As the crow flies

"As the crow flies" is the worse thing for any hiker to hear when they are hot, tired, thirsty, and yearning to see the car appear in front of her.

Seriously, I'm hiking along and then I want to know how much further to some point or other along the trail so I call to my Uncle--minus the falling trees but that's another story-- "Hey, Uncle, how much further?"

To which he glances at the GPS and says, "Half a mile away. . . .as the crow flies."

Gah! It's torture! For those of you who do not understand this jargon, "as the crow flies" is basically a beeline to the endpoint, but because there are lovely obstacles called canyon walls, a hiker needs a pair of wings to make that beeline that is only a half mile.

So, yeah, that's a hateful statement. It basically means that you'll be hiking double, maybe even quadruple, the distance indicated on the GPS. The things I put myself through.

So yeah, went hiking this weekend. Yeah, I'm pleasantly sore, and sporting a blister on my heel. We did two hikes, one was six and a half miles (not as the crow flies) and the second one was a 15-mile loop. The first one, Tillman Wash, was pretty fun with cool pools and alcoves to scramble around. We also hiked out to the edge of the reef, and my uncle, papa bear, and a friend of my uncle's decided to play the role of boy scouts and began pushing rocks over the side of the cliff. And we're not talking about little or medium-sized rocks, these were basically small boulders. It was cool though. I could actually feel the cliff shudder when these hobbit boulders hit the bottom of the cliff. Which was about a five second count, by the way.

The second hike, the 15-miler, consisted of two canyons: Crack and Chute Canyon. Crack Canyon was fun, but the hike over the San Rafael Reef and through Chute was not. It was long, sandy, and very hot. Crack Canyon had a bunch of obstacles and one place where you had to rappel, and it was much more fun. All in all, we (Dad, Uncy Luap, Bee, Katie Sue, and me) decided that Crack Canyon is fun to do, just go down it and then back up. And Chute Canyon is good for taking kids on it just to hike through a canyon. Chute Canyon has no obstacles or anything.

So, yeah, there's my report. I'll see if I can get a hold of some pictures we took from Dad and I'll post those later. Those canyons were very pretty. Nature is so pretty. . .and hiking is AWESOMELY FUN!!!

Anywho, Francis, go find an Easter egg. I'm sure you'll find one somewhere that the kiddies haven't found yet. . . .