On top of the world... or at least Arizona.

As I've said before, research and the PhD in general is an up and down kind of existence. After two years in the business, I've come to the realization that you don't necessarily have to be smart to get a PhD, but you have to be persistent and very dedicated. After going months without unambiguous results, a weaker scientist might go crazy, but finally on Friday I had not one, but TWO positive results that I am 100% certain about. Running from the dark room after developing a positive Western blot and doing a little dance across the lab is a totally acceptable form of celebration, and that's exactly what I did on Friday. Twice. And then, because I knew that asking for three positive results in one day was a bit much, I got the heck outta the lab.

Just to be safe, I got out of the Valley. I packed the Jeep with my bike and camping gear, and on Saturday morning, Hannah, Martin (one of Hannah's coworkers), and I headed up to Flagstaff for some high elevation adventures. The Valley of the Sun sits at just over 1,000 feet above sea level. Downtown Flagstaff sits at about 7,000. But we weren't interested in downtown Flagstaff, so we kept on going... up. We drove up and around the base of the mountains, being careful not to hit bikers that were laboring up the steep incline for the Summit Center Classic. Seven miles and 2,000 meters of elevation later, we arrived at the parking lot of the Arizona Snowbowl and the trailhead of the Mt. Humphreys Trail. In three hours, we had gained 8,000 feet by car, and we still had another 3,600 to climb: by foot. The scenery and weather could not have been more beautiful, and we started through the Snowbowl meadow a little after 9 a.m. Wild irises and several other wildflowers (I'm still learning their names) dotted the landscape of the out-of-season bunny slopes, with the lonely chair lifts hanging idly in the light breeze. We crossed the meadow into a cool pine and quaking aspen forest, and started to climb. It was a gentle climb at first, but we could definitely feel the difference in the altitude as our hearts and lungs tried to adjust to the change in oxygen and pressure as we switchbacked up through the forest. Wildflowers abounded: from Solomon's seal to primroses to bracken-like ferns. As we continued to gain elevation, the flora continually changed until there were no longer aspen trees, and only the tall pines loomed above us. An hour and a half into the climb, we could see out over the ski slopes and into the actual "bowl" of Snowbowl. I haven't snowboarded there yet, but it certainly looks like an incredible place. We continued climbing until we were on the saddle of the mountain, where we could see the first of the three false summits. A few patches of snow remained, even with the temperatures in the 70s. The further we climbed, the fewer and smaller the trees became until we finally reached the last of the gnarled, windswept survivors on the border of Arizona's tundra. Mt. Humphreys is an extinct volcano, and the lava rocks in conjunction with the remaining snow and moss-like plants that live on the upper third of the mountain look more at home in the Arctic than in the Grand Canyon state. Even though we could feel our heartbeats in our heads, we kept on going past the next two false summits (which we hardly noticed, as we had been warned of them beforehand) and finally onto the real summit: 12,637 feet above sea level. From the top, we could see for miles in all directions, and could barely make out the Grand Canyon to our north. With clouds rolling in, it created a really cool atmosphere at the top. I was surprised at how many people were up there: it was almost like a Flagstaff Camelback instead of the highest point in Arizona. We had passed and been passed by dozens of people (some of whom were running up the mountain), and there were over 20 on top when we arrived. Temperatures were in the low 50s, but the weather held for us and it wasn't even very windy at the top. As we started to head down, I really began to feel the altitude. My head pounded with every heartbeat and my eyes watered a little bit, but the three of us kept going, enjoying the expansive views in front of us. Hannah and her knee did brilliantly, and we descended at a pretty good pace. When we were back down below 11,000 feet, I had to stop and squat behind a tree... and when I got up, I had what I can only describe as the worst head rush I have ever felt. I felt like my entire brain was going to explode and I felt dizzy and a bit sick. I couldn't think straight, and Hannah helped the situation by teaching us her newfound knowledge of pulmonary and cerebral edema. Fortunately, Martin had taken to photographing a caterpillar, so I sat down again and got some sugar, water, and Tylenol into my system and felt a little better. I can't even imagine what its like to climb Everest if that little bit of altitude did that to me. No worries, I won't be climbing that one anytime soon. The rest of the hike down was good though, and we arrived back at the cars tired but satisfied with a good climb.

