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Stevens Canyon 2009 – Intro

Synopsis: Travel to the Escalante and cast of characters.

Who’s Who?

Reid Priedhorsky – trip leader (me); Minneapolis.
Erin Tatge – Reid’s lovely wife; Minneapolis.
Charles Yeamans – Reid’s long-time friend since they were both in diapers; Oakland, CA.
Andy Exley – Reid’s friend from grad school; Minneapolis.
Andy Wilson a.k.a. Dr. Andy a.k.a. Son – Reid’s friend from college; Minneapolis.
Joel Creswell – Reid’s friend from college; Madison, WI.
Sibyl Siegfried – Joel’s girlfriend; Madison, WI.
Katie Panciera – Reid’s friend from grad school; Minneapolis.
Ben Miller – Katie’s boyfriend; Minneapolis.

The first item of business was to get everyone from somewhere to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

Waiting in the airport for our awesome trip.

Photo by Reid Priedhorsky.
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Once in Las Vegas, we picked up our rental cars, futzed around gathering food and fuel, and then headed out of town towards Escalante, Utah, where we had two rooms booked at the Circle D Motel.

This turned out to be an adventure.

First the road looked like this.

Photo by Ben Miller.
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Then the road looked like this.

Photo by Katie Panciera.
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Then the road looked like this.

Photo by Ben Miller.
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Andy Exley adds: As a native Minnesotan, I like to think that I’ve seen and been in more nasty snow conditions than the average person. However, these conditions trumped most things I’ve been through. I’ve been in near-blizzard conditions before; that was nothing new. I’ve also been on roads without lighting in such conditions. There were two things that made this drive truly harrowing: first, a lack of other cars, and thus a lack of tire tracks in the road, or even anything other than subtle hints about where the road actually was. Second, the fact that often times one side of the road had a 500 foot drop-off. The second condition especially is much more rare in Minnesota. I was glad that I was not driving.

Fortunately, the snow was only truly horrible in the first of the two mountain ranges we had to cross, so we were only about 90 minutes behind schedule and the motel dude was still up to let us in. We went to the Cowboy Blues for supper and called it a night.

Please continue reading on Day 1.

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