The Adventures of Kinky Reggae: A Vagabond for Beauty

Kris and I spent the night in Green River. He left the following morning and I met up with Brian, Katie, and a few of her friends to do Buck Canyon in the Roost. This was a one and done canyon for me! It was a 9.2 mile hike, and we were done with the pretty section within the first hour of hiking. The narrows were beautiful, and even the open canyon that we hiked through was nice, but it wasn't a fun hike. It was crazy windy, and we were hiking through soft sand. There was sand in my eyes, mouth, and ears. When it wasn't sand, we were bushwhacking through weeds that were as tall as we are. When we finally made it back to ground level, we still had two side canyons to cross to get back to the car.  But there were a lot of things I loved about this canyon.  The scenery.       The company.     The "Happy Birthday" serenade. The one really cool downclimb of the canyon (which was really difficult to get a picture of).   Two arches on the hike out.   (Katie named this one &

Kris is wonderful and supportive, so when I told him my birthday plans had fallen through, he took a day off work and told me to plan an adventure for us. I carefully selected Ding & Dang Canyons, a 6-mile loop in the Swell. I did this hike by myself a few years ago and thought it would be a nice introduction to canyoneering. Just enough obstacles to make it interesting, but nothing really dangerous or technical. Most importantly, nothing too narrow. Kris is claustrophobic, but I showed him pictures beforehand and he said he was willing to try. As soon as we entered Ding, I realized I'd made a huge mistake. Kris's eyes were on the ground, not on the canyon. He was trying not to pay attention to his surroundings. Turns out, he wasn't kidding about the claustrophobic thing. I told him I'd be okay with turning around, but he was determined to push through it.    (Entering Ding) Ding wasn't so bad. He didn't like the narrow section, but was able to walk through