We headed back to town, and with the additional 2,000 feet elevation drop, my head felt great again. We had some burritos downtown, and then Martin and Hannah returned to Phoenix. I chilled in town for a bit, waiting for Pierre and Evelyn to finish up their biking for the day. I perused the many local adventure and bike shops, and spent some time reading about the local wildflowers until I realized how bad I smelled, so I bought a book and headed out to one of the local parks and read until the early evening. Pierre and Evelyn got into town around 7 p.m., and we chilled at a local coffee shop for a bit before driving down to Lake Mary. I had never been to that part of Arizona (12 miles south of Flag), and even though it was dark out, the moon shone down on the long lake silhouetted by dark pines and made a beautiful scene. Since there were no showers at the campground, we went for a late night swim in the cold, but very refreshing water. Millions of stars lit up the night sky, and I haven't felt so much at peace since nights on the ocean. After we dried off a bit, we headed to camp, snacked on trail mix and freeze-dry, and crashed into the tent. In the morning, we packed up camp, headed back into town for breakfast, and then drove up to Mt. Elden for some killer mountain biking. The route we chose was the Mt. Elden loop, an 18.5 mile series of trails that wound around the mountain. It was supposed to be aerobically challenging (all the more because of the elevation) at the beginning and fast and fun at the end. It certainly did not disappoint. The first few miles of singletrack were hardpacked dirt and gently inclined. We were breathing hard, but it wasn't anything too bad. Then, we took a wrong turn on one of the trails and started switchbacking straight up the mountain. We figured that the first part of the ride was supposed to be tough, so we just went with it, and besides, the scenery made up for the hard work we were putting in. Pines and boulders were scattered about mountain meadows filled with hundreds of different wildflowers, and the crisp cool air filled our overworked lungs. For two miles we continued upwards until we came to a shoulder on the mountain. We looked at our map and realized that we were going the wrong way, but rather than continuing along the shoulder, we decided to get back on track, which meant that we had to back down. Within 30 seconds, we had forgotten all the toil that it had taken to reach the top, and we just let gravity do its thing. It was the best downhill I've done yet. What it lacked in technicality, it made up for with its fast descent, small jumps, curving track, and incredible scenery. I didn't pedal for two miles, and it was beautiful. We enjoyed more of the rolling singletrack once we had gotten back on the correct trail, and the joyride lasted for several miles afterwards. As we went along, the trail got more technical with a few rock gardens and gnarly descents injected into the trail just for adrenaline junkies like us. The entire forest was absolutely gorgeous, the temperature was perfect, and with the exception of a downhill biker coming down a sidetrail every once in awhile, we had the place largely to ourselves. Every few miles or so, we would wait for each other to catch up and we'd just stand there grinning at each other like hyenas. We were in heaven. The perfection couldn't last though, and after 12 miles, we came upon another 800 meters of a long, sandy uphill, so we stopped in the shade at the top for a bite of lunch and a chance to rest our happy muscles. We continued on for another 5 miles of mixed trail: a few sandy washes, a few more rolling hills, a few more climbs, and plenty of descending rock gardens that made for some great training and a lot of fun for me. By the time we reached the Pipeline trail, though, we were whooped, and the GPS said that we still had 3 miles to go to reach the car: in a straight line, which meant that we had 5 more by trail. We cranked up the doubletrack that ran along the gas pipeline and finally came to Elden Lookout Road. From there, it was either 2.2 miles on a trail called Rocky Ridge, or about 2.5 miles on the dirt road. Being the competitive people that we are, and Pierre being the Frenchman who doesn't quite understand the combination of "rocky" and "ridge," Evelyn and I raced Pierre back taking the road while he took the trail. We beat him by 8 minutes, and enjoyed watching him do push-ups when he returned. All in all, it was a great 22 mile ride.

