Twin Cracks!!

On the way to canyonlands, you go through Indian Creek where there are huge cliffs which always have many climbers that look like little specks hundreds of feet up. I always considered these people extremists and quite crazy, so never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be at the base of one of these cliffs threatening to climb it. My crazy sister, whits, started all this. She has been way into climbing lately and is awesome at it for the short amount of time she's been doing it. She was down a couple weekends ago and told me I had to come try it.

Here we are all geared up, trying to look the part. whits pulls it off with style, I however, am quite awkward. She taped my hands all up and told me it was so my hands wouldn't take the brunt of the damage about to be inflicted. Supposedely crack climbing is one of the most painful types. Oh yea!

Lily and Marah had quite the climb to reach the base of the cliffs, but they were good little troopers.

Yep, that's whits way up there not even half way to the top. I was speechless. This was the first time I had ever seen her climb and I was beyond impressed. She only had that one little crack to hold on to all the way up. I have no idea how she did it, and watching her I began to wonder if I should even attempt the easier climb they had set up for me. I was pretty sure I couldn't do it.

No backing out now. This is her friend giving me some last minute pointers. He is showing me how to jam my hand into the crack and wedge it down so I can pull myself up to the next hold. Yeah right!

It wasn't so bad and I was actually getting somewhere!

I made it!!! I'm petrified of heights in my older age and I made it. It was truly awesome. Usually I'm so scared to climb because I'm constantly visualizing my death but this was so different. I wasn't scared at all because I was tied in. I couldn't fall and it was so amazing to just see what I could do without worrying about falling. I definitely see how this is so addicting and would love to do it again with her sometime. I felt like the little sis trying to be like my cool big sis. Thank you so much Whitney for making me try that and actually believing that I could do something like that. It was awesome hearing you cheer me on. Thanks and love ya! Whitney told me it was 5-7 before I left but then called me later and said that they all climbed it and realized it wasn't as easy as they had thought. They looked it up and the climb was called 'twin cracks' and was actually a 5-9. That means nothing to me but she said a 5-9 was fairly advanced. It was just an overall awesome experience. I love being a mom but sometimes one day just blends into another so doing something like this really was a huge thrill in my simple mommy life.

GRRRRRRR!!!

I had to work that night and I was late so we were all running down the trail back to the cars. Marah was doing her best running down the trail but I had plenty of time to catch a few pictures.