This Is What Happens When You Run With Liars

My brother-in-law Matt is a liar. Just ask anyone who knows him. When he takes you out on a trail that is "around six miles" you finish with ten. On a trail that "isn't too bad" you get to points where you hope your life insurance is up to date. You always expect to get a little more than you bargained for.

Last week was no exception. We started early in the morning and headed toward the Babylon area of southern Utah.

Soon we had our first river crossing. You wouldn't know it from the picture, but that river is actually water. Not chocolate milk.

It was really cool to see the layers of rock that the river had cut through.

We came to this cool little arch that the trail actually goes through. 

The trail had some amazing slick rock with so many layers and waves of different colors. I had a hard time putting my camera away here.

Then we started climbing to the top of a mountain. Along the way we saw an island of rock that seemed to be begging us to climb it. Matt went up first. When he was up there I yelled and asked how the dropoff was on the back side. He said "Well, if you fell you'd get hurt pretty bad but you wouldn't die." Super comforting. I climbed up next and he snapped this picture of me at the top.

Then we climbed some more. We got to the top of a steep, rocky mountain. The sun was getting warm and we decided to try to find an alternate route back to the bottom. I didn't get any good pictures of this section but the descent was really long, really steep, and really technical. I was ecstatic that I didn't roll an ankle.

To get back to the car we crossed the river again. We crossed in a different spot that proved to be more treacherous. It was nearly crotch deep and flowing very fast. It was hard to get one foot in front of the other without falling in. 

I suppose liars are the best people to run with. They get you out of your comfort zone and help you experience something you wouldn't see on your own.