This is going to be my first podcast.

I’m not sure I’ll do this all the time, but I thought I’d try it and see how people like it.

To tell you the truth I wasn’t totally comfortable with recording it, but sometimes we have to get out of our comfort zone.

This is about hiking in Zion National Park with my kids.

Hiking in Zion National Park with small children (mp3)

I took my camera but then kept leaving it in the car on accident. I really did mean to take a picture.

I met tons of people there, all of whom I’m going to not mention, for fear that I’ll leave someone out and then they’ll read this and be offended. Although…I guess that if someone is offended just because I didn’t mention them…blah blah blah.

Some really cool things that came out of the Big Seminar was that we came up with a final idea of what Dan and I are going to do with DSG. This is probably the thing I’m most excited about. I have people who have used it ask me about the “pro” version almost every day. I just tell them that it’s not available, mostly because I don’t want to deal with someone else using it and having to support them. It’s just too difficult. In a brainstorming session with some people there, we finally decided to keep the “pro” version of DSG totally in house, and just keep it to ourselves. It’s too valuable for us to let it out. We’re also going to hire a programmer full time to develop on it. If you know a php programmer, an experienced programmer who we’re going to pay VERY well, let me (or them) know.

It’s a “big seminar” for internet marketers. We’re going because some of our software is being sold at it. Should be an interesting experience.

I already know that Scott Boulch, a friend of mine from Dallas will be there. I’ve never met him so I’m excited to be able to. Also, I’ll get to meet Adam Short, another business partner of mine. Adam is an extremely talented writer and internet marketer. I haven’t met him either…so that will be good.

Jason Cox, another partner of ours in selling this software will be there too. He’s just really dang good at putting deals together with people. A good partner to have.

We’re pretty excited about the whole thing. Should be a good learning experience and a good networking event.

Two weeks ago I went to Havasupai in northern Arizona. The place is simply amazing. Pictures you see are not digitally enhanced. That’s really the color of the water and really how beautiful it is.

60 miles down a paved road outside of Peach Springs (which is 55 miles from Kingman, AZ), is a parking lot from which almost all outings to havasupai begin. From there it’s an 8 mile hike to the Havasupai Indian Villiage where about 450 members of the tribe live. From the villiage, it’s another 2 miles to the campsite where all tourists stay. We hiked the 10 miles with all our food/camping gear for 3 nights on our backs. Many people send their packs into the canyon on horses, which costs about $20 per pack. I think that most people also hike the 10 miles, but you do have the option of riding a horse ($75) or riding a helicopter ($85) to the villiage. The next time I do it, I’ll definitely pay to have a horse carry my pack in. I’ll probably still hike the 10 miles.

The canyon in which havasupai sits is simply amazing. It’s an offshute of the Grand Canyon and is probably the most beautiful canyon I’ve ever seen (I’ve been quite a few places in canyons).

The indian villiage is small. No roads or cars. Just horses and trails. There is a grocery store, restaurant, electricity, and running water. It’s a pretty cool little place.

After the villiage is where the amazing begins. The whole reservation is an oasis in the middle of the desert. Theres a spring of water that comes out of the ground a few miles above the villiage that brings a river of clean, blue water. It flows into 4 main large waterfalls, along with hundreds of small (1-8 feet) falls. You can see pictures at HavasuFalls.net or at Google.

The first waterfall (Navajo Falls) is like a 200 foot wide wall where there are bunches of thin falls interspersed with tons of green vines hanging down the wall. It reminded me of a drive I took in Costa Rica on the side of a mountain with hundreds of waterfalls along the way.

The second falls (Havasu falls), about a half mile from the second, and less than half mile above the campground, is a gigantic waterfall that falls into a beautiful pool of blue water. The water is cold to the touch, but perfect temperature when you jump in. The pool is great for swimming, as it flows into hundreds of smaller waterfalls over the next mile. We played in this for about 4 hours one day while we were there. We jumped off waterfalls, swam over them, swam through the currents that flowed between small falls on either side, and walked/swam down the river. The great part about playing in the river is that you can see everything because the water is clear. Also, nothing in the water is slippery. You can count on being able to put your foot down anywhere and it staying there, not slipping.

The third falls (Mooney falls) is bigger than the second and is only accessable by climbing down the side of the canyon next to the falls. You have to climb down through two caves and down some “steps” that have chains next to them for you to hold on to. This is somewhat of a scary climb, because the steps are wet because of the mist of the falls. Once again, at the bottom of the falls is a giant pool of blue water where you can swim. You can also swim to the left of the falls and climb along the rocks to get very close to the back of the falls. When you get there you can’t see anything because of the spray of the waterfall, but it’s fun nonetheless.

After the third falls you can hike about 3 1/2 miles to the fourth falls, Beaver Falls. The hike is well worth doing, as it is gorgeous. It’s pretty difficult to describe, but there is a mile stretch where the trail is about 2 feet wide at shoulder level because vines have grown up over the whole canyon floor. The vines grow up the walls of the canyon about 100 feet. It’s totally amazing to see nothing but green anywhere around you.

