Ryan's Chang: LA chillin' and Petroglyph Hunting

First off I'd like to thank the people that made this trip possible. Mother for dropping us off and picking us up. Christian for hanging out with us for a bit with a layover in Kauai. Claus for getting us standby flights and all the errand running and letting us drive your vehicle across three states and putting up with Katie and I. Baron for gathering us all together and planning everything, without you this trip wouldn't have been possible. Lastly Katie, thanks for roughing it with me this past week in the airports, shopping, food listing, getting lottery tickets for the hike and all the usual antics I put you through.

Starting off on our trip I was anxious to get off of work on Friday night and head over to LA but flights didn't look good to get out of Honolulu. We tried for the red eye from Honolulu but it was overbooked and we couldn't get on. I had my mom pick us back up and drop is off in the morning. Saturday morning flights again didn't look any better. We waited around till they called the last few people on the plane but our names were never called. My hopes were still up but I knew Katie was getting frustrated. She knew flying over the weekend on standby gets ugly. All the flights were in the red and our luck was running out. Katie's dad Claus, suggested we fly out of Kauai to LA. We took the first Kauai flight out on Hawaiian with my moms miles, luck was starting to turn our way. The flight that was supposed to leave Kauaʻi in the early afternoon got delayed which was a blessing in disguise. The flight was in the red but as soon as it was delayed a bunch of people from the flight cancelled and made room for us to get on.

We had a few hours to kill so Christian met up with us and had some lunch at Killer Tacos in Kapaʻa. Kauaʻi was looking nice that day with some south westerly winds blowing. East side surf was looking prime. I knew I was going to miss some swells while I was gone but I didn't complain, I was going to Zion National Park.

Christian dropped us off at the airport and we said our "see you laters" because in a few weeks we'd be heading back to hike with him. We were catching the last flight into LA. The flight was smooth most of the way with Enders Game playing on the plane. We arrived in LA at 1 am. Claus and Christine picked us up and we headed to the house Katie grew up in. This was home for the next couple of days.

In the morning we planned on hiking with Katie's friend Laura since she hasn't seen her since she visited in Hawaii. But before hiking we had to hit up the famous "candy store" for all hikers, REI. There we got some new sleeping bags with some stuff sacks which put a hole in our wallet but was well worth it for this trip.

That afternoon we met up with Laura and her boyfriend Roy. They knew of a secluded hike with very few people on it. We drove about forty minutes out from Pasadena to the foot hills of Altadena. Sure enough locals know best. There was very little crowd on the trails and no one at our end point. Laura and Roy talked about how hikes in LA are so crowded.

On the hike I got used to mainland terrain and weather, sort of. Instead of volcanic rock we were walking mostly on granite. Footing was solid on these rocks and I kept saying how awesome it is to be on these kind of rocks. Our end point was a peak with granite sticking out of the ground and a waterfall. It was nice to see that there was nature in such a busy city.

The next few days we fit in some shopping for groceries, In n out burgers, the Huntington library, and meeting Katie's cousins and relatives.

The Huntington library didn't seem interesting to me at first but, if you have never been to this place and are in LA with a couple of hours to spare here I highly suggest you visit this place. Laura works here and she gave us a private tour of the grounds. It's a library named after the railroad tycoon Henry Edwards Huntington. The grounds had numerous gardens. Each was authentic and had magnificent plants in bloom. It was spring time and the roses were in bloom in the rose garden. They had a bonsai garden and every bonsai on display was very pretty. The Chinese garden had a pond with koi fish in it and Chinese structures surrounding it. The Japanese garden had Wisteria trees that were full of purple flowers. We made our way to the cactus garden. It had a bunch of succulents and dry land plants. There was also a lily pond garden which we quickly walked through and a tropical garden as well. We only had an afternoon to kill but you probably could spend a couple of days here photographing all the different plants and scenery. I'm sure there are books here somewhere but why look inside when you can be outside right? So if you ever have time go check it out!

That night we had to pick up Jenny coming home from Senegal. I'm sure everyone would be jealous of her job. She gets to travel the world with Green Living Project. She is a production manager and gets to plan trips that revolve around people that are trying to live green. She showed us pictures that night of where she visited and what her project was there. I'm sure a video will be out soon so stay tuned at glpfilms.

Wednesday rolled around pretty quick and we were out the door and on our way to Utah at 6 in the morning. We drove across California and into Nevada. Las Vegas was about a four hour drive and that's the first time I've been there. It wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. We drove straight through and drove a short while in Arizona. From Las Vegas it was another two to three hours to Utah. We stopped somewhere outside of Hurricane to grab a quick bite at Wendy's and we drove about an hour more to meet up with everyone at Zion. During the hour drive the landscape and terrain changed. The colors or the mountains contrasted the sky with bright tones of red. The drive was jaw dropping and amazing. I couldn't believe what I was missing on the mainland and to know I would be hiking here for the next few days gave me chicken skin (the good kind).

Baron, Paige, Grant, Chris, and Daniel were there and helped us set up camp. We expected nice good weather for our trip but nature had another thing in store for us. It was raining off and on and we kept most of the supplies inside the car. As soon as we setup our tents we decided to do a short trail to some petroglyphs. We took a drive up the mountain and pulled off to look for this trail that wasn't in any of the Zion guides. When we pulled off it was snowing. This was the second time I saw snow. It was cold but welcoming for now. We looked at the sandstone walls for these petroglyphs but we couldn't find any. We decided that it was getting late and other people were supposed to meet us at camp. We also had to pick up some dry pants for the narrows hike tomorrow. Some of the group went on to eventually find the petroglyphs but Katie, Claus and I had to go to the store to rent gear.

We went to Zion Adventure Company to pick up dry pants for tomorrow. We had to fill out a renters agreement and watch a short video on the narrows before renting the gear. After renting the pants we met back up with the group. We showed the group what we got and tried to convince them it would be a good idea they rented at least pants like me. They decided to wait to rent anything.

During dinner time the temperature was dropping into the low fifties high forties. Both Katie and I were developing a cough and stuffy noses. We fired up the camp fire to try and keep us warm but we persisted to cough and sniffle. We ate salmon burgers the first night and had some hot chocolate and tea. We sat around the fire and finished dinner. The rest of the group finally got here a little after dinner time. Christine, Shelley, Marie, and Shasta arrived at camp driving from LA like us.

We all sat around and talked story until it became too cold. Katie and I retired to our tent around 8:30 ish. I took a quick look at the weather and temperature and saw that the low was going to be well into the thirties and there was a slight chance for rain. Katie was so cold that she clung onto me for the rest of the night. It was uncomfortably cold for both of us even with our new bags rated at 20 degrees. The next morning the time to meet and to catch the first shuttle was 7 am and do the Narrows hike.

Photos by: Ryan and Chris