Since my last post I have become an official raft guide for Vessels
for Honor/Journey Quest! My first
customer groups happened on June 16th, my birthday. In total I’ve taken 5 groups down the
Arkansas River.
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| Me guiding a group through 5 points rapid |
My 20th birthday I spent climbing Uncompahgre Peak with a
group from Redcloud. My 21st
birthday I got to ride a horse for the first time and it was in the mountains
of Colorado! So, it seemed only
fitting that I did something just as fun and epic on my 22nd
birthday. The day started with a
reunion-ing family from all over the country. They were… memorable.
I say that because they were definitely the most difficult group I’ve
brought down the river yet. The
group consisted of two smaller women (one of which was a less than ideal
paddler), one average sized guy and a small 12 year old girl (also a less than
ideal paddler). They mentioned
that they were hungry only 30 minutes after we left which meant they were even
worse paddlers. They tried to stay
positive but it gets to be annoying when all they can talk say are things like,
“Huh, maybe we should have eaten more for breakfast”, “How much longer are we
on the river?”, “They should build a McDonalds on the river”, “This is quite
the workout, isn’t it!” and other “I’m-trying-to
stay-positive-but-I’m-really-loathing-life-right-now” remarks. To sum it all up I got tired, REALLY
tired! When you’re the only
paddler in a 13 foot boat for 9 miles with an upstream wind, life kind of
stinks. I remember thinking,
“Dang, this is going to be a hard summer!” and, “Worst birthday ever!” Thankfully, however, we had another
group that afternoon and they made the day loads better!
That afternoon I got back, crammed a sandwich into my mouth and then…
waited around. A thunderstorm with
hail decided to stop by so we opted to wait for our afternoon run until after
the storm went through. The group
was a youth group from Faith Lutheran in Colorado Springs. As a whole, they have been my favorite
group so far. They had already been
waiting to get on the river for awhile and then it started storming so they had
to wait even longer. They could
have chosen to complain but instead they stayed positive and even went puddle
jumping and dancing in the rain.
When we finally got on the bus and started driving I was able to sit
next to Chloe, a 9th grader who was really nervous about water. I shared with her that I’m not a huge
fan of water either and then we got to talking about theatre, speech and all
things acting. She was a pretty cool
gal. After driving for about 4
miles the bus came to a sudden halt: there were two big boulders in the road
that had come down after the rain.
All of us guides and a few of Faith Lutheran’s adult leaders decided to
get out and roll them out of the road.
They probably weighed 100-200 pounds each, but we were able to save
someone’s car from unavoidable damage and rolled them into the ditch.
When we finally made it to our put-in, it had finished raining and we
were able to get onto the river.
My paddlers that afternoon were actually that, paddlers. They paddled strong and together and
made my job a WHOLE heck of a lot easier.
They were also really fun to talk to which was a bonus. One thing Mark wants us guides to be
doing while we’re on the river with a group is bringing up some sort of faith
related analogies or try to share our Christian testimonies or just talk to
them about their faith. Not a
super easy task, but there are a lot of great analogies that link the Christian
faith and rafting so it makes it a bit more doable. Anyways, my group that afternoon really got into one of the
analogies and we had some good faith discussion for the last stretch of our
trip.
To round out the day we decided to go into Canon City for pizza. Probably the most delicious pizza I’ve
ever had. At least that’s how good
it was after a LONG and hard day on the river.
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| Full "food baby" bellies after eating at Pizza Madness |
To sum it up, my birthday was pretty fantastic. It wasn’t awesome, but it wasn’t bad
either. I’m sure I’ll have another
group like that one I had on the morning of June 16th which I’m not
looking forward to… but for the most part I’m enjoying guiding and being on the
river.
The weather here has been HOT!
During the afternoons it gets up around 100F. I’m so glad I have a job where I have to get wet. If the heat gets unbearable you just
jump out of the boat for a second and take a quick swim in the river. However, in the past few days we’ve
been getting afternoon thunderstorms which I’ve heard will continue throughout
most of the summer. But they’re
Colorado thunderstorms. Aka: they
last for about 5 minutes and then it’s sunny again.
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| Playing in the river near VFH to cool off on a hot summer day |
Cori’s sister, Amanda, recently got engaged. Her fiancé and her came to VFH for a couple of days to raft
and have Elise Soniat take their engagement pictures. I got to tag along on the photo shoot, which was a lot of
fun!