You cross the river a couple of times and have to climb up a rock that would be very difficult to scale if it weren’t for a rope that people have tied up at the top to help others get up. Right at the rock there is a random giant palm tree. It is really amazing how much of an oasis this place is.

While Beaver Falls itself isn’t as spectacular as Havasu and Mooney falls, it has some cool features. There is a huge pool of water that is fairly shallow at the bottom which you can swim in. There are plenty of small waterfalls to jump off of. About 50 yards down from Beaver there is a cliff about 60 feet high that you can jump off of (if you do, there’s not an easy way to get back up…but it can be done. Three of the people I went with jumped off the cliff. I did not. I’m too scared.

Apparently there is also an air pocket which you can get to somewhere in the falls. Somewhere near the top of the falls, if you jump down a few feet and then swim under the water a few feet you can come up underneath the rocks but inside a pocket of air. Apparently if you get there when the sun is shining on the water it’s pretty amazing. I did not see the pocket, but some people we met while we were there told us about it after we had already been down to those falls.

If you continue to hike about 2 1/2 miles past Beaver Falls you can get to the Colorado river. Along the trail there you come to a sign that says:

Leaving Grand Canyon National Park
Entering Havasupai Tribal Lands

Obviously the sign is facing the Grand Canyon side of the hike. We didn’t make it all the way to the Grand Canyon, but we did meet some people who were on their way up from the colorado river to Beaver Falls. They were on an 18 day river rafting trip. They jokingly asked us how much gas was now and when we told them it was $3/gallon they flipped out. They knew nothing about hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. They were on day 13 of their trip and the hurricane happened about 10 days into the trip. Obviously they’d had no contact with the outside world. That was pretty funny.

We went to the LDS church in the villiage on Sunday morning. That was a cool experience. There were about 6 people there from the reservation and about 20 people there who were camping. There were also 2 people there who had flown in on the helicopter just for church. Everyone was in shorts and sandals and was very dirty. The service itself was very touching and well worth going to.

There are also a few abandoned mines that you can explore. We only did one of them (which is about a quarter mile away from Havasu falls, up the side canyon), but it was amazing. The other cave (mine) we saw was on the side of the canyon. There’s a huge metal ladder that leads up to it, but to get to it you would need climbing equipment.

There are also a few side canyons you can explore that are really beautiful.

On the way out I sent my pack on a horse and hiked the 10 miles out without my pack on my back. Next time, I’ll fly out on the helicopter, as apparently most of the people do. Not only is it a 10 mile hike, but the last mile is about 1000 feet up and when we did it it was in the sun. Needless to say, it was very difficult.

Overall, it’s really an amazing place. While I haven’t been to Hawaii, I’ve been told by others who have been there that havasupai is better. I would say it’s better than what I saw in both Costa Rica and in Brazil. The canyon is almost as impressive as is Zion canyon in Zion National Park, and the hikes were all better than any hike I’ve done in Zion. You really need 3-4 days to fully appreciate the place.

Tim (my brother in law) has climbed it before and he wanted to do it again with Todd before Todd left on his mission.

Hopefully I’ll have a gps trail map of our hike so others can do it if they want to, however I doubt they will after I write what I’m about to write.

The climb was absolutely horrible. TERRIBLE. Outrageous. RIDICULOUS.

I would never do it again. Here’s why:

We started on the normal trail which at some point goes around the back of Baldy and comes up to the top. However, about 1 mile into the trail there is now a nice looking wooden sign that says “Mt. Baldy Trail. Summit 8557 ft.” So we took it.

It turns out that this “Mt. Baldy Trail” isn’t actually the real trail. It’s some idiot scouts idea of an eagle project. Instead of making a trail that makes sense, they made a trail that went straight up the side of the mountain. No switchbacks, no looking for an easier way to get there. They just went straight up the side of the mountain. The trail was so stupid in fact that about 1/4 of the way up, they basically just stopped making the trail. They stopped sawing down branches and bushes to make the trail walkable, they stopped tying pink ribbons onto the bushes to mark the trail, they stopped making rest areas. Basically, they just stopped.

Just to get an idea of how difficult the trail was, it took us 2 hours. It was 1.2 miles. It was 3,500 feet up. That’s right, 1.2 miles long, 3,500 feet up. That’s 6.66 inches up for every 12 inches over. That’s basically like climbing 3,500 stairs without being able to stop.

The trail was so difficult that as we neared the top I could tell I was starting to break down. I could tell my body was getting to the point where it can’t control itself anymore. I was getting delerious. If there had been a single spot where I could have possibly slept I would have given up and slept. The problem was there was never a spot that was even remotely close to being sleepable.

When we got to the top the view was spectacular, but it was already dark when we got there so we didn’t really get to see the sunset. I didn’t care.

