Whitewater Rafting

YEAH! Whitewater rafting today, woo hoo!! Headed out out to the US National White Water Center (www.usnwc.org) Located on the banks of the Catawba River in Charlotte, N.C. The U.S. National Whitewater Center is the world's largest artificial whitewater river and an official U.S. Olympic Training Site. The USNWC is a locally owned and operated non-profit dedicated to promoting healthy, active, outdoor lifestyles. Opened in August 2006 at a cost of $38 million, the 307-acre public adventure-sport facility includes whitewater rafting and kayaking, mountain biking and hiking trails, a climbing center, a ropes course and soon, an 1100 foot zip line over the water.
It was a perfect day to be outdoors, a bit overcast with the sun peaking out every once in a while so it wasn't that hot. The water temp was actually refreshing. I dragged my mom out b/c my boo had to go into work to finish up a project. We arrived, went through a quick 30 min. safety orientation, picked up our gear (helmet, PFD, and paddle), and headed out to the boat to meet our guide, James. Then, we proceeded to spend 2 hours of non-stop class II-IV whitewater river, surfing waves that challenged our skills on the tight turns of the channels. After a run down, you ride a conveyer belt back to the upper section to take on another channel. It was pretty cool and James was an alright guide. I asked him a ton of questions about the kayak instruction, how he liked his job, and about becoming a rafting guide. Don't worry, I'm not quitting my day job, but one of the perks of becoming a certified rafting guide is they get free water time on the river and if I want to get more into whitewater kayaking, this would a definite plus. He gave me some info on the whitewater guide training classes and I'm going to check the website for the status of the next class. Anyways, about the trip. I am always so surprised at what a tough bird my mom can be. I thought for sure she was going to fall out the boat or slow us down. But she was right in the middle of the action, paddling her butt off, and whooping and hollering with the rest of us. Well, we only had one casualty (person who fell out) in our boat and it was neither me nor my mom. Oh, and I did get clobbered by a wall of water, which caused my achey ear to become water logged, but no worries, I came home, took my meds and ear drops and am on the road to recovery. Til my next adventure. GET OUTDOORS!!!

Geocaching

Today I decided to take it easy plan a couple of fun geocaches with my mom, my dogs, my boo, and the little kid my mom babysits. For those of you who don't know what Geocaching is, Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers called "geocaches" or "caches" anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets. Its a great way to get kids outdoors and hiking! We found a 3 mile loop that had two caches on it. The first cache was about 2 miles in and was pretty easy to find. In fact, the rug rat we were with was the first one to find it. He was so excited, to the left is a picture of him opening the ammo box to see what kind of treasure he found. We signed the guest log, picked up a light-flashing pen, and left a rubber stamp and a Travel Bug that we had originally picked up when we were in the mountains. A Travel Bug is a trackable item that moves from place to place, picking up stories along the way. The second cache took us around 20 minutes to find. It was hidden so well, but I finally found it. This treasure chest had a ton of little toys in it. We signed the guest log, picked up a mini-gorilla figurine and left a squeaky toy and some golf tees.
Afterwards, we went back to my moms house and had a BBQ. By now you probably know that I love me some burgers, well, Moms hooked it up today!! She made these HUGE, thick cheeseburgers that were SO good. She also made BBQ chicken, shrimp, and baked potatos. Man did we feast. After lunch we played ball with the dogs and made some "art"with some play-dough before we headed back home. It was a nice, easygoing day, spent enjoying the outdoors with my loved ones.

What happens.....

....when you're injured and have a few hours to kill? GHETTO SCRABBLE thats what!! hahaha... Hope it doesn't offend anyone, but its a simple scrabble game. You basically ebonically spell any word you have letters for. Makes for a quick and easy game. ....and Yes, sad to say I am injured once again. But not a muscle injury, (umm an ear isn't considered a muscle is it?) Anyways, after my extreme caving adventure trekking through streams and underground rivers... seems as if some of the river water decided to come home with me, via my ear canal. The doc says its "Otitis Media,"a fancy word for swimmers ear. So I'm on antibiotics and an ear drop regime for a week. Just to give you an idea of how much pain "Otitis" caused me. I never ever go to the doctors. In fact, I think the last time had to of been over 5 years ago. The pain was so unbearable, I couldn't even sleep! I totally understand how those little kids who always get ear aches and are screaming at the top of their little lungs while holding onto their little heads feel. Not fun. So do you think thats stopping me for doing something fun this weekend? NO! I have a cool weekend planned if all goes accordingly and only one outdoor adventure involves water. ;)
I read this cool phrase today on trailjournals.com. so I'll end with that.

