Elena comes to town

A dear friend from North Carolina came to visit this off shift. Elena and I went to graduate school together and then worked at the same organization in NC afterwards. This week we had a marvelous time showing our girl power climbing in Red Rocks and Zion, shopping, painting nails, swimming, and filling our tummies with burgers and ice cream.



The black corridor in Red Rocks


Elena led for the first time this trip. She rocked two 8s and a 9!


A cute little lizard sunning on the rock with us.


We celebrated Elena's birthday swimming at Sand Hallow, climbing in Zion, and eating burgers and carrot cake at Oscars in Springdale. A perfect day.




Elena tried to save her new camera as it fell off the rock.


The top of Ashtar Command in Zion


Emily, Elena's friend from college who works as a child psychiatrist in Salt Lake, graced us with her presence. She's a real gem.

Shift 8

Now that I have adjusted to the combo of girls and adolescence, I have to say, the adolescent grils are growing on me. There is a great deal of high pitched whining, manipulation, and over the top drama, but thankfully over the past three shifts I have developed some coping skills to prevent their antics from getting the best of me (at least some of the time). Also, these teen girls can be quite fun and loving. Their stories break your heart and compel empathy, and they like to sing the Sound of Music (something I haven’t yet found in the boys groups).

Over my last two shifts I realized how intense, fun, and extremely serious this job is. As staff we are the students’ legal guardians and their safety is our responsibility. With students who are, or potentially are, suicidal, it is our responsibility to protect them from themselves appropriately. The liability feels overwhelming at times.

Something fun from the week: Monday evening was the beginning of Passover. We have three girls in the group who are Jewish, so we celebrated by eating matzos and parsley and drinking grape juice, while our three Jewish girls acted out the story of Moses, Pharaoh, and the sea parting. I loved it.


Desert flowers are blooming all over now.


I meant to capture the waterfalls, but you can barely see them.


The staff team I worked with this week. We had a lot of fun.

Shift 7 and NC friends

It was another week with adolescent gals. This past shift I felt a greater comfort and ease working with and relating to these girls. After the shift, I drove straight to Vegas to meet some good friends from NC. We sport climbed in Red Rocks, had the epic of our lives on a multipitch trad climb, and wandered around Zion in the snow.




A snowy Angels Landing













On top of the third pitch of Cat in the Hat it started hailing/raining/snowing. A rope got stuck, we were soaked to the core, and waterfalls were all around us. We all shivered so violently that our muscles were cramped and sore. Survival mode is an amazing/crazy thing. Once at the car we stripped to our undies and then drove straight to McDonalds for french fries and hot chocolate.

Shift 6 and a birthday bash

After five shifts with “adult boys”, I spent my sixth shift with eight adolescent girls. Needless to say it was different and probably my most challenging week thus far. I saw more tears in the first 2 hours than I have in the five previous shifts. It was an emotion fest and many of these girls were master manipulators! While I have worked with adolescent girls in tough situations from the inner city of DC to a detention center in AL, this was different. That said, good things happened this week, and I learned and grew.

In the front country, I headed to Red Rocks for a birthday bash. Two friends from St George and some of their friends from Flagstaff share a late March birthday. They have a tradition of celebrating in Red Rocks. So, we had worlds colliding as friends and friends of friends come together for climbing, bluegrass around a camp fire, and even a little bit of March madness.


This is Chuckwalla, our "climbing gym". With daylight savings time, we were able to get in a session this past Tuesday as we came out of the field.


Wednesday morning breakfast. On the right in the picture below are Gillian and Dafnah, my two best non-climbing friends. They keep me balanced.



The wind was so bad, we didn't last too long. I convinced the others to sit with me while I watched the UNC v Marquette basketball game. There is a tendency for outdoorsy folks to have little to no interest in traditional sports. I am working hard to enlighten this population!



Ginger Cracks, 5.9, 7 pitches. We only made it to the third due to the cold. Considering that it was snowing when we started and the others only made it half way up their first pitch, I don't feel too badly about bailing.



We finally got some nice weather on Sunday and did some party climbing.



The birthday bash group photo (minus Paul and Zach).

San Diego

I spent this off shift climbing around the St. George area and on a road trip to San Diego. I traveled with two of my best climbing buds, Anthony and Dave. We packed the trip full of food, friends, and recreation. We climbed, bouldered, played beach volleyball, rode a tandem bike on the boardwalk, visited friends and my newly engaged cousin, and enjoyed lots of deep belly laughter.



Jenny and I met in Costa Rica over five years ago. Upon our first conversation at a July 4th celebration in Costa Rica, we knew we were kindred spirits. We have stayed in touched, but haven’t seen each other since I left. She and her new husband treated us to a typical Tico meal.


Jumi is a friend we met climbing around St. George. She was a gracious and patient tour guide all weekend.


We bouldered at Santee boulders and roped up in Mission Gorge.



Anthony has technique.....and Dave(yes, he is climbing in cut off jeans), he's just got muscle. Just kidding Dave, you have a little skill too. And Anthony, you also have some muscle. Me, well, they tell me I look good ;)


A life long dream to ride a tandem finally completed.