After we baby-wiped the dust and grime off of ourselves, we went back to town for another burrito. Our original plan had been to head back to Lake Mary for some more swimming and kayaking, but after we were full of calories and cola, we lacked the motivation to do anything more. So, we hung out in Flagstaff for a bit longer, putting off the inevitable drive back down to the Valley for as long as we could. Finally, in the evening, we drove back down to the Valley that was literally and figuratively on fire. It was over 100 before I even got below 4000 feet, and off to the west of I-17, Crown King was burning. Huge plumes of smoke blocked out the sun beyond the mountains, and I had to turn on my lights through the haze. When I finally reached the Valley, smoke was still rising from the fires that had been burning all week down near the Gila River. Always looking on the bright side, I enjoyed the brilliant sunset that the smoke filled horizon created, and called it a day.

"There will be bumps."

We got back from the conference on Sunday in just enough time to turn around and head back down. By 8 a.m. on Monday morning, we were already on the road back to Tucson. It was a full incredibly motivating day, though. Although the conference covers a broad range of topics in both plant and animal biology, there were some very interesting, pertinent lectures that really held my attention and got me thinking about the next steps in my own research. I won't bore you with transient expression systems and plant based pharmaceuticals, but let me just say that it was awesome to a nerd like myself. It's also an incredible place to network. During the student networking lunch, our main speaker was an industry research scientist who went through his entire career path, noting the "bumps" that occurred along the way and how he coped with the occupational hazards that the sometimes sadistic life of a researcher can entail. I'm pretty sure that his favorite words were: "there will be bumps." We weren't sure if his talk was meant to comfort us during the rough times or inspire us to get the heck out of research, but he made certain that we all knew that there would be bumps in our lives.

The rest of the day went well, but Matoba didn't present until later in the evening, and by the time we got back to Tempe, it was 11 p.m. It wouldn't have been so bad except that Pierre and I had an adventure planned for the next day: biking from Tempe to Tucson.

After going over our course and getting a few hours of sleep, Pierre and I returned to campus at 5 a.m. to start our epic ride. We were stoked and our adrenaline overcame our tiredness as we rolled out of town. We did great for the first 10 miles or so, starting our adventure in the cool morning air. Then about 15 miles into it, my back tire went flat and I learned how to change a road tire. The only problem was that I only had one spare and 85 miles to go... We laughed when we thought of the speaker: we had hit our first bump of the day. But we kept going and about two miles later we got to some minor construction where the bike lane was closed. So we hopped up on the sidewalk (we barely noticed the cones at the beginning) and continued on our 20 mph pace when we suddenly came up on another rider who slammed on his brakes directly in front of Pierre. I was several feet behind when I saw Pierre go flying, skidding along the concrete like a pro baseball player into home plate... if baseball players wore spandex and clipless shoes and slid into home with a road bike. Another bump for us today. I have no clue what the workers were doing to "fix" the sidewalk, but it looked like they had either turned the thing to ice or had smothered it in butter. Either way, it was SUPER slick. Fortunately for me, I managed to stop before I joined him. A little shaken and with a huge white smear down his right side, Pierre got up and we continued on. Our day had already hit a few bumps, so we were hoping that karma would be kind, but a few miles later, Pierre's back tire busted... and I mean busted. Not only was the tube shot, his actual tire was ripped. Ridiculous. Lots of bumps. But there wasn't anything we could do but fix the tire, so that's what we did. And as I did, I set my Camelback down on its tube, and all of my water in the bladder leaked out (fortunately, I had two more bottles). At this point, it was almost funny. He put his only spare tube in and attempted to patch the actual tire while I called Angel to try to find a store to buy some spare tubes and a new tire, as I knew that we weren't going to make the additional 80 miles without them. At first, we raced to catch up with another road cyclist to see if he knew of anything, but he turned out to be a German biker who hardly spoke English, much less knew of any stores in the area. So, a police officer (who gave us directions early in our ride and then later watched us get our 2nd flat) pointed us in the direction of a Lowe's hardware store (which of course didn't have anything that we needed), before Angel called back with directions to a Target. So, we then headed 5 miles back up north to a little shopping area with a Big 5 Sports that opened at 10 a.m., a Target that opened at 8, and a Basha's that was already open. So, we each got a liter of orange juice and sat outside of Target like homeless people for 30 mins before it opened. At 8, Pierre went inside and bump... bump... bump... they didn't have anything for road bikes. Ug. It was already hot, and we were really disappointed about the not so epic start to our epic ride. At that point, we had three options: a)., Evelyn could come and give us spare tubes and we could continue on hoping that Pierre's tire would hold out, b)., I could continue on alone, or c)., Evelyn could come rescue us and we would ride in the van with the rest of the lab. We figured that, as much as we hated it, we had to choose c. So, Ev came and got us, and dropped me off at home so I could at least get a shower, and I realized that I left my house keys in my bag at the lab. With my roommates gone, I laughed, sucked it up to the bumps of the day, broke into my room, showered, and headed to the lab to my confused labmates. It was a long drive down in our weary state, and Pierre and I couldn't even stay awake at the lectures (which with the exception of labmate Latha's presentation, were quite boring). We did, however, have an all-lab, all-out poster fight after all of our poster sessions were over, which added some spice to an otherwise bland conference day. Even though we were exhausted, we did get back to Tempe in time to change clothes (again), and head out to the Tuesday Papago race. I seriously thought I was going to puke or die or just fall over, but I finished and by the end I felt great. I did, however, cut the post-race fiesta short and went home and crashed hard.