"Until next time – Have a great day, and remember you are ALIVE!"

Spelunking!!

Talk about an extreme adventure. I went spelunking (extreme caving) this past weekend and it was a blast! A group of us drove up to Blountsville TN to the Appalachian Caverns outfitter for the "wild trip" cave tour. Which for those more adventurous, is a tour through the undeveloped parts of the cave. It's a 4 hour tour that gives you the feeling of what wild caving is all about. Not the pretty elaborate lighting system with dry walkways over underground rivers that allow you to walk leisurely along and enjoy the awe inspiring cave formations. No, this tour was all extreme. In fact, those dry walkways, well, we walked UNDER them, and to get from room to room, lets just say we crawled through some pretty tight places (caves). The tour started outdoors in what literally looked like a hole in the ground. When our guide Wes showed us what we would be going through, I shook my head and thought, "what the hell am I getting myself into." Well, we climbed down the hole and entered a small room about 3 feet tall and began crawling into our 4 hour tour. We walked through mud (I'm telling myself it was mud and not bat guano), we slide down wet, uneven rocks/boulders into streams, we forged murky underground rivers that were waist deep and icy cold, and we pushed, squirmed, and squeezed through tiny openings that I didn't think were possible. Now I have never been a claustraphobic person, but you get me into an 8 inch tall cave that's about 12 feet long and pitch black dark and I start to panic. At one point I started hyperventilating and I had to remember what Wes told us. When we get stuck in a spot and feel panicked; relax, take deep breathes, and exhale all the air out of our lungs to make my body a bit smaller. I can remember one cave in particular, I'm crouching on all fours, and belly crawling down jagged rocks, while trying to avoid a stream that's rolling along down my path for about 15 minutes, and all I can say is thank goodness for knee pads! Well, we finally get to the end of the cave. I look around with my poor excuse for a head lamp. Seriously, this head lamp was so weak, I could barely see where to place my hands in front of me, which is pretty scary when there's lots of slippery wet rocks everywhere. Anyways, we get to what I think is the end of the cave and see the stream disappearing underneath the cave wall. All of us look at Wes, waiting for him to tell us to turn around and climb back out. But he looks at me and says, "we are going through there" (pointing at the stream thats flowing underneath the wall.) I was like, "your kidding right". Then I see him climb INTO the 5 inch tall stream, get down on his belly IN the icy water, and disappear underneath the cave wall! I had let the others go through while I took a moment to process what I was about to do. Squeeze underneath an 8 inch hole, IN a freezing stream, 300 feet below the earth, in a 50 degree cave. WOW, the lengths I go to for a thrill. hahaha! I finally get my nerve, throw my filthy muddy self into the icy stream and wiggle my way under the 8 inch tall hole. After everyone makes it into the room, Wes tells us he has never gotten an entire group into this cave room. We all high five one another and laugh at what we just did. Wes then gets this silly grin on his face and announces that now we have to go BACK through the same cave hole to continue our tour. I'm like WHAT!! (with a few expletives thrown in.) I barely made it through the first time! The only way I mentally wrapped my mind around going into the freezing stream on my stomach again, was knowing that I had already done it once. This adventure was both physically and mentally challenging, but like I said, I did things I didn't think were possible. I came, I caved, and I survived. Would I do it again? hmmmmm..., the verdict is still out. :)

