Grab the Beer and Chips... It's Zion Movie Time!

Workin' around movin' camp a few hundred miles I've been hard at it... trying to arrange the photographs from the hike we and the Box Canyon Bloggers took into the Zion Narrows a couple of days ago.

That's made a lil bit more difficult by two things... Which pics do you NOT present??? and then... once you decide that you jus' gotta hang 'em all up there... How do you get it done with a recalcitrant lil' Acer Laptop... that REALLY don't want to co-operate a lot? ;)

... and I won't even get into the "Short Pants" VS "Sissy Pants"... deal...

Yeah... right... SURE I won't! ;)

I wear a helmet on the scooter... I use bug spray and long sleeves when the skeeters are thick... and when I'm gonna be wadin' in water of the 51 degree variety... I wear Dry Pants...

I've chased cows at 20 below... loaded and fed 15 tons of 175# bales by my lonesome, day after day in the 105 degree Arizona sun... I've pushed my scooter through the wind at 70mph when the mercury said 10...

I use what gear is available to preserve my energies for when bein' a Tough Nut... is Necessary... till then I run like a rabbit to avoid discomfort! and let the Harley Riders slide around on the asphalt in flip flops and T-shirts... ;)

...and that generally has left me The Last Man Standing... for a good long while! :)  and any way... the ONLY shorts I wear are jockeys... and ain't none of ya gonna see them!

As for the cost... I believe Ol' Mark mis-heard what the Zion Adventure Clerk was sayin'... and added his pennies wrong... the wet suit socks, shoes and Including the Dry Pants cost me $40 precious dollars total. and I'll bet you both my Kidneys and half my liver that if I'd been thinkin'... and told the big guy to pull off one of those socks... he'd have discovered juuuuuust how effective they are at keepin' the heat in Old containers!

If your legs are cold ~ your legs are cold... If your FEET are cold... ALL of you is COLD! and this Ol' Dodger... with his feet nice and comfy in those wet suit socks... and his legs all nice and dry... held hypothermia at bay all day long...

So... though my busted spine had me gimpin' pretty good by the time I waddled back to the truck in the Temple of Sinawava parking lot after pushin' something upwards of 9 miles through that canyon!... I was in good shape cold water wise!

That first mile... way back 'fore noon... the three of 'em led me on a near foot race to the "get wet" point above Sinawava.

I mosey'd along takin' my pictures...

and gettin' geared up...

and Mark dove in to be the first one wet!

He does have a lil' bit of an advantage... seein' as how he's set down on top of legs that have him lookin' down on the top of my head!

The way I chose to deal with what I thought was an overload of photographs was this;

 The Rest of the Story is compiled into two lil videos. I decided to do it a lil different for this day's story.

The first one is a short lil' clip... just a couple minutes of a bit of luck we had half way or so up into the Narrows. Mark saw it first... and then as I was scramblin' to catch it on a camera... I nearly tested my limited swimming ability backing into a deep hole in the river bottom...

Which would have been a genuine bummer. I "Risked" that new Nikon P510 on this hike... cuz what good is a tool... if you keep it all wrapped up and secure in a dry bag? Who's gonna stop every  27  seconds to take their pack off... in the middle of a river... unload and un bag the camera... take a pic... and then stuff it all back in?

Anyhoo... here's that first lil' clip...

Now... that one should have a tune playing ... kinda cool ain't it?

This next is the Video Journal of the five+ hour hike up the canyon... pretty much in chronological order... and this one... youtube got grinchy and I couldn't get music attached to shine it up...

It's about 7 minutes of ~ I Think~ pretty good scenery many folks won't see any other way... But me an' Mark were there! ;) along wth them two ladies of course. ;)

Now... in this show, the first section was taken with my new Nikon P510 and those Heidi made was done with the pretty much broken (battery box/scratched lens/failing electronics) Nikon S8000 she still carries until we can replace it...

 *Edit*; The difficulty T'wasn't Youtube... Turns out... THIS Ol' buster took a bit to catch on to the NEW and IMPROVED audio system ;) the video is NOW linked to the New Version that has a sound track (appropriate I think!) attached. Also, don't forget to click on the "Full Screen" brackets in the lower right of the video... makes for a lot better viewing! :)

Well... that's the show... and the video journal of a Remembered Day!

Now... it's back to the rest of my To Do list for me
Brian