On Wednesday, Pierre and I were the only ones to attend the conference, and even though we were still exhausted from the previous day's endeavors, we loved the presentations of new research in biofuels, and we even scouted out some routes on the way home and sneaked around the Biosphere II for a bit before returning to Tempe.

After such an eventful week, I decided to have an easy relaxing weekend. We played some sand volleyball on Friday night and went tubing on the Salt River on Saturday, and on Sunday I hardly did anything at all. And, believe it or not, it felt great!!! I was able to get a lot of stuff done around the house and spent the remainder of the day reading and relaxing by the pool. No worries though, I've got some exciting stuff planned for the next few weekends, so stay tuned!

I am alive... just busy!

So, yeah. It's been a very busy couple of weeks, and I know I've been slacking on the blogging... so I'm going to catch up in one big go. Here it is. :)

Two weeks ago, summer really arrived in Phoenix. Biking to work any time after 8 a.m. is torture, and no matter what time I bike home, I am dripping in sweat by the time I get to the house. Even our Tuesday evening mountain bike races have an added element to them. But, it's good training for what will be the norm until October. So, when Jack, Hannah, and I headed out to the McDowell Mountain Preserve at 8 a.m. for a ride around the competitive tracks, we knew that we were going to be in for some serious heat. We first rode the 9 mile Long Loop, which was great training for all of us: Hannah gained her confidence back on the mountain bike, Jack and I played around with climbing up and hopping rocks, and we all got an incredible workout on the steep hills. And since none of us had ever been on sport loop, we headed over to the 4 mile track. It is probably my favorite loop now in the Valley: it's just four miles smooth hardpacked singletrack filled with twists, turns, drops, and rolling hills. Despite the heat, it was a great time, and we even tooled around on the technical loop for a little bit before heading back to air conditioning and fruit smoothies. Jack and I spent the majority of the afternoon playing volleyball in the pool. At around 3 p.m., I realized that I was exhausted after a full day in the sun, but instead of taking a nap, I headed out to Benedict Park for an ultimate frisbee hat tournament. My team had a slow start and we lost our first game, but we came back and crushed the next two teams. By finals, I was completely knackered, but still managed to play a bit against the stacked and undefeated champions before going home and crashing.

