Snowboarding in Sipapu and lunch in Santa Fe

Ready for powder

Sipapu has to be the cheapest snow you can find. Total cost per day for a hotel room and ski passes for three people on a week day (before Dec 18) – wait for it US$66! Yes that’s right $22 a person. It is not a big resort but has just enough to keep Rob happy and to challenge Fiona and Symi. If you book a hotel room for the night it is $44 for up to four people and you get one lift ticket free. Symi as a fifth grader snowboards free every day and Fiona pays $22 for a lift ticket. They do a lot of snow making here and pride themselves on being the first to open and the last to close. It is a family run resort and all the staff are very friendly saying hello and giving Symi snowboarding tips. As you can imagine we were out on the snow within an hour of arriving.

Lego in the hotel room - bit warmer than the RV

Just like riding a bike for Rob

As we had all snowboarded at the beginning of the year the first day on the snow went well. Fiona and Symi stayed on the beginner slope for the first few hours but very soon we were all up on the lifts and testing our skills. On the third day, feeling they had their snowboarding legs back, Fiona and Symi decided to invest in a lesson for an hour. The instructor was excellent and we certainly felt it helped our snowboarding. Symi is so fast on the traverses now that Fiona loses sight of her very quickly. Rob started the week lapping Fiona and Symi down the main slope in two runs, but has now estimated it would take him 8 runs to catch us when we are at our fastest. Rob as usual got back up to speed very quickly and continued to improve daily. He does put in many more runs than Fiona although he is in danger of being equaled by Symi who has boundless energy.

On day five we had to move back into the RV for a couple of nights as the hotel was booked for the weekend. With the rumour circulating that powder was on the way from a storm in the west we booked the hotel again for Sunday night as the resort has no water available for RVs and we were feeling the need for a shower. Fiona hit the wall late Friday morning and started making mistakes due to tiredness. No such problem for Rob or Symi. After a long lunch break and some food Fiona headed back in the afternoon to find that things were no better. Time for a rest day on Saturday. As it turned out the powder forecast was strengthening so Symi and Rob decided to join her. Out with the slow cooker – beef in red wine for dinner, and onto the computer to write up three blogs in one day as we were a bit behind (too many hours in the snowboarding office).

By 5pm Saturday evening the snow started coming down!

Yeti foot prints?

Luckily Rob's bike is inside!

Sunday dawned with a lot of powder on the ground. We had waxed the snowboards the day before and were lined up at the lifts at 9am. We got to the top and there it was - the longed for powder. Rob was away and down the hill with very little adjustment. Symi was just a little slower and Fiona was down and buried in the powder with the memories flooding back about just how tiring powder is. Finally we all got it worked out and we had a fantastic day. Symi mastered the 360 by the end of the day and then next day helped Fiona remember how to do them. Sleep came very easily that night.

Symi doing 360's

We then had one more day on the snow. We only lasted the morning as to be honest we were all done in. Even Rob gave up before the end of the day. We had a fantastic week.

We had advertised the RV but unfortunately the wifi reception at the resort was non-existent for us with our hotspot and the resort wifi was extremely slow and only seemed to work first thing in the morning. We had a few people interested but nothing serious. It is hard to imagine that in a few weeks we will be home and no longer living in an RV.

We hit the road for Arizona with a stop in Santa Fe for lunch and a wander around. We felt we had to have Mexican for lunch and managed to find a recommended diner which we enjoyed. After a wander around the town we headed off towards Arizona. While we were in Santa Fe we connected to the Wifi to find we had lots of interest in the RV - Yay. We also found out that the Washingtons (the Australian family we met in Moab) were going to be in Sedona for Christmas. Symi was very happy with this news.

Santa Fe for Lunch

The snow followed us!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

to everyone

We can't wait to get back and see you all.

Albuquerque

Our first night in New Mexico was spent at a casino. That’s not like the Wallers! Well it is if there is a $20 powered site and an US$11.99 (half price for children) steak buffet. We were celebrating the end of Simone’s school year. We were all happy to get to the end and quite pleased with ourselves that we managed to complete all the work on time.