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| Elise taking engagement pictures for Amanda and Micah |
We were able to get away from rafting for a day to do peak hike
training. Our whole staff hiked
Comanche peak (13,271 ft) and some of us opted to do Spring peak as well. It was a decent hike up, but the hike
down stunk! The hike up was nice
because the trail was long and spread out the elevation, but that meant that
the way down took forever! The peak
was different than anything I’ve ever climbed before. When you got to the top and looked down all you saw was a
large flat valley on both sides with a town. All of the mountains around Lake City/Redcloud were
surrounded by miles and miles of more mountains so it was a strange site.
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| Starting out hike up Comanche Peak right as the sun rises |
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| On the summit of Spring Peak. Comanche Peak in the background. |
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| The whole group at the top of Comanche Peak |
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| The "strange" view of a flat valley |
One of my favorite activities here is paddling a ducky down the river. A ducky is basically a kayak made out
of the same material of the larger rafts.
It’s a lot of fun to take down rapids because you can take
different/smaller routes, turn on a dime (well, compared to a big raft), and they
don’t get stuck on sleepers as often.
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| Tough day in the office |
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| Playing in the ducky |
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| Dan and Harrison using some "experimental" methods in the ducky |
We’ve had several visitors in the past few weeks. Harrison and Jake (two of the guys I
worked with at Redcloud last summer) came to visit for a few days. They were bagging some peaks before
Harrison had to return to med school.
We took them down the river in some duckies, played ultimate Frisbee
with them and ate Blue Bell ice cream.
It was nice to see them and hang out with them for a few days.
The Reiff family also came to visit for a few days. Steve Reiff, his wife Mandy and their three
children will be joining the full time staff at Journey Quest in the fall. They were on a trip visiting friends
and family around the country and decided to stop by for a few days to see the
place and play on the water with us.
I’d met Steve before when he came with his church’s youth group to
Redcloud the past few summers, so it was nice to meet his family and have them
here.
Cori, Elise, Jeanne Marie and I decided that we wanted to climb
Wetterhorn peak and last weekend was when we figured we’d have enough time and
energy to do it. As soon as our
last group left on Saturday (which, by the way, was made up of the interns from
Focus on the Family including one intern who attends Northwestern College. Small world!) we packed up the Jeep and
headed west for Lake City (where the trailhead for Wetterhorn is located). We arrived at the trailhead around
11:00pm and started hiking around midnight. We hiked in the dark for a little more than an hour, found
the last flat looking spot according to the map, spread out our sleeping bags,
and slept under the stars for about 4 hours. The stars are INCREDIBLE at 12,000 feet with no light
pollution!
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| Midnight and ready to hike! |
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| View from where we chose to sleep that night |
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| Morning sunrise on Wetterhorn Peak |
Once 5:00am rolled around we reluctantly got out of our warm sleeping
bags and began hiking. 3 hours
later we made it to the summit! It
was a steep climb but well worth it.
I’ve now climbed all five 14er’s in the Lake City area! We talked about doing Matterhorn and
Uncompahgre as well, but we decided food, ice cream and a nap in the park were
all a better idea.
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| Final scramble to the summit |
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| View from the top of Wetterhorn Peak (14,015 ft) Matterhorn and Uncompahgre are the two tallest peaks on the left |
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| All of us on the summit |
This past week I went into Colorado Springs to help Sarah get food and
other supplies. I don’t know if
you’ve heard anything about the wildfires in Colorado but there’s been A LOT of
them recently. While I was in the
Springs, the fire that was nearby got even closer. So close that I could see the flames from some of the
roads. The fire was near the north
side of town and we were mostly on the opposite side so we weren’t in much
danger. However, it was strange to
see so much smoke everywhere and think that there was a raging uncontrolled
fire just miles from me. I’ve
heard that the fire is now 25% contained and it hasn’t spread much in the past
few days, but 2 people have died so far and the fire has consumed a couple
hundred homes. Several of our
guides live in Colorado Springs, so watching this fire consume their hometown
has been pretty tough on them.
Prayers for the firefighters, homeowners, and everyone else involved in
the fire are appreciated.
Journey Quest will start to have its first multi-day trips in just one
short week! Pray that we are
prepared spiritually, emotionally and physically for those.
I think that’s all I have to say for now. Hope you enjoy my ramblings! Have a great day!