On Sunday, I was still exhausted, but weekends are too precious to just spend indoors, so I dragged my butt out of bed, filled my Camelback with water, lunch, and a good book and drove out to Saguaro Lake. The oppressive dry heat was laughing at my feeble attempts to hike out to the cove, but somehow I slowly managed to walk the three miles before I plopped down on a secluded little sandy beach on the crowded lake. I spent the remainder of the day swimming, reading, and just generally relaxing.

The next week was another busy one in the lab. All of us in the Mor lab scurried around all week trying to get last minute results before making posters and presentations for a conference down in Tucson. This was severely inhibited by a seemingly harmless incident down in our growth chamber. When we noticed that the temperature in the normally hot, humid chamber where we grow our tobacco was cold, we called a facility maintenance guy to come fix it. On Monday night, he came out and fixed it... while breaking a mercury thermometer in the process. He casually mentioned it to Pierre and went along his merry way. So, on Tuesday when we were going in and out of the chamber, we didn't think anything about it until Pierre mentioned the thermometer to our lab manager. And then all hell broke loose. We weren't going to do anything about it except call Environmental Health and Safely to sweep up the mercury, but they made all of us who had entered the chamber go over to the Health Center to get mercury poisoning tests. We filled out paperwork and waited for the doctors over there until we were told that they didn't have the correct tubes to collect our blood. So, they sent us over to Tempe St. Lukes Hospital. There, we filled out more paperwork, waited some more, got our vitals taken, were asked a lot of questions, and then told that we should be fine, and to just go home. While they were typing out our paperwork, an ASU police officer came over and asked us more questions. He sent over 6 of his police cars and a Tempe Fire truck to our building, and evacuated the floor, blowing the entire thing completely out of proportion. It was a broken thermometer for goodness sakes! So, 4 hours after we had gone to the Health Center, we were finally released to go home. The next morning, we were told that we had to go BACK to the Health Center because they now had the correct collection tubes. So, we filled out more paperwork, had our vitals taken AGAIN, and then had our blood and urine taken. It was not my idea of a good time, and by the time we were done, we had wasted almost a full work day so that they could tell me that I probably had more mercury exposure in my post-Papago race fish tacos than in the actual mercury spill.

On Thursday, I got out of the craziness of the lab and headed down to (the Mexican border) Sierra Vista for a library presentation to a group of summer reading program kiddos. It was a great group of about 60 kids ranging from kindergarten to middle school, and even though it was our first real (ie. paid) presentation since the race, we manged to do really well - without even going over the slides together before the presentation.

During the rest of the week, I continued to fill out worker's comp papers (as I said, it was a crazy mess), printed out my poster, and got ready for our conference. I finally got a chance to breathe on Friday evening, and had a very relaxing time barbecuing, swimming, and making good use of a borrowed SOLS projector for a movie night in Kohl's backyard.

On Saturday, ODP finally got back together again. It's been a long time since the three of us went exploring together, so we decided to go somewhere new. We drove north on Hwy 87 that is our summer artery. In addition to being the road that leads to Tonto Creek and Fossil Creek, it also heads to Payson, where we turned onto Hwy 260 to Christopher Creek. The town of Christopher Creek is a little rustic resort area with lots of campgrounds and cabins, but its namesake creek is the real reason for going up there. We parked along the highway just past mile marker 271 and hiked down the trail past the tall pines and manzanita scrub to the creek itself. Not far from where the trail met the creek, we came to what is known as The Box, where the creek plunges over a small waterfall and into the start of a wonderful canyon. For the next two miles and four hours, we were awed by the incredible oasis in which we found ourselves. The creek blended all of the good parts of our favorite Arizona spots: it had the waterfalls of Fossil Creek, the canyons and smooth granite of Salome Creek, the water flow and rapids of Tonto Creek, and the unique, unexplainable beauty of Havasu Falls. We couldn't stop smiling as we rounded each corner to find a new waterfall, a slide, a wall to climb, or just a new breathtaking view. I know I say it with each new place that we find, but I think that the Box Canyon of Christopher Creek is my new favorite place. After climbing the canyon walls up and around a slippery fall, we spent lunch playing at one of the most beautiful falls, swimming in the massive pool below it, and basking on the sun warmed rocks at the end of it. Every fall was more impressive than the next, and after several hours, we came upon a 50' beast. It was too bad that we didn't have ropes (or the confidence in our independent rapping skills), as it would have been an awesome rappel, so we climbed around the sides of the canyons to avoid it before returning to some incredible rock formations and slots in the canyon. By the end of the day, we were tired, but very, very happy. We managed to find the creek and trail that took us back to 260 and walked along the highway for a short bit back to our car. We ended the day at a little restaurant in Payson (4 course homemade dinner for $12) and checked out the adjacent bike shop. The owner had only been in Payson for 9 months, but had a sweet little hiking/biking/adventure shop set up and has some fun ideas for trails and races in the area. I'm sure you'll hear more about him and the Payson biking scene in the future.