Symi happy have found Trinity

Next morning we drove to Albuquerque to meet up with Joanna, Chris and Trinity who we met in in Sedona. They had kindly asked us to stay for a couple of days at their house. After a bit of work levelling the RV on the sloping street we were plugged into power and Rob was ready to head off mountain bike riding with Chris. Symi had to wait a couple of hours for Trinity to get home from school but luckily for her Joanna very kindly played on the Wii with her while Fiona sent off the last of the school work to her teacher.

That evening we went out for Mexican which was great – a lot less cheese than you sometimes find. The girls were very happy to find out that all children get complimentary chocolate mousse. Feeling very full we drove into the centre of Albuquerque to see the famous river of lights. Every year the botanical garden puts in what must be thousands – if not millions of lights – and decorates a huge area. We would estimate it took more that 90 minutes to walk around it once. That evening Symi enjoyed a sleepover with Trinity leaving Rob and Fiona to sleep alone in the RV for the first time all year.

bit cold

On Saturday the boys did some more riding while the rest of us went for a walk in a nearby canyon which we all enjoyed. Unfortunately while Rob and Chris were riding, Chris’s car was broken into. There was very little in the car to steal – an empty bag, a t-shirt and a shirt. Sadly the clothes were Rob’s and he is still mourning the loss of his Whoops T-shirt from Bend in Oregon and his “Montana Man” shirt which he loved. All very pointless and expensive with an insurance excess of $500 for Chris and Joanna. In the evening after dinner we helped decorate the family Christmas tree which was lovely as our RV Christmas tree which was lovingly drawn and cut out by Symi certainly could not support any decorations! We do however have a homemade advent calendar and Christmas stocking which we hope will get some use.

Sunday saw Fiona doing some last minute cooking to stock the freezer before our planned week of snowboarding. Rob managed to sneak in one last ride before we headed north to Sipapu. Due to our late start we did not make it all the way that night but found a roadside RV park to stay. Next morning set off to Sipapu early for a longer than expected and very undulating drive through the high desert.

Next up Snowboarding.

Official Piffle Heads Up

January 31, you know where to go, you know who you are.

Featuring the return of the famous musician Mr Rick Twine.

Eastern Arizona

Homovoli State Park desert isolation

Dry one day, flooded the next.

Leaving Sedona we headed east towards New Mexico with a couple of stops planned. The first was a meteor crater just east of Flagstaff. Due to the craters location in low rainfall high desert, this is said to be the best preserved example of a meteor crater on Earth. The meteor hit 50,000 years ago with a speed of 26,000 miles/hr creating a crater 2,4 miles in diameter and 600 ft deep. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the crater and visitors centre. We were lucky that there was no wind as the previous day there were no tours of the rim as it was too windy. At times they record wind speeds of 190 kph on the rim. That evening we drove onto the Homovoli State Park to camp with power for $20 and enjoyed the beautiful desert solitude.

Very impressive meteor crater

Trying to take it easy, last photo of Rob's 'Montana Man' jacket
before it was stolen in Breaking Bad country.

The next morning we explored the 14^th century ruins left by the Anasazi people. The first site was next to the Little Colorado River and littered with broken pieces of 600 year old pottery. The next site, Homovoli II contained an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 rooms.  Speaking to the Ranger at the Visitors Centre we realised we should also explore the nearby town of Winslow that we had bypassed the previous day. Little did we know of the hidden gem of popular culture that we missed ‘Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona and such a fine sight to see. It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me. Come on, baby, don’t say maybe I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me……’ After some photos and a tour of the local tourist shops, we walked to the highly recommended La Posada Hotel (1930) which was the last of the great Harvey/Santa Fe railway hotels. It was designed by the famous SW architect Mary Jane Colter, who was also responsible for many of buildings at Grand Canyon. Amazing the Hotel, in near ruins, was brought for $130,000 and then restored by the artist Tina Mion and her husband in the 1990’s. We spent an hour wandering around the hotel appreciating the vast amount of Tina’s art on display.

