Date: 1/20/22
Training Day: 46
Miles: 9.1
Weather: High 40s

How It Felt: The hiking part was easy, but getting through parts of the canyons sure was tough!

Commentary: On the way to the Harris Wash Trailhead, which is the southern start of Red Breaks Slot Canyons, I contemplated when I would get my strength workout in. It’s Thursday. There are four days left in the week, and I have three workouts to get in. And I’m on vacation enjoying our little routine that doesn’t involve me struggling to figure out how to do a workout in the dirt when the temperature is in the 40s.

Before I lost my signal, I went on my Volt Athletics app and turned this week into a rest week. What happened to strength training at least three times a week?! It’s not even the end of January yet, and you’re already given up on one of your goals!!! But am I really giving up on one of goals?

After careful consideration, I decided that I’m not. And I wasn’t just trying to justify my actions to make myself feel better. The point of my goals was to push myself and grow. By allowing my vacation, my time to adventure and nurture my soul, to take precedence over a couple of goals is growth (I say, “couple,” because I’m skipping yoga this week, too). I’m pushing myself to take care of me and find guilt-free balance in my life.

Anyway, our Red Breaks adventure was spectacular! I read a dude’s blog post about hiking Red Breaks and used it as a guide to avoid some obstacles and see the best canyons. One dry fall (used to be waterfall but is now dry) was not mentioned by dude, so we backtracked and found our way up and over, which actually added to the fun.

The first slot canyon was gorgeous and had quite a few chokestones (rocks that “choke” the slot canyon) for us to climb over. This involved a lot of heaving ourselves up and pressing our backs and feet against the canyon walls and shimmying up, which was quite a workout (guess I’m still getting my strength training in!). My husband, who thought he wouldn’t be able to make it through the canyon, was a champ and made his way up and over every obstacle, even if he did look like a walrus trying to beach itself sometimes.

Once we emerged from the first one, we made our way up to the canyon rim to bypass a super high dry fall and emerged at the south end of the West Fork. The whole time we’d been following two sets of human tracks that appeared to be fresh, and we found the humans they belonged to. One of the guys has been hiking Red Breaks multiple times a year for decades. He said the canyons are constantly changing because of weather. Sometimes a particular chokestone is easy to get over, other times it’s nearly impossible. But he thought we had a good chance of making through West Fork, so we proceeded.

The chokestones in this canyon were much more difficult, and we spent extra time planning and executing our routes up and over. Then we came to the chokestone I am now calling our nemesis, and we could not figure out a way to safely make it up and over. I don’t want to say we gave up, but we turned around and called it day, deciding to tackle the canyon again another day.

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