Coyote Gulch

Hello! I have just gotten back into civilization from living Bear Grylls style! yay! I went down to Coyote Gulch backpacking. It was amazingly gorgeous there and filled with animals. I saw 10 frogs (and touched one of them) 17 lizards, 7 tadpoles, 2 snakes, 3 stink bugs, a gagilion spiders, 3 crows, evidence of a rat, and we almost ran over 16 jackrabbits.

the first night we stayed in a really cool cave like thing and left our stuff out in the open. how silly of us. in the morning we couldn't find our lighter and finally found it 5 feet away under a rock with bite marks on it. also our m&m bag was ripped open. we figured the little rats were waiting till we fell asleep and split up, wanting roasted m&ms that night or something.

on the way down the canyon we had to squeeze through two rocks (pictured above) when i stood profile the heels and toes of my feet touched each side of the canyon. i don't know how my dad fit through. had gone on a head and turned back around to see how he would fit. I was running(what I could do when the ground is a pile of rocks) when I heard a hissing noise. I looked down and, right where I was about to put my foot, a gigantic snake was uncurling and hissing at me. I screamed and ran.

a couple of days before we got to the canyon there had been a flash flood that had killed 2 people. This was good because there was virtually nobody there. I think they were scared off. this was bad because if there was any trail at all it was washed away. we just followed the river. Also, my dad was relying on the river for water, and because of the flood the river was way to muddy for my dad's filter to handle. we found this little waterfall (above) of clean water coming in and pulled a Bear Grylls. I got to stand under the waterfall with a pan against the wall and wait for water to trickle in. I got soaked and we got water. I also slipped on the stupid slippery rock and cut my leg. not fun.

after walking against the muddy banks, where every step you took you were sinking ankle deep (and once knee deep) in mud, we finally got to the exit of the canyon. one problem, the exit was a 45 degree angled rock and we had to pull our packs up after us. my dad didn't bring a rope long enough and I was stuck half way up the rock. It was basically like rock climbing without any rope. the only hand and foot holds were miniscule and you had to keep going or you would slip. it scared the crap out of me until I got to a ridge and stayed there. I was starting to think it would be nice to sleep there because there would be no way I could get up or down, when these two really cool guys, who had passed us by, came back and asked us for help. one was british and reminded me of the actor who playes James in Twilight. they whipped out this gigantic 100 ft long rope and tied it to a rock then the scrambled down the rock (one was barefoot!) and grabbed our packs and scrambled just as fast up the rock. they were crazy! then they climbed back down to help "mum" and "sis" and "brother" up the hill. we grabbed the rope and climbed up. I swear they were like animals. my mom even told them that and they just grinned at her.

we barely got back to the road and our car before the sun went down. My dad told us it would be around a 7 mile hike, but it ended up being a 13 mile hike. I loved every minute of it. :D