Day 7: Saturday May 9 On The Road Again

Saturday May 9, 

The truck was ready, FINALLY at 9 am. We transferred all our gear from Beluga, into Twoluga, and hitched up the Manatee, said our goodbyes to Beluga, got the keys and headed out.

Yay, we are on the road again. Headed to Grand Canyon, via Flagstaff. We are stopping in Flagstaff to do an extreme outdoor course.

We left 75-80 degree weather in Goodyear Arizona, to arrive in Flagstaff where it is 39 degrees, and Snowing!! Yes I said snowing! We have our warm coats but can't for the life of us find any gloves and can't remember if we packed any. One big 5 stop later, we both have some gloves and warm toques (beenie type hats) Daryl assures me his hat is not a beenie style hat but a proper toque.

more snow

hard to tell, but that is snow. It is snowing in Flagstaff

The Extreme Outdoor Adventure coarse was as described, extreme and outdoors. It was super fun, and plenty hard at the end. They have 5 levels of increasing difficulty, green, blue, silver, red and finally black.

It is plenty fun and difficult up to and including the red level. You climb up into the trees with caribiners and zip line equipment and then proceed to cross many an air bridge made out of swinging logs, or hanging ropes, or cargo nets or even a skateboard.

 And lots and lots of zip lines :)

  

Black is really difficult and is a good place to stop. As in don't do it! Or take a break after Red and come back at it with renewed energy. We were tuckered out but determined to finish the course. Silly silly Foxes. We proceeded on after red and found out why it is so difficult. The beams became round logs instead of flat ones, that rolled slightly when you stepped on them. The bridge would alternate left to right so that you had to plan ahead to switch from one log, or rope to the next. Otherwise you would end up on the wrong side of the safety line, all tangled up and have to go backwards to untangle yourself. Ask me how I know that! We don't have many pictures from this section. We were too tired to pull the camera out. The two photos we do have are from when Daryl was taking a break hanging from his harness on the last cargo net looking back at me doing the monkey bars and rings. 

Realize that this whole entire course is using so much upper body. Your arms are constantly above your head either holding onto your safety line, or grabbing the next whatever you have to work with. Shoulders, arms, hands wrists, they all start talking to you about how this wasn't in the contract. Not to mention the day we picked happens to be 39 degrees out and our hands are freezing and stiffening up.

But hey, if you are going to be snowed on, you might as well be snowed on 40 feet up in a tree right!

I'm upside down shimmying with my hands and feet
on the safety line, not pretty, but effective

There was one section that looked like monkey bars only they were not stationary, oh no, that would be too easy. They were like little swings, and yes you were supposed to grab one, swing out, grab the next one and alternate yourself across them. Are you kidding me! My arms looked at that and flat out refused. I talked them into to staying with me by bringing in my legs as reinforcement. Daryl and I both opted for shimming ourselves across by hanging onto the safety line, throwing our legs up onto the safety line, and crawling hand over hand across the span giving nasty dirty looks at each 'swing' as we went by.

I should mention that there are ground guides below at all times, and at any time if you decide you can't go on, Or if you slip off and cant' get back up onto the course or the safety line, they will climb up and lower you on a rope back down to the ground. They tell you, like on this section, if you can't grab the swings, you have to somehow stay on the safety line and get yourself across. If you slip off, the harness will hold you up on the safety line, but too far below it to get back on it. So they would have to come rescue you, rescue means you are done with the course.

here is the only picture we have of the rings section.
Daryl was nice and didn't take a picture of me all
twisted up in the rings, sitting down
in my harness with both legs behind me, each hooked
into a separate ring at the front of my ankles, one
on each side of the safety line. I told him later it would
have been okay, I could have always deleted it. Haha
What a pickle I was in. 

They had a hanging ring section. Picture the rings event in the Olympics. Like those, only spaced across far enough apart that you had to swing from one to the next and you would step in them, not hang from them. That meant that you had to balance yourself on one foot, let go of the back ring, swing to the front ring, catch it, and while suspended on one foot, and holding on for dear life with one hand, use the other hand to finagle this swinging ring into position for your dangling foot to step on. And if you managed to be turned around, as I was for over half that section, you would have to go back and do that part again, or if you are stubborn like me (and I don't recommend this version) You grab the next ring, even though you are on the wrong side of the safety line, you swing the ring around to the side you are on, and you maneuver your feet into position, once you let your standing foot go you whip around unwinding all that mess while balanced on one foot. Yeah, that was smart! Daryl on the other hand, doesn't want to brag, but points out he managed to get through this section in a straight shot, even going so far as to send back encouraging words to me that this section wasn't so bad. I attribute it to his delusional state brought on by exhaustion, lack of water, and being so loving and supportive. That's for the encouraging words, the fact that he breezed through it I attribute to his height and added leg span.

We left the course at 5:30 (3 hours and 15 minutes after starting), triumphant in our accomplishment, black wrist band in hand, and absolutely exhausted!! And we still needed to drive to Grand Canyon for the night. Oh Daryl you are my super hero.Thanks so much for driving!

Manatee from the trees at the end of the course

Luckily it was only another hour and half to our campground. We took some time getting ourselves back together, changing clothes (man did we sweat through that course) warming up, Oh hey, the new truck has butt warmers!!! heh

After arriving at our RV camp in the dark, We set up camp, heated up some food, drank lots and lots of water, and cranked up the heater in the R-Pod. Outside temp was 35, and we were snug and warm inside, and out like a light by 10:30 pm. Oh yeah, we took some ibruprofen before going to bed. Heh.