Royal Arch!

This weekend we finally had some nice weather. With promises of temperatures in the 70's, blue skies and little wind, an adventure to the mountains was in order. But where to hike, we wondered. Easy, the best hike in chatauqua, Royal Arch!

"I should warn you, there will probably be ice." One of our stalwart hikers, Keagan warned. 

uh... Did I hear you correctly? Ice? Me? Yipes!

And off we continued. 4 of us. Allison, Dan Keagan and myself. We were ready. ... sorta. 

We met at the ever early hour of 0800 and drove to the trail head. Up and up we went. We climbed and climbed. And then, there it was. The ice. A lots of it. We slipped and slid and scurried up the mountain, clinging desperately to rocks, trees and roots to shimmy our ways to the Arch. 

And the mountain was winning. 

At one particularly terrifying portion, the trail seemed vertical with no visible footing and sheer ice. About 20 yards below, the boys had stopped at a cave to explore and talk about... caves? I'm not sure. To enjoy some man-moments. Allison and I decided to continue and let them catch up. Ha. 

Allison, who is much more sure footed, much less clumsy, opted to be the leader. And I would follow. 

"Dibe, there are NO foot holds. There's no footing at all!" She warned as she clung to the rock beside us. 

"We got this..." I gasped, praying I wouldn't fall and slide to my death. I took another step and my left foot slid. I reached to grab something. I grabbed ice. Basically useless. I went down. Hard. With about 40 feet we had already ascended, I knew I was in for a ride. Particularly because if I continued in the trajectory my body was hurtling, I would go right off the side of the trail, and down the side of the mountain. 

A shriek, comparable to that of a banshee, erupted from my mouth and I flipped myself over onto my back. I dug my left heel into the snow, slowing my left side down and shoved with my right hand to straighten my fall. Success! 

Oh... crap... right into the path of rocks. Rocks barely covered by ice and snow. This was going to hurt. I tried to relax, (think, floppy fish) as I hit the first rock. When I bounced, hard, I switched tactics. protect the head! The bounce did it, I slowed considerably until I was at the bottom of this rocky ice slide. 

"Dibe!" Allison shouted from her precarious perch halfway up this slide. "Say something. Let me know you're not dead!"

I lay there mentally assessing my injuries. Head? uninjured. Neck? just fine. Back? May end up peeing blood, but spine alright. knees? ow. Overall, alright! I looked up and saw the boys sprinting up and slowly sat up, wiping tears from my eyes. "I'm okay!" 

After a few moments of recollecting, off we continued again. Finally, we reached the top! Slowly, but we made it! 

 Keagan and the Arch

Boulder!

Goooorgeous

Dibe and Dan. Dan is giant, Dibe is not

pretty

As we rested, we chatted. We chatted with each other, we sat and just enjoyed the view. We chatted with some other hikers. One fella, sitting above us said:

"I don't mean to eavesdrop, but are you guys from the CU ward in Boulder?" He asked timidly. 

"We are indeed!" We replied

"That's awesome, I got married out of that ward in 2003" He told us. And we chatted. Finally, it was time to descend. Dan, the adventurer that he is, decided to scout out a new trail, one less icy. With promises to return, we sat and basked in the sun and the warmth. 30 minutes later, no Dan. 45 minutes later, several texts and phone calls. No Dan. 

"We better go after him" We decided, hoping not to find a broken Dan. So we went trail blazing. Down steep litter-layered earth. Surrounded by Cacti, possible poison ivy and who knows what else. Danger Will Robinson. Danger!! 

Finally, we made it. We climbed down this: 

 Icy rock wall. you can see my head at the very bottom. YIPES

We made it down to the Mesa trail and hiked back to Chautauqua, where we found Dan working on homework. Survival!!! 

Those boys sure earned man moments by getting us down the mountain (and up for that matter) without serious bodily harm!!!

In other news, this is what I got to deal with this shift, like my partner says: Welp... Can't fix stupid.

9 car accident

Honorary text of the blog today:

Him: We ran 9 calls all together... 1 dog food on fire... 

Me: dog food on fire?!

Him: Oven on... dog food next to oven... smoldering... When they made entry small dog with small dog complex came bolting out of the apartment building and latched on big dogs back leg and wouldn't let go... cop almost tased little dog... be like you latching on (in an angry kinda way) to Ryan's leg and poor big dog was sad and scared and like what the flip.

Nothing like bursting out in the kind of laughing that makes you cry on public transportation. I'm cool (read as, I'm full of shenanigans!) 

Next week on the ambulance is St. Patrick's day. We plan to be Irish all day, and having Corned Beef and Cabbage. Be ready City of Boulder. Ready or not, here we come!