The first day we participated in a COPE course. It was a challenging and fun adventure. The first step was to climb the "giant's ladder." This was a a series of six 'rungs', each about 5 feet above the one below. The rungs were not held steady to the ground, but instead hung by ropes from a support above. This made them swing wildly as you climbed. Of course we were harnessed in and supported by belay from below, but is was still a major challenge. Taylor got up pretty quickly. I huffed and puffed my way through, but finally reached the top. At the top we were 35 feet above the ground. We then went through multiple obstacles at this high elevation. The final reward was a trip down a zip line. Lots of fun. I'm proud to say that though I barely made it, I made it! Here's a picture and video of Taylor:
That afternoon we did downhill mountain biking. This was the highlight of the trip. We rented REALLY awesome and REALLY, REALLY expensive mountain bikes. We took the ski lift up and then rode down. We had so much fun! We spent most of the time on a run with a lot of jumps. These were tabletop jumps with a long flat surface in between the up ramp and the down ramp. After the first few runs, both of us started catching air on most of the jumps. I haven't had so much fun on a bike since I was a teenager. Taylor was pretty aggressive. He took one big fall which resulted in several scrapes, but he got right back on and went to town. He started getting a lot of air. Great memories!
Here we are in our gear:
The next day we took a beautiful hike around Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park. It was eight miles round trip and we kept up a pretty good pace. In the end we were rewarded with a magnificent waterfall and a view over the lake at Inspiration Point:
That afternoon we went whitewater rafting. Fun trip, but a bit too cold to fully enjoy it. The weather was ok, but the water in the Snake River was brutal. The last morning we went on a more enjoyable float down a different section of the Snake. Again we went through Grand Teton and had beautiful views of the Teton Range. What a rugged and picturesque section of the rockies.
We had a great trip. I'm grateful that my son is still willing to let me come along! We were all pretty exhausted on the way home:)
-Jer
