Havasupii Trip

Almost anyone who was related in any way to a Tadje was in on this trip only a few chose to stay home and hold down the fort. It was a blast the hike down was pretty good (remembering that everything is relative, and this is definitely true when related to the hike out). Some of us chose to make it a bit more interesting by climbing a random boulder by the side of the trail, specifically Alex and I (Scott).





We got there, got our packs, set up base camp and were ready for water. We headed to havasu falls (the main falls) and quickly learned how cold the water was but we were strong and overcame it (or maybe we went numb... who knows). We jumped off boulders, swung from rope swings, and waded into the water. We didn't find the 30 ft cliff to jump off of till near the end of the trip due to the fact that it was directly behind the falls, but when we found it we made the most of it. We had to drag ourselves behind the falls with the wall because of the heavy current but just behind the fall there was a ledge to stand on then a ladder to climb up. It was at this point that we discovered that you could spit 'up' because of the insane wind current being generated by the falls crushing down just inches from us. We climbed the ladder (a very tall ladder whose actual height is only known by those who climbed it, but I'll stick with 30 ft), and at the top there is a little alcove to jump from. At first we (Darren and I) just jumped off but then we were shown up by an old geezer AKA my Dad whose insanity drove him to dive off. Whether insanity is contagious or we just couldn't stand to be shown up by someone 50+ years old we soon were diving as well. It was awesome.

We also made it down to Moony falls which is a bit more difficult to do. In order to descend you have to scale the canyon side placing Huge amounts of trust in rusty chains and old wood ladders, but in the end we got multiple 50+ year individuals down including mom, yeah! Here to our demise we found the rope swing that had such a rep, had been hacked off the tree and replaced with a lame makeshift one. There were rumors of another good one farther down the canyon but the only one that had enough energy to get down there was of course the insane Reed, my dad. Some of us tried to find it but didn't get down far enough.

We also made it to Navajo falls which is not as big as the others but was much wider. We explored the little cavern that was was part of it but no one got up enough courage/insanity to copy what a few others were doing which was climbing up a rope found on the right side and working there way up to a ledge just below the very top and throwing themselves off... maybe next time.

Just before we crossed the river to get to Navajo falls a scout told us about a little cave up a bit from there. Turns out it was full of stalactites, plus just before crossing the river to get there was a pretty good little ledge to jump off.

We also explored the abandoned quartzite cave (I think it was quartzite anyway) we found a large youth group there and went in with them. We went a couple of levels down using some rope but largely hands and knees.

The hike out was a grueling one but we all made it out safe and sound.

Scott's Swimming

Well when I asked Mom what we had done that would be worth putting up on the blog other than Havasupii she could only come up with my swimming so here it is.
This video is of my favorite stroke, the backstroke, In these 4 videos the lanes go 1-6 from left to right from the camera's view and in this one I am in lane 1 but this is probably obvious considering how it starts with just me in it, I only put the lane line info for the other three vid's.
I did well in this race, 1st, but jammed my finger twice into the lane line so got a 1:03 in stead of my best 1:01. Your not supposed to ride so close to the lane line unless there is a person in the next lane that you can drag off of but I was not really thinkin during this race. I still got first though haha.

This next video is of the 1st bit of my medly relay (we only got the backstroke part on video but we won by the way). The Medly relay goes back, butter, breast, then freestyle. I'm in lane 4, or the third closest to the camera then in five there is the other PG relay, then in 6 the lame spanish fork relay which lost to both the A and the B PG relay (yeah!!!).

This race was the 100 Yard Breastroke which is sort of a filler because I'm not too good at it. I'm in lane 6 and a fast kid on our team for breastroke is in lane 4. I still got second but mainly just because I can get off the walls fast and have a good start, so I catch up a bit a each wall but lose ground in the middle. Plus if you look closely I was still a bit tired from the backstroke that was a little bit earlier because I held out my glide much longer than most to save energy.

This final one is the 50 yard butterfly which is not a real race in most swimming places but since butterfly is the most tiring race they figured they'd give us a break and cut the usual 100 yard butterfly in half. I came in a very close second in this race, I was in lane 3 and another PG kid was in lane 1 (he usually beats me but this race was the first individual one of the day so i still had energy and i was only a teency bit ahead). Once again it looked good at the start because my dives are decent but lost ground in the stroke. Lane two was sadly a Spanish Forkian, oh well we'll beat em' next time.

The footage may not be as good as they have in the Olympic trials (going on right now!!! watch it) but considering it was all taken by a picture camera it's finaminal, GO MOM!!

Really though, go watch the swimming trials or check out the online already done stuff at http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/index.html and search by swimming, it's all amazing.