Robbers Roost

Every summer the young men in our church go on some type of high adventure outing.  Last summer it was up in Idaho for a day of rafting on the Salmon River, some mountain biking, and gold mine exploring.  This summer my husband decided to do a hike that he did about 8 years ago with a different group of boys and men in Robbers Roost, not far from Hanksville, Utah.  It's called Robbers Roost because this is where Butch Cassidy and his gang hid from law enforcement.  It's a very isolated place and difficult to access with absolutely no cell phone coverage.

Ever since a bad accident happened about 3 years ago on another high adventure outing, I have worried more about these trips.  And Scott wanted to be more prepared for a possible emergency.  So he rented a satellite phone to take with them.  Fortunately he didn't need it.  The only injury was Scott smashing his toenail.  We can handle that.

The hike 8 years ago was a little worrisome because water was a scarce commodity.  One boy got dehydrated not from a lack of water but because he refused to drink warm water.  One of the leaders was an anesthesiologist and just happened to bring an IV bag!  So he hooked up the dehydrated boy and everything was fine.  I think that's what you do when you're an anesthesiologist--if you have a hammer, everything needs hammering.  It was a fun trip and my oldest two boys enjoyed themselves, as did Scott.

There were a lot of really narrow slot canyons to hike through.  Everett's new backpack didn't hold up very well. 

This year, water was a little easier to find since May was cool and had good rainfall.  All six adult leaders brought filters and were very focused on replenishing their water supplies whenever possible.

They drove down on Wednesday afternoon and camped near the cars.  Thursday they hiked almost 8 miles, with 4 rappels.  Friday was one rappel and almost 12 miles of hiking.  This was rewarded with a dip in the Dirty Devil River, which is more of a really muddy creek.  When you live in the desert, any amount of water can be a river.

This is a pretty cool picture of a rappel that was done into water so the sky you see at the bottom of the picture is the reflection in the water.  The boy at the top is Talmage's good friend and his dad is helping him at the bottom.

Talmage was pretty happy that he got to sleep in his hammock on two of the three nights.

Everett pretended to hate the oatmeal they had for breakfast but I'm sure he secretly enjoyed it!

Saturday morning they hiked out the last 2 miles and then drove home, stopping in Price to eat at Wendy's.

Now Scott has taken four of his six boys on this hike.  Maybe he can take the other two who missed out next spring when they're on break from college.  I'm really glad that Scott enjoys these activities and likes to take the boys on these adventures.