students during their student expedition and solos. stressful, but kinda fun. had to work on being sneaky. got caught once because they started ealier in the morning than they ever had and went in a different direction than planned, so i walked right into them. oops. later got better, but few times was sure they'd see me, yet they didn't. amazing how focussed on something they can be that they don't even see you when you're in plain sight only a few feet away.

tweaked my back on the second to last day of the course. not a full blow out, but was hard slogging around the mountain top with a pack on. it's slowly getting better.

have a 9 hour drive ahead of me tomorrow going to denver for the antarctica physical tests (medical, dental, drug, etc.) so time for bed now.

back for a day

the course i just finished was a private trip for a group of frat boys. i was worried that i wouldn't keep up with all these young guys, but the course ended up kicking their butts. they moaned and groaned about it being the hardest thing they've ever done and how the other instructor and i hiked too fast, yadda yah.

i saw wild turkeys flying. i've seen them walk before, but never thought about them flying. but they do, and there you have it. they sound like helicopters. we hiked one night until 2 am with no moon light. and not on a road either. hard stuff. also a bull was in a small field where we had to walk (just as it was just getting really dark) and it was grunting at us. fortunately did not charge. phew.

going back out again today for another 2 weeks, this one is a special navigator course. then i have a week long break which will be filled with a drive to denver to get all the medical tests done for antarctica...

breather

first field course is over. i was still apprentice for that one in order to get back into the swing of things. i now have a week of "backup" duty, providing logistical support for the other courses out in the field. i'll be able to check email regularly for a while. my first course as an official bonafide instructor will start in a week. it's a special course for a group of frat boys. hope my ole self can keep up with these younguns. and remember all the lessons i have to teach.

i'm in process of trying to get a job in antarctica for this winter (austral summer). long application/interview process. if i get a job offer i'll have go through physicals and background check, etc before i can go.

sunrise

back in town for only a few hours to pick up food re-supply for the students.

cati are in bloom--beautiful bright pink and yellow flowers as we hike along.

this morning i watched the sunrise against orange cliffs with the moon still up. gorgeous.

more sheep

last week was the slickrock gathering where we got to take a workshop in some primitive/traditional skill. i chose textiles. we sheared a sheep, washed, carted, spun and dyed the wool. then we made simple looms and did some weaving. i also got a whole fleece and felted it as-is to make a rug. gave that to c to take to alaska for the ger. she was here for the gathering too, took medicinal plants. yesterday i got another fleece, a big ram, and felted it. i'm tired, but it's drying and i'll have a rug that fills most of my tent.

going out on a scouting run today, then courses start sunday. i'll be out for 14 days, then a week of logistics/backup, then a 7-day, then a two week navigator course. same nav course i apprenticed on last year, this year i'll instruct it. hope i don't get lost.