With rain threatening, the next day we headed to the Petrified Forrest National Park. 255 million years ago, at the height of the dinosaur era, this area of land was just 4ᵒ north of the equator and was a tropical rain forest. The trees fell and were washed into adjacent floodplains where a mixture of silt, ash and mud buried the logs. Silica seeped into the logs replacing the original wood tissues with silica and petrifying the logs. There was a good analogy of the Earth’s history at the Visitor Centre. If the life of the Earth was a year, then the dinosaurs appeared about mid-December and disappeared by the morning of Dec 27. Humans did not appear until 11.15pm on December 31 and recorded history represents the last half minute of the entire year. With this in mind our thoughts were that we should keep the predictions of the planet over the next period of time in perspective. We spent the afternoon dodging showers and walking the highlights of the incredible petrified trees. At times the landscape looked like a lumber yard, with logs lying around ready to be hit by a log splitter. Luckily there was some RV camping just south of the park where it cost $10 to plug into power for the night.

 

The next morning the rain had set in further and we drove to the northern end of the park. We passed numerous creeks that the previous day were dry and were now in full flow. There was a quick photo stop at the Tepees, hills showing distinctive colour bands that represent ancient layers of sediment deposited by a Triassic era river system. Next we crossed the modern interstate 40 and stopped at the old Route 66. The area north of the i40 consists of many viewpoints of the Painted Desert. The rain allowed us to see a rare glimpse of water flow in the desert. After a short wet walk it was time to leave and continue our drive towards New Mexico.

Get your kicks, on Route 66

PS. Rob admits to playing with the colour of some photos here.

 

Sedona again

Fall continues

 

It's raining leaves, there were none the night before!

After Grand Canyon and with some pleading from Rob, we returned to the MTB mecca of Sedona. We were also hoping things might warm up a bit. What we found was some brilliant weather and some very colourful cottonwood leaves. When we left Sedona early March the leaves were just appearing and it seemed as we went north we experienced an endless spring. Now we seemed to be experiencing an endless fall. Interestingly some trees just lose their leaves without changing colour. One morning we woke to leaves raining off a large tree across from our RV. The tree decided that the previous night was time to drop most of its leaves.

Looking north to Midgley Bridge from Huckaby Trail

Early morning panorama (thanks Joe) from Hog Heaven.

While Fiona and Symi recovered from our GC walk, Rob made the most of the trails revisiting some favourites from early in the year. As usual it doesn’t take long to run into like-minded riders. The first was Ken Drew, a local artist who specialises in bronze animal sculptures. It turns out we had visited his very nice gallery in the Tlaquepaqa Village before. Symi of course remembered because it was full of animals. Ken introduced Rob to two fantastic new trails that were soon to be sign posted, Western Civilisation and Last Frontier. Rob also rode with another rider Joe who makes snowboarding movies. Maybe Rob was harnessing the Sedona vortex energy to attract creative people?

Xmas lights

Hiline Trail descent, epic. The keen will spot an A and B line.

When the post-GC soreness resolved we did some family rides. Unfortunately for Fiona and Symi the conditions were challenging in places as the ground was very dry and loose. We revisited some trails we had ridden early in the year and the improvement in Symi and Fiona’s MTB skills was very noticeable. There was definitely less freaking out at anything exposed. Rob did expose them to the Mescal Trail that while stunning has a few don’t fall here zones that were quite rightly walked. On one family ride Rob managed to have his most painful fall of the year while cruising (always the way and a reason to always ride 100%!, Rob) he clipped a tree with the handlebars sending his right knee into a small sharp rock. The next day Rob managed to jar his back while pushing his bike up a trail and miss-stepping over a rock, resulting in ibuprofen fueled riding for a few days.

Gourmet Thanksgiving Diner and warm enough to eat outside.

Enjoying the last warmth of the sun at Creekside.

While in Sedona it was Thanksgiving and Fiona managed to produce a roast turkey dinner complete with stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce and roast vegetables from the RV. There were plenty of families enjoying a long weekend and plenty of food. Thanksgiving we heard is a food holiday! We met a family from Yuma Az and the dad sold RV’s for a living. Quickly handing him a beer Rob picked his brain for some very useful information on selling RVs! Next door to us was a family from Albuquerque NM who had an 11 year old daughter! It was playtime for Symi and Trinity. The dad Chris was a keen biker, unfortunately Rob due to his injured state didn’t ride with him in Sedona. We did however get an invite to stay with them the following weekend as we headed towards northern NM to try and find snow.

