You're Not Afraid Of Heights

Saturday dawned bright and early and promised to be another hot one, well over 100 degrees. We were leaving Zion and headed back to Las Vegas but Dave had a little adventure planned for the morning. We would be stopping in St. George and meeting up with Todd who owns a company called Paragon Adventures. Todd offers several outdoor adventures for vacationers like us who are looking for something a little different to do. Dave had chosen The Endeavor in which we would be rappelling, rock climbing (I had no idea we would be rock climbing) and zip lining in a canyon of the Santa Clara river gorge. As we would soon see the top of the canyon is desert but the bottom of the gorge is a lush, green and most importantly cool environment. We would also be accompanied by Eric who we later found out had attended Michigan Tech. A Huskie in the middle of the desert! The world is indeed small.

We met Eric in St. George and drove out to the canyon to meet Todd who had everything set up for our morning adventure. I quickly informed Todd that I was afraid of heights.

"No you're not", was his response.

"Well, yes I am. I am quite sure about that."

Just work with me, Todd.

"You're not afraid of heights. You're afraid of falling."

After thinking about that for a minute, he was right. I'm not afraid of heights, I am afraid of falling. That doesn't change the fear of stepping off of a cliff but now I have a different fear to concentrate on.

First adventure of the morning was rappelling which in my opinion is the easiest. Let's face it you are stepping off a cliff backwards. Backwards. You can't see where you are going and really have no sense of the height you are at. The hardest part is letting go of the death grip on the rope and letting yourself drop to the canyon floor. I volunteered Dave to go first. I tend to be nice like that.

Let the fun begin.




The say the first step is the hardest.




Are you having fun yet?




Hey, Dave, feet down, head up.




My turn.




Wasn't Dave just here?




He was. Now he was here. Looks like he made it safely to the bottom.




I'm on my way, Dave.




Watch and learn, head up. You too, Eric, head up.




I'm coming.




Free falls are the most fun. Just don't let the rope out too fast.










By the end of the morning we were looking like pros.




I love hopping down the side of a cliff.







We survived rappelling and enjoyed it.




Like I said earlier stepping backwards off of a cliff is easy. Some of our other adventures of the morning would turn out to be much harder.

to be continued...