Amazing Hike and Rappelling of Arch - Easter Camping

Doesn't this look like a pair of eyes with one winking? So cool Especially when the sun shines down the one on the right. It is about a mile hike but it had me huffing with many up and downs. The pictures are Princess 3, then 4 and five in order as you go down. They look a bit like ants up there but I will try to include a bigger close up as well.

I am not sure the video's will upload as I am still having problems with slow internet but I thought I would try anyway and if not, I will try to upload them to youtube but even that hasn't been working on anything less than just over a minute so I hope this works.

This Easter, we went camping, (as you know if you follow this blog) and my brother sent us a link a few weeks prior to us going. It was a video of someone rappelling down from an arch. My brother wanted to try with our family. If you look at past years posts you will see some of the fun traditions that our family has while camping. I have yet to post much on this years events but I am trying on the video. But as I can see, it has been about 20 minutes and it isn't looking like it is uploading very well. I may just have to clip and paste links. I hate doing that as it takes you away from the blog. I called on updating my internet and they said they would need to put new lines into my neighborhood to increase the speed. Sad for me!:-( It would be fun to be able to put more videos on showing how I make things etc but with the intenet as it is, it will have to wait.

I put some links to our past family camping fun that you can view from the links. The first link is to rappelling and shooting. The second link is Easter egg hunts. The third one is traditions like zip lines. The fourth is "minute to win it" camping style.

link one here

link two here

link three here

link four here

If you type "camping" into the search box you will come up with a large amount of posts. Some are of things we cook camping and others are fun activities that we do camping. My family has always camped.

This new rappelling and open drop rappelling is new for our family. It was great fun and the kids had a great experience and it challenged them. It was scary for them to just trust and let go knowing that there was no wall to lean on and they had to move themselves down the open rappel as well as trust those belaying below. One warning, my brother-in-law took some girls and boys rappelling on a date and one of the girls had waist length hair and it got caught in the gear and the only way to get her down was to rappel down next to her and cut a chunk out of her hair. If you have girls and they have longer hair, have them wear it up and in a hat!

I learned a few things along the way while taking pictures. The first two down were my brothers kids who are used to doing this all the time. The video and pictures were a blur as they came down so fast. Princess number three came down and I had someone helping with the video so I could take pictures and when she got down, we watched the video to find out that we had the camera side ways to video. So, poor Princess number three has a side ways video and no close ups of her on the free rappel. We got better as the day went taking the videos at the right angle and I had the kids stop and turn towards me for a close up picture. Live and learn.

My brother and nephew were at the top of the arch for hours and hours giving each cousin an opportunity to go down. It was funny that the night before, my daughters and their cousin were sitting in my trailer playing games. I don't remember why or how it came up but I told them about an experience I had while I was an exchange student living in New Zealand.

There was an island off the coast that was an old volcano and in the Crater was a lake. We stayed there as a class over night and on the first day, we hiked to the volcano and swam in the beautiful blue cold water. The hike was a bit hard as I had new shoes on and got blisters. The next day, we were hiking to the other side of the island to swim in the ocean. There were a few of us that had sore feet and rather than bucking up or taking off my shoes, I asked to go back with a few other students to our camp site.

When the main group got back, they were all abuzz about how they got to swim with wild dolphins and if we kept going, it was only about five more minutes from where we turned around and went back. I missed out on that amazing experience by five minutes! I told the kids that experience and how for the rest of my life, whenever I go somewhere, I make the most of the experience by challenging myself or seeing everything I can see so that I don't have any regrets about the experience.

I would say that one missed opportunity has given me more amazing one's than I can count. I still miss that I didn't get to swim with the wild dolphins but know that I haven't missed a thing since then. I like to live life to the fullest with no regrets.

My 14 year old niece told my daughters after the rappelling, "I am so glad your mom told us that dolphin swimming story yesterday. That was amazing and I'm not sure I would have done it being scared if she hadn't have told us that story."

I was so proud of all the kids who went. Most did. I spent the entire afternoon and filled up both SD cards taking video and pictures of each kid coming down. I think they would all do it again. My eldest brother was amazing with the kids being scared. He took almost an hour with one nephew that was having a hard time. I know others who would have thrown him down the arch for his crying. lol

It is moments like that afternoon that make me know that God in Heaven shines his love down on me and everyone. That arch and area was breathtaking. Every one of my siblings were there and most of my nieces and nephews. We did miss my amazing step mother (only use the term for description of relation because she is the most amazing mother ever and I love her dearly) and a few older cousins but it was a wonderful Easter celebrated with family. So, the video has been loading for about an hour and it isn't finished so my guess is it won't finish loading. I will try you tube. If not, you will have to be happy with my pictures of the great event. Not quite the depth as seeing the video go up and down but still amazing.

Better than any amusement park ride! I do have to laugh as when we were sitting at the bottom of the arch and they were getting the ropes out for rappelling, they threw down a rope and asked how close it was to the bottom of the arch. We all laughed as it didn't come down half way to the ground. They worked it out using two different ropes for rappelling and belaying and another to drag up the equipment after each few rappels. It was a nice system. ''

I also have to give gratitude to the rest of those that helped. I have one brother-in-law that isn't a big "height" person but he was at the bottom most of the time belaying and another brother as well spent most of the day along with another brother-in-law and Princess number three switching off the other rope.

As you can tell by my "She's got the whole moon, in her hand" post the other night, we finished and hiked back to our cars just as it got dark. It was a full fun day. Here my sister and her wonderful husband are walking out.

Anyone know a good man about 45 who wants to be included in an amazing family? He, of course, would have to be amazing himself. Just putting it out there. Being around all my amazing male relatives last week made me think how wonderful it would be for my girls to have such a great man in their lives on a continual basis. I know that Heavenly Father has someone out there that is just that amazing who could see the greatness I see in my girls and love them the same way that I do. I am trying the idea on...... Hope I can accept it when it happens!

Here are links to the girls. They will take you away from this page so you may want to clip and paste them so you can watch them all: I figured that in the middle of the night when no one else is using internet, I can upload. Not usually worth it but I am working on some other things so figured I could try it. It still won't let me upload them to this site but youtube was about an hour or just over for each video. Hope you enjoy them.

Princess number 3 video

Princess number 4 video

Princess number 5 video