So, picture this in your head: First picture warm St. George hiking in Zion's. Then picture a slot canyon in a place called Orderville. This hike is pretty strenuous so picture lots of rocks and logs to climb over. Then picture a few water puddles to walk through and then they get big enough that you have to swim through it to get to the other side. As you continue along you have to climb up to the top to be able to get the the spot where you repel down 15 ft to continue on your journey. Keep in mind that this is an 11 mile hike so there are a lot of these obstacles to overcome. Do you have that picture in your mind? Good. Now forget about it because that was only our plan to do that. What we actually did was sleep over night in a windy, cold place called Fillmore. Yup! That's as far as we got.
I got a text from a friend asking me to go to Zion's with some peeps. So I said sure why not. As I'm packing he sends me a rough packing list: hiking shoes that can get really wet, pants/shorts that dry quickly, warm top in a garbage back to keep warm, extra clothes and socks. All the while i'm thinking...what are we hiking through?? So off we go. When we are on the freeway leaving provo they finally tell me their exact plans. I'm sitting there thinking to myself what in the world did i get myself into. These guys do this all the time. The only time i've ever repelled was at Camp Williams, with professionals! So we go and i'm trying to convince myself that I can do this and not to chicken out and ruin it for everyone else. Well the car was acting a bit funny on the way down as we tried to climb hills, but we didn't think anything of it. We stop at the first exit in Fillmore to get some dinner. As we leave they switch drivers and continue on the freeway. The girl can't get the car to go any faster then 55, she mentions that it's hard to get this car to go. The moment they tell her not to push it too hard we hear a loud sound like a siren and then lots of air coming from somewhere. We can't tell where it's coming from and it was only happening when she pressed on the gas. So luckily Fillmore has two exits! We get off the second one and pull into a gas station to try and figure out what was wrong. We couldn't figure it out and even a guy tried to help us and he didn't know exactly what was wrong. So we decided to find somewhere to pitch our tent to sleep and then try to figure something out in the morning. So with not knowing what was wrong with the car we begin driving to find a dirt road up the mountain. We went up a ways till we finally ran into Fish Lake National Forest where we could easily find somewhere to camp and not get in trouble.
We found a little place off the dirt road and pitched our tent and went to sleep. Yet for me there wasn't a whole lot of sleeping. Trying to move around to find a comfortable spot on the rocks, ignoring the loud breathing, snoring, sleep talking and the crazy wind was almost impossible. I was in for a LONG night! I finally had to get out of the tent to tie down the rain fly (wrapping it around the poles) so it wouldn't blow away. Then get back in and try to fall asleep all over again. Let's just say that I probably got a total of 2 hours of sleep.
Once everyone woke up we had breakfast and packed it all up and headed home. We had to keep the windows partially down because the car was starting to smell and we thought it might carbon monoxide. We didn't want to get sick or anything. The whole time they talked about philosophy stuff (which is way over my head). I kept thinking why in the world did i come? I have nothing in common with these people and they are way to smart for me. I just sat and listened. Not once saying anything or offering my opinion. I don't think of things like that. I guess i'm just to simple minded or something.
They were all really bummed out that we didn't make it to Zion's, but I thought it was a blessing in disguise for me. I don't think it would have been very good for me to go, not knowing how to repel or climb. Being sick (I've had a sinus infection all week) in the cold water would just make me worse. I feel that something would have gone wrong if we would have made it down there. I'm very blessed that Heavenly Father was watching over me and made sure that we didn't continue down south. It sure would have been cool do to something i've never done before, but not so cool if something would have happened. Things like this always remind me to not forget the little things He does for us.
