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Left for the Barney Springs Canyon at 7am, got the the crater and re-packed our bags. Sam had a big dry bag with all our sleeping gear in and all the climbing gear, I had most of the food and Amy had the other dry bag with clothes etc. We had breakfast on the side of the road and then looked at the map and took off. We would walk and then check the map and keep walking so in other words we were taking the scenic route. We popped out around 4pm 250feet up and half way along the canyon we were ment to be in, none of us cared cause the reason we kept going wrong was because we were having so much fun. All weekend we just laughed and walked it was such a good time. So we walked along the rim untill we had enough rope to pop down into the canyon. We did three reppells before we settled down at a rock for our camp site. I would go down the rock first and my safety would be myself, I would belay myself down with my left hand and controll my speed with my right hand. I would then collect the bags if we didn't go down with them off. Amy would go next and Sam would always be last to make sure we were both set up correctly. Sam and Amy would have trust in me as I would be at the bottom and if they fell I would pull on the rope and it would lock them back in. We had dinner and just joking around - all three of us have similar personalities so the jokes where always the ones that I love, we were just laughing and had forgotten what we were laughing about and then just fell asleep. Apparently during the night Amy woke up with my head on her ass, but unfortunatly I don't remember. Up at 7am had pancakes for breakfast with brownie mixture for sauce over the top. Then did 4more reppels ranging from 30feet to 100ft, before lunchtime. We slowed up around lunch time cause it started to rain and we were in the middle of a canyon with no possible way out, so if a flash flood had come then it would have been interesting. Sam then set up a zip line across a pool of water that he swam across and tied the rope off. Then me and Amy slidded across the line to the ground, I was alittle heavey and got my legs wet. So as Sam was trying to warm up for his next swim for then next zip line, I offered to do it so he could have ago at slidding down, I exspected him to say know cause it was tricky knotes etc, but I harned up in just my underwear and had a dry bag with me with warm clothes in. I had to repple down a wall and into freezing dicusting water and unhook myslf while I couldn't touch the ground and not drop anything. And Sam then talked me step by step through how to do it then they came across, it was wicked and like normall we were all just laughing the whole time. We finished the repppels for the day and choose a rock in the dark to camp on. To me it looked like the ground was moving there were so many bugs, but it was all good. Our abs had taken a good workout over the days cause all we would do was laugh. We were over a day behind schedulue but we didn't care just ment we had to haul ass on our last day. Up at 7am and walking 20min later our ride was meeting us at 330pm, we got to some clean water which I was really happy about, There is no trail in the canyon just boulder hopping and bush waking. Everynow and then I would slip on a rock and jam my sore toe into another rock. Amy was going through battles, but she just kept on taking the pain, it was really amazing I don't think ive seen somebody hurt themselves so many times and still loving it. Everytime she would slip it would scare the crap out of me. One time she fell in slow motion and went to put her hands down to catch her and both hands went in deep water so she just cracked her head on a rock, lucky Sam had her wearing a helmet, but she just started laughing. I didn't have a dry bag in my bag so really didn't want it to get wet, but when we came to a gap of two cliffs on either sides and couldn't touch the ground, we had to swim across and everything got wet, and a wet pack weighs a lot more, and it was extremly cold. So it got to 3pm and we were susposed to already be at the pickup point. And we came across some guys that had taken them 6hours to get from where we were going to here. So we were alittle concerned that search and rescue might get called out and we had no food left.We had to swim through water 5-6more times and it was always freezing. We were all staying positive but I was freezing low on energy and so hungry, but still I was having a good time. We got to the pickup point at 7pm and I just stripped down and got in my sleeping bag to get warm. We were laying in the gutter next to the road for over an hour and then the search party turned up ready to be going bush looking for us. It was dark and we were pretty much asleep when they got to us. We went back to Flagstaff and went and got pizza for dinner still dreshed in our mancky clothes. It was such a wicked experience to do repelling and zip lines with lots of boulder hopping. I loved it and had such a good time. I could easilly get addicted to the sport.
This morning me and Sam had a pancake cookoff, NZ vs USA. I had the NZ flag around my shoulders and Sam had an american flag hat. I lost hands down. I didn't even get a vote. Sam deserved the win he went all out with added extras and ready made pancake mix. I just went cheap with flour eggs and milk. And the looser got water bombed and I got very wet.
Im am off to South Rim again next week to do another 9days on project, cant wait and will be intouch after.
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