Just to keep stuff interesting, we decided not to go down the way we had come. The trail had been that awful. We decided to try to find the real trail on the back side of the mountain. Well, we never found it. We ended up hiking back down the mountain through the brush and low hanging trees. We literally followed where there wasn’t a trail and had to duck below the trees and step on top of the waist high bushes to push them down so we could get through. While we all ended up with lots of scrapes and cuts from walking through the bushes and trees, I’m almost positive it was a better experience than it would have been had we walked back down the stupid trail we came up.

Stupid scout. We should revoke his eagle.

As soon as we got into yellowstone we saw a bald eagles nest that had at
least one adult ans quite a few baby eagles in it. It was pretty cool.

Then a few minutes later we saw some elk crossing a river right along the
side of the road. We stopped to get out and look and take pictures andall
of a sudden there was also a buffalo like 30 yards from us. we hadn’t seen
it initially or we probably wouldn’t have gotten out of the car considering
the “buffalos maul people” warning pamphlet we got when we entered the
park. As is though, nothing happened, and we had a close encounter with a
giant animal.

The one disappointment of the day was Old Faithful. They had predicted it
to erupt at 1:01 pm give or take 10 minutes. At 1:10 it started spouting
small amounts of water but just for a few seconds at a time. It would
promptly go back to just steaming for another few minutes.

It didn’t finally erupt like we expected until about 1:20 and then I think
it had spewed so much water doing small eruptions that when it finally
erupted like we hoped it was only for about 30 seconds. This along with
the fact that the wind was blowing straight at us for most of the eruption
so the steam was blowing towards us and we couldn’t see the geyser. Oh
well.

We saw a bunch of hot pools some of which were amazingly clear, others were
totally mud, which was really cool too. There were a few pools that mase
lots of noise from where the steam is coming out of the rocks.

We did a two mile hike to Mystic falls. It was a really cool hike, very
easy and fast. We did it just carrying Austin on our backs or shoulders.
The waterfall is really cool at the end of the hike. Austin really enjoyed
the hike because he got to walk part of it, he got to throw rocks in the
river, and he got to kick buffalo poo. One of his uncles taught him what
buffalo poo was and he saw me kicking it so he wanted to kick it too.
Unfortunately, one of the piles I picked for him to kick was a little
fresher than I thought so he dirtied his new white shoes with green buffalo
poo. Fortunately the dirt we were walking yhrough at that point was white
so he just covered up the poo by kicking white dirt all over his shoes. He
figured that one out all by himself. Good job Aust!

ON the way home (to the cabin where we are right now), there were a bunch of
buffalo just walking in the middle of the road so and everyone had to stop.
They really didn’t seem concernrd at all with the cars all around them, it
was really interesting. Tim got to stand up through our sunroof with my
videocamera and we got some really good video footage of the buffalo right
next to our car.

Good day!
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Sent wirelessly – Sony UX50 + Ericsson T610

Tonight we’re in Idaho Falls and the drive here was spectacular. On I15
from the beginning of Idaho to Pocatello it’s amazingly beautiful. Right
now everything is amazingly green and there were tons of yellow flowers all
over the place. The mountains were also very beautiful.

I was fairly shocked because I always pictured Idaho as mostly brown potato
farm land. Not so.

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Sent wirelessly – Sony UX50 + Ericsson T610

We’re on our way home from goblin valley in southern Utah right now. It’s a
really cool place. Goblin valley itself is just a small valley where there
are tons of rocks that just stick up out of the ground like little goblins.
You could spend hours (we did) just walking around and exploring the
place. It’s also very child friendly as there is tons of open space to run
and there are tons of hills for them to climb that are small but fun.

The whole area of goblin valley is a very windy place, so expect to get sand
all over the place when you go.

Well worth the 3 hour drive from Provo.

After Goblin valley. we hiked up Little Wild Horse canyon and down Bell
canyon which are like 5 miles from Goblin valley. There is a trail that
allows you to go from the top of one canyon to the top of the other. It’s
about a 9 mile hike if you do both canyons roundtrip.

I thought Little Wild Horse canyon was awesome. It’s a slot canyon a few
miles long that at times is just a few inches wide at your feet and just a
few feet wide at the shoulders. This with canyon walls that range from
about 30 to 200 feet high.

The hike from the top of one canyon to the other is bearable, but not very
fun. It’s a few miles long and not much to see that you don’t get in the
canyons.

Bell canyon wasn’t quote as exciting, spectacular, fun, or long as Little
Wild Horse canyon but very enjoyable nonetheless. It just didn’t have the
extremes that Littlt Wild Horse had. It did however require a little more
climbing which made it fun and interesting.

I think the next time I do these canyons I’ll try to hike up and down both
canyons, instead of hiking up one, taking the trail, and then down the
other. The extra hiking between the trails just isn’t worth it in my opinion.

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Sent wirelessly – Sony UX50 + Ericsson T610