On Sunday, the three of us headed back out for some ODP heat survival training on our bikes in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. We hit Trail 100 at Dreamy Draw at 9 a.m. We were all tired from the day before, and the dry heat in combination with the steep trails felt like it was sucking the remaining life our of our bodies. I was feeling pretty crabby and lazy at the beginning, but fortunately, the training is good for us, and after awhile our bodies became more accustomed to the heat and I started having fun bombing down some gnarly rocky trails. It was a bit too fun though, and I didn't want to turn around even though I knew I had to be showered, dressed up, and ready for our drive down to Tucson for our conference at 11:30 a.m. By 10:00, we tried to get off the trails to cut across Cave Creek back to the parking lot, and ended up traversing up and down the suburban labyrinth instead. By 10:15 I was nowhere near the Jeep, and I started getting a bit nervous. I left Hannah and Angel behind and started sprinting towards Northern, the only road I knew in the area. I finally figured it out and got back to Dreamy Draw at 10:30. I sped back down the 51 and back to Tempe with just enough time to shower and change. I made it to campus with my hair still wet and just barely presentable for the conference, but I did make it.

Two hours later, we arrived at the Hilton El Conquistador Resort, nestled in the mountains, for the Annual World Congress of the Society for In Vitro Biology. It was a very motivational and inspiring day, listening to some amazing scientists present their research and standing by my own poster and explaining my research to others. By the end of the day, though, I was definitely whooped, and we drove back late that night, only to get up early and do it again the next day...

...And back to the AZ heat.

Although I greatly enjoyed my trip back to the land of green humidity, I returned to the Valley's dry heat. We've been fairly lucky this year with only a few days above 100, but I returned to full out summer. I spent the week days in the air-conditioned lab screening my (hopefully) Gag expressing stable line plants. I was like a new mother the way I coddled the 152 baby explants. It's taken me over two months of work to develop these genetically engineered cuties, and I couldn't be more proud. I am such a nerd when it comes to these things... but it is a very exciting time in my project. I spent the evenings and Saturday morning moving out of our old house and into Jack's place, and by the time that I swept the floor one last time, I was definitely ready to relax.

It's just too bad that by noon on Saturday, it was hovering around 100. Nevertheless, Kohl and I have a reputation for being crazy to keep, so we headed out for a Greenbelt ride anyways. We had a great ride along the bike path up past Scottsdale, stopping now and then in the shade to cool off. After riding several miles up past the golf courses and parks, we took the canal path back to Old Town for a lunch at Salty Senoritas where we enjoyed a great meal and the return of the misters on the porch. We rode back through Canal Park and back into Tempe in the late afternoon.

That evening, I headed to Dan's house for the annual Missing Links bike swap. If you needed anything at all for your bike, it was there, and someone was trying to get rid of it. It was a great social event with barbecue and lots of stories. My favorite part of the night was when a big group of us were standing around swapping stories, and we all went around the circle showing off our scars that we obtained while riding in Papago. It turns out that I'm not the only one (other than Hannah, of course) who has had a bad wipeout in the park. It was a great event, and by the end of the night I had gotten a cheap 24HOP jersey, a pair of socks, a bike computer, and a smokin' deal on..... A ROAD BIKE!!! Yes, me, the die hard mountain biker, bought a Trek 2500 with full Dur-ace components (brakes, derailleurs, shifters and cranks). It's a beauty and a wonderful addition to the family of bikes that Jack and I have in the garage (we have 3 each, plus his 4 motorcycles). So, bring on the streets and triathlons and long morning rides. I can't wait!

