Westwater

This past week I did a raft trip down Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River.  It was a three day adventure northeast of Moab, Utah.  My friend John Tully bought a 14 foot raft last year and has begun running rivers in the Western United States.  He invited me to go along and help him attempt his most ambitious float yet.  Westwater is a 17 mile stretch of the Colorado River and has some exciting whitewater rapids midway through the float that can be formidable. We spent the night on the river half way just before the rapids begin.  We had lousy weather and it rained hard during the night.  This did bump the river flow up for our run down the rapids.  We did have some periods of sun and so we still had a good time.  I took over the oars for some of the run.  I almost flipped the raft on the rapid named "Sock It To Me".  It was fun and challenging to raft a whitewater section of river with all of our gear lashed to the boat.  Usually I have hired river guides to take me down such stretches of river.  This past month I have started doing canyons in Zion and rock climbing around the area.  I even got Deb out on a multiple pitch climb at Red Rocks down by Vegas for my birthday.  Mountain biking and road biking often as well. I did my first 30 mile ride on my road bike just yesterday.   Lots of visits by Marty, Hailey & the twins.  Deb & I took Rebecca and Phil on his first backpacking trip up by the Vortex on a beautiful spring night and had some fun around the camp fire.  I did a trip to Joshua Tree with my climbing buddies.  This spring I have spent quite a few nights in a sleeping bag.  Nice!