Symi and Trinity walking Hiline Trail.
 

At the end of our visit to Sedona earlier in the year we discovered the happy hour at the walking distance Creekside Restaurant. Having saved $170 by carrying one meal into Grand Canyon we decided to use this money on some happy hour drinks and tasty bar snacks. Try $3 for a boutique pint of beer, $3.70 for a Margarita and $8 for half a kilo of cooked prawns. Symi enjoyed the endless refill old fashioned lemonade and the fact that the barman just brought her the drink one evening without her asking.

Stunning late afternoon colour just outside RV park.

With our time fast running down it was time to head further east, visit our new friends in Albuquerque and do some more snowboarding. Symi was very excited.

Mescal Trail

Tech on High on the Hog

The Year is ending - Fleetwood Jamboree 29L for Sale

Mixed feelings about selling our RV but looking forward to going home. Click link below to see the ad.
http://m.rvtrader.com/listing/1999-Fleetwood-Jamboree-113662100

Grand Canyon: The parent’s view

 

Phantom Ranch deep in the valley with the trees.
View from Mather Point

Earlier in the year we had wanted to walk down to the bottom of Grand Canyon and camp at Phantom Ranch, however we didn’t have a tent or enough sleeping bags. The plan was to try and do it in November, and with the cold weather descending it was time to go before the north facing trails iced up. The thought of walking next to cliffs on ice with a backpack was not appealing. Many who walk to the bottom of GC get the required backcountry permit 4 months in advance and some will do some training. We decided to roll up to the Backcountry Office on a Monday morning and request a permit, there are always some held for walk-ins. $40 later the permit was in our hands for the next day.

Into the freezer, South Kaibab

That afternoon we did a 5 mile acclimatisation walk from the campground to Mather Point, onto Yavapai Point and back to base. The views were stunning on a clear and cold afternoon, but there was some focus on the bottom of the canyon 4500 ft down and how far away it looked. Back at base and training complete we stuffed our packs for a two night hike and tried to keep weight to a minimum.

Some of the step-downs that produced that calf pain.

Tuesday morning arrived with a clear sky, with light wind and cold. At the Backcountry Office is was goodbye to the RV and we jumped on the ‘hikers special’ bus to South Kaibab trailhead. With puffer jackets still on it was straight into the Chimney, a steep switch backed section of trail that doesn’t see the sun and really could be called the Freezer. We had done the 2000 ft descent to Skeleton Point before and made good time. It was surprising how quiet the trail was in comparison to when we did the walk in early March. We descended another 1400 ft to below the Tip Off for lunch and rested on a rock in the sun with a sweeping view of the Colorado River. We choose a good spot as shortly after a tour guide stopped for lunch with her group at the same spot. We contemplated our final destination, Phantom Ranch, just another 1300ft below. At this stage it was looking daunting, the South Kaibab Trail has steps on it and what was hurting the most was the calf muscles, specifically the soleus (if you are anatomically knowledgeable) as it decelerated our weight down the hill. Not that this was affecting Symi too much, after lunch she rocketed ahead, gliding down the hill with apparent ease. Fiona on the other had shaking legs and was not really able to stand still and keep her balance.

Finally some sun.

After lunch we descended towards the river moving out of the sedimentary layers of rock and into the Vishnu Schist, the 2.5 billion year old metamorphic rock that forms the base of GC. We were relieved to arrive at the Kaibab Suspension Bridge and enjoyed the close up view of the Colorado. It was then a short walk to the campground. We managed to set up camp and get to Phantom Ranch before 4pm, which is the cut off time to get a cold drink (read beer for the parents). At 4pm we attended a Ranger talk about the animals of GC, we were able to hold some animal skulls and furs which helped maintain some focus for our tired and attention wavering brains. There was a large group of tired looking people and we suspect more than one was thinking, “is 4:30pm too early for bed?”