On Sunday, Angel, Christie, and her friend Amber and I returned to Tonto Creek for some more in-depth adventuring. Hannah took a big group out there for Memorial Day weekend, but with more than a dozen people and several dogs, they didn't get to explore the canyon as much as they would have liked, and so Angel and I were excited to see what else the beautiful place had to offer. We hiked to the creek and didn't even stop at the Narrows, continuing on further upstream to where we spent some time jumping off of smaller cliffs and swimming around. From the vantage point of our jumping ledges, the larger cliff that Hannah and I scouted the first time loomed upstream. Since Haydon had jumped it when they were there last weekend, I needed to validate my coolness and jump as well. The first time that I stood on top of the cliff, it was windy and cold, and the water looked like it was miles below us. When I climbed up there again, it didn't look any less far, but at least it was warmer. I stared at the water for more time than was necessary, and it almost cost me the jump. I have to admit that my legs were shaking as my mind began nominating me for the Darwin Award. But, I had to do it. Finally, I leaped off of the rock wall into nothingness. I think I reached terminal velocity sometime between the initial leap and my water shoes smacking into the deep pool. It was the best rush I had experienced in a long time. Truly awesome. Even though my nose was bleeding from the impact, the jump was fairly harmless and sooo much fun. I wanted to go back up again, but since we still had a lot of exploring to do, we continued on upstream. We boulder hopped our way up for awhile until Christie and Amber decided to hang out on the warm rocks, and Angel and I continued up further. Just a few hundred meters up from where the other two stopped, we came to a massive deep pool that had an equally massive slick granite boulder sitting smack dab in the middle of it. It was too much to resist, so Angel an I slid around for a few minutes in an attempt to scale the slippery beast before pulling ourselves up to the top. The slide down was awesome! Every face of the rock was slidable, and for the next hour, we hauled ourselves up and slid down like little sea otters having the time of our lives. When we realized that the other two weren't going to be joining us, we continued our explorations by climbing the cliffs, jumping back down again, and then heading more upstream. We finally came to a waterfall as the canyon walls closed in. The water was flowing fast, but I managed to swim under and behind the falls and finally managed to climb the slippery walls adjacent to the fall until I was above it. Looking up from the falls, I realized that the best was yet to come. Angel stayed behind, but I just had to keep exploring, so I went another 3/4 of a mile beyond the waterfall. Around every corner and above every rapid was a new area that awed me. Similar to Salome Creek, smooth pink granite abounded with smaller waterfalls and many additional slide rocks. I could have continued on forever, but I eventually turned around to join the group again. The return trip to the waterfall was great fun, and I just let the water carry me down the slick rock. By the time I got back to Angel, I was worn out but very satisfied with the day's explorations. I jumped back down the cliff and we rejoined the others for a bit of lunch and the hike/swim back. The creek would be absolutely perfect if it wasn't for the stream/string worms. These little black suckers attach themselves to every single rock by use of a small silklike thread in the fast flowing current, and when you try to slide down the rocks, they come with you... all over you. By the end of the day, we were all covered in the creepy little worms, but it was worth it. We hardly had to walk at all as we just let the current do all of the work. Finally, after a few more cliff jumps, we made it back to the Narrows. Several drunk guys were jumping off of ledges bigger than the one I had jumped before, and we wanted to get out of there before we had to witness someone really hurt themselves, so we collected a bit of their trash that was lying around and headed back to the trailhead and then Phoenix. I spent the evening chilling (literally, after Cold Stone ice cream and the sunset, it was actually quite cool in Phoenix) with some friends at Suda's pool and then called it a weekend.