Camping Adventure II

We woke up on Sunday and decided to hike a couple of trails off the parkway and my boo, being the "bridge building nerd" that he is, wanted to see the Linn Cove Viaduct. Which is a 1243-foot concrete segmental bridge which snakes around the slopes of Grandfather Mountain. It was completed in 1983 at a cost of $10 million. The Viaduct was needed because of the damage that a traditional cut-and-fill road would have caused to Grandfather Mountain. We took the .16 mile hike to see the suspended bridge from below and then spent 15 minutes looking around in the little museum. Boo had to buy a souvenir too. A pin, picturing the viaduct that he sticks on his day pack. He's actually become quite the collector of these pins. I think he has one for almost every mountain we've hiked.
Afterwards, we drove down a few mileposts and took the Beacon Heights side trail that the ranger at the Viaduct promised had some outstanding views if we took the time to hike both north/south sections of the trail. The trail was only .25 miles up so no biggie. Well, we hopped on the trail and at the first "Y" split we turned right. After about 1/2 mile we came to a road, I was like, "this ain't right", we should of seen a view or at least gone UP some. We decided to cross the road and continue on the trail for about .25 miles. A trail marker told us we were on the Tanawha trail. Oops, wrong trail. We hike back to the "Y" split and headed the other way. Well, we get to another "Y" split and decide to go to the right. After 1/2 a mile of really lose rocky terrain all going down hill, I'm thinking,"this ain't right." We turn around and head back to the second "Y" split, and go up the other way. Its up hill and at the top, guess what? ANOTHER fork in the trail So the .25 mile hike ended up being a bit over 2 miles after getting lost a couple of times. hahaha! But the view was so worth it. We did explore both sections of the trail and got great northern views and southern views of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We spent a few minutes on top of the mountains just enjoying the views and relaxing in the sun. The weather was perfect, the company was perfect, and it was a perfect end to our camping adventure. I love coming up here and I can't wait to come back. Oh, by the way, the Tanawha trail is a 13 mile trail that takes us right back to Julian Price Park. What an excellent "accidental" trail we found. We are totally going to backpack this trial soon! Til my next adventure! See Ya!

Camping Adventure

We decided on Wednesday, that we wanted to take the dogs to the mountains for some hiking and camping. So the first thing I did was call Julian Price park to see if they had ANY tent sites available. They said it was first come first serve only, but to contact www.recreation.gov to see if they had any availability and I could reserve directly with them. Wow, they were so easy to use and the best part, I got a great site on the lake waterfront! If you have dogs that swim, you know how important it is to get a site right on the lake. They were in heaven.
We loaded up the car with the dogs, kielbasa, enough water to fill the lake with, and our Tajmah-Tent (called that b/c it's big enough to stand in and so much roomier than our lighter, smaller 2-person backpacking tent.) We finally hit the road at 8:30am and we are cruising along up into the mountains. Check in was smooth. We pick up our permit, trail map, and parking pass and find our way our "home". We are so excited to just be there, that as soon as we parked the car, we threw on our hiking boots, and took off on the trail without even setting up camp! The dogs were full of energy and were tugging me up the trail. It was a perfect day for the 5.5 mile hike on the Boones Fork Trail. It started out with a gradual ascent into an open meadow where tons and tons of blackberry bushes were dripping with fruit. We saw some people a distance away picking berries. The trail then gradually sloped back into the rhododendron forest that still had a few left over blooms still hanging on. I bet it looked amazing in June, when the rhododendron are in full bloom. Then the trail became rocky and really rooty, but it was shaded and had several creeks we had to rock hop or forge thru. The dogs loved the creeks and stopped at each one to camel up and lay in the cool water. After a couple of rock scrambles down hill we get to a six foot ladder that we had to climb DOWN! I had no idea how the dogs were going to do it. My boo suggested he go first then I can pass the dogs down to him. Does he realize that "thing one" weighs 95 lbs?!?! As soon as he went down the ladder, "thing 1", whom we think has a slight separation anxiety issue, hops down the ladder, rung by rung like he climbs down ladders for a living! My jaw drops at what I just witnessed, then to my amazement, my little dog follows suit like there's no problem. Wow, my dogs amaze me constantly. Just when I think they are these little helpless creatures that need me to keep them safe, well fed, and unharmed, they surprise me. In retrospect, I wish I would of taken a picture of that, but there was no way I was subjecting my nerves to that again. After another mile, we take a break along side the creek to boulder hop and let dogs swim for a while. The next mile was along the creek and in an open grassy area. The last 2 miles were PUDS back into the rhododendron forest and back to our tent site along the lake. We had all intentions of setting up camp, having a quick lunch, then hiking the 3 mile loop trail around the lake. But after setting up the tent it started to thunder. We tied up the tarp and climbed inside our tent to wait out the storm and just crashed for a good 3 hours. By the time we woke up, the storm had passed, and the sun was about to set and I remembered we didn't have a flashlight. Boo got the camp fire started and we grilled up the kielbasa for dinner and called it a night. Very enjoyable day.