View at lunch

 We headed back to our tent for dinner. To give you some idea of the cool temperatures, our zip lock bag of bolognaise sauce had not defrosted and had been out the freezer for at least 9 hours. After a quick dinner and a bit of chocolate we were all thinking about getting into our sleeping bags as we were cold and weary. There were a lot of people in the campground but it would be surprising if anyone was still up by 8pm.

Big Horned Monster

Next morning it was a little cloudy and calves were a little sore, especially Fiona’s. We had a pretty slow morning with Symi getting her Junior Ranger Patch for those who reach the bottom. They say 1% of Grand Canyon visitors get to the bottom. Of that 1% we suspect not many are 10 year olds carrying their own packs. After we set off we found out that it is possible to pay about $70 to have 15kgs brought down by mule. That explained all the people who were walking down with daypacks. You can join a tour (carrying your own pack) for $900 for three days or you can do a mule assisted tour for about $1100. To us the mule looked like you were swapping sore calves for a costly sore bottom!

The only way is up.

We were pretty happy with our $40 permit and about $30 of food. We considered buying dinner at Phantom Ranch – this would have cost about $150 for the three of us and you had to pre-order. When we were inquiring about this they said we could come back at 6:30am on the day of our hike and they would see if they had any meals. The weight of the bolognaise sauce was seeming less significant at this point.

Pancaked layers of Tapeats Sandstone below Indian Garden

We finally set off for Indian Garden about 10am. The first part was along the river and undulated, the ups were good but the downs were unpleasant to say the least. Fiona commented that the only reason she could continue walking was that we were going to be going uphill! A big call at the bottom of a 20km, 4200ft ascent with a pack on. Upwards we plodded. We were walking along the Columbine Spring which has its own microclimate and was spectacular. After some gradual ascending we came upon the Devils Corkscrew, a well named series of punishing switchbacks climbing up through the Vishnu Schist providing a contrast to the lush canyon below.

Watching Mule Deer as the afternoon sun lights up the canyon.

It was a relief to reach the top of this and rest while enjoying the view. There were a few people resting here and it was heartening to see that although we were finding the walking challenging we were certainly not working the hardest of those on the trail. After this the ascent was not so steep and we were back next to Bright Angel Creek with its vegetation.

Visitor in our camp.

We arrived at the Indian Garden campsite and had our pick of almost any site. We were interested in the one with the most sun. Rob and Symi found a good one which was not too far from the toilets. We put the tent up and sat in the sun. The sun did not last that long and it was only then that Fiona began to realise the less appealing aspect of the site. The toilets near us were closed for the season. To get to the only other ones required walking down from our campsite and then up a small hill for about 100m. Uphill walking = good, downhill walking = near impossible with calves screaming. This situation provided endless amusement for Rob and Symi. This would continue for days as unfortunately for Fiona the muscle soreness had not yet peaked.

We sat drinking cups of soup, amusing ourselves reading the camp books about the Grand Canyon. After a dinner of mac & cheese and tuna followed by chocolate we were once again in bed very early. There were a few nerves as we had only done 1200 feet of the 4200ft climb – only 3000ft to go.

Getting there!

We set off early the next morning with Fiona praying it was all uphill – a very strange thing! After about 30 minutes it became apparent that Symi was flying up the hill. Rob and Fiona were plodding far behind thinking maybe she needed a bigger share of the weight. This was confirmed when a couple walking down said to us “she needs more weight!” We called for her to stop and Rob gave her about a kg from his pack – he had already taken what he could from Fiona. Symi did not even seem to notice this. She did comment a couple of times that her legs were sore but as soon afterwards she would break into a run or do a small dance on the trail we did not feel this was a big issue.

Looking down at Indian Garden from near the top.

We made great time on the steep climb covering the 8km or so in 3 hours. We were very pleased with ourselves when we reached the top and celebrated with a photo. We caught the shuttle bus back to the RV and ate a large packet of chips for lunch. We felt this was necessary as we kept meeting people who said you had to each chips to keep up your salt levels!

Ugg boots, what else would be as good when walking down
into Grand Canyon?