This last week it was once again time for a team building exercise (aka. man-camp.) This year we had four JDHgroup employees who were men enough to head out into the deserts of the San Rafael Swell in Central Utah, which is near the location of last year's Team Building Exercise '09. This trip consisted of a number of manly tests, the first of which was approaching the ever tyrannical Kyle Johnson & Brandon Zaugg, and requesting time off. Once we overcame this obstacle the trip began and we headed out on a Thursday afternoon.
The next manly test came sooner than expected as a vehicle ahead of us veered off the road, flipped end-over-end, flew 35 feet through the air, and then rolled a few more times before coming to a stop on its side. Ben, Blair and Tom quickly ran over and helped pull the driver out of the remains of the car. Meanwhile I dug through our camping gear looking for the emergency kit I had packed. Unfortunately as I ran up to the distressed and injured driver I realized something. I have no idea how to use a first-aid kit. Miraculously she only suffered cuts from the broken glass and wasn't at immediate risk, short of going into shock, so Ben very creepily watched over her as we waited for emergency services to show up. Once they arrived we got back on the road.
We arrived at the Justesen Flats area after dark and drove around aimlessly hoping for a good spot to setup base camp. At sunrise we got up and realized we got lucky and had one of the best spots possible. A soft, sandy camp surrounded by trees and lying at the base of a cliff. The panoramic views at dawn were incredible.
The plan was to descend a series of slot canyons and make our way back up a third canyon to get to camp by nightfall. Given the time of year this gave us 10 hours to make the 10 mile trip. We got a late start and had to drive through some tight places to get started. As we pulled up to the head of the route the series of canyons looked much bigger than on the maps.
We made the first rappel down and started our journey. There were a few challenging parts we had to overcome as we made our way down canyon. Some maneuvers were slightly less-than-manly, like spending an extra 30 minutes finding an alternate rappel point into a canyon all in order to avoid swimming through muddy water; although some of us did attempt to make up for this transgression by doing said rappel upside down. The rest of the day went smoothly as we made our route through the canyons. Tom began to wade into the frigid waters before giving up as the water temperatures were in the high 30s at best. We jumped over some slots, tried to one up each other with some interpretative hiking routines and feats of strength, and then headed back to camp for some hotdogs and hot chocolate.
We also got some great HD video footage from some POV cameras, so we'll be posting that shortly once we edit out all of the embarrassing parts.
