Haboobs Rolling into Phoenix

Here is a short time laps of some recent Haboobs (Dust Storms) rolling into Phoenix. (shot from Pecos Park, over the Gila Indian Res).

Animas River (Durango, CO) Day 3

Oh my, another most excellent day on the river. Except I kinda ate it and swam on the wave below smelter. Here is a video of the day:

Pagosa Springs Float (San Juan River, ColoRADo)

Oh this was a dreamy good time on the San Juan. The float started off with a trip through town of Pagosa Springs, but quickly lead us into some amazing Colo-RAD-ohhhhhh backcountry. Be sure to check out my previous post from the day before Animas River (Durango, CO). Here is the vid of the day:

Animas River Days (day 1)

Oh, it was a long drive to Durango, CO (like 9 hours - 470 sum miles), but it was pretty schweet! I left my place at 4:15 am and pick up Smoothanne in P.V. and then on to pick up Xtine in Anthem, and then on to Flagstaff to meetup with Lin-Dah and then the big push thru Tuba City, AZ, and Keyanta, AZ and Four Corners and then Cortez, CO and we ended up in the Lightner Creek Campgroundcampground was pretty kewl. It was 5 minutes or less from downtown Durango, it had a nice ramada for our group camp, showers and swimming pool. Weary from the drive, I was still stoked beyond belief to float with my peeps and to get my first class III rapid (Smelter Rapid) on the Animas River under my belt. We put in on the Animas here, it was crowded, but what do you expect, it was Animas River Days. And we floated 7 miles down river to the Home Depot. The flow was only about 1,000 cfs, it was still wicked fun. And Smelter did not disappoint. I am sure it is more terrifying when the flow is about 4k, but today the class III drops were no biggy. I think we pulled off the river around 6:00, and followed that up with a most excellent beer and meal at Carver's Brewery. Here is a video of Day 1:

And more Horses of the Lower Salt...

Here is a short video of the horses found on the Lower Salt River:

Watson Lake Paddle

The Desert Mountain Paddlers planned a paddle for Watson Lake, so I finally got a chance to get on up there. It was actually a really scenic lake for as dinky as it is. I doubt I'd every head up there to paddle it again, unless I had something else going on. Actually I just so happen to have something else going on in Preskitt so I was a great trip. After the paddle and grub with some of the utter paddlers, I headed over to White Spar camground to camp with some of my friends up doing some mountain biking. The next morning, I got up and we did a most excellent group ride up Trail 4915 and Trail 396. Way fun stuff. Anycow, here is a video of the paddle:

Salome Jug

This is a most excellent place, but a very dangerous place. As our group was rappelling down the waterfall, two grossly unprepared young adults decided to try to down climb to the cliff jump and one them feel. He was seriously injured. His list of injuries included two broken wrists, dislocated elbow, dislocated shoulder, two broken kneecaps, broken nose, lots of bruising, but no major head trauma.