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We packed up some climbing equipment, a few energy bars and some water, and headed up the wash. Marshall insisted on going first, but Forrest & I went up the talus slope inside the arc (which was extremely portable-handhold-ridden) to set up a fixed line for easy subsequent ascents. You see, we had to launch from the top of the talus pile to get the proper velocity. Marshall began coiling the rope in his backpack as he walked up the talus slope. When he reached the static line, he whipped out his handy-dandy jumar and effortlessly grunted up to the top (a process taking about 10 minutes). Once he was at the top, we pulled the rope as tight as we could (using another jumar to keep it from sproinking us into space), anchored it with a yellow alien, tied Marshall to it by his prussic, watched the look of abject terror on his face, and pushed him off as we cackled with glee! Strange sounds emanated from his vocal cords as his speed increased to near terminal velocity. Then the rope caught and he was whisked like a broom out into the virtually endless empty space confined within the arc, moving ever farther until he was but a speck in the distant sunlight.

Of course, seeing how much fun he had, we were all clamoring for the next chance to do it. I was next, and I must say it was a very singular experience. For a few seconds, you rush along just above the disheveled rock of the talus pile, worried that you'll lose your arm or your ear or your stomach to a gaping mouth of one of those viscous rocks skimming at times less than a foot away from one or more of those body parts. Then everything becomes quiet except the wind (as you have by then used up your daily allocation of high-decibel sound emittance), and you continue your journey outward and everything becomes euphoric. Wind this way, wind that way; the sun, rocks, people and most other things diminish in importance compared to the wind, which is your friend. Aaaahhhhhh...

Anyway, back to reality. When you're done swinging, you just yank the coil of rope out of the backpack, drop it to the ground, use a jumar to take the weight off the prussic, undo it, and rappel down into the hands of the waiting stickerbush. In all, we did 7 swings. Marshall and I got to do it twice (we were the ones who paid for the rope anyway). The most significant comment after the experience came from Andrea, who said "It's better than any orgasm!". Tim was happy to hear that.

Despite the thrill, we went to bed with not quite as much satisfaction as we had the night before (which had been a hard-to-beat 100%).

The next day we had the arduous chore of retrieving our rope. We ditched a bunch of the gear in the middle of a big grass prairie that looked like an African savanna and piled into Marshall's Xterra. Forrest and Marshall made me and Tim haul the rope back. Sorry, kryptobiotic soil... :( Since it wasn't particularly late, we decided to get in a bit of climbing on the Potash road. There stands the greatest portion of true sport climbs in the Moab area. The cool part about it is you can belay from your bumper with salt trucks whipping by at 50 and listen to Techno all at the same time! Whee! We drove back to Moab with the intention of a scrump-diddly-umptious meal at Eddie McStiffs. It was pretty crowded, being a Friday night, and the experience was far inferior to any I'd had there before. They'd done something to the beer that they said made it go down "smoother". It just tasted like water to me... But the dinner was good, and free for me, 'cause it was my birthday & my supercool friends picked up the tab :).

We found our beloved campsite in Long Canyon (near Jughandle Arch just off the Potash road) and made a white-man fire and drank some coldies from the growlers we brought from Eddie McStiffs. It didn't seem so watery as time went on, or at least it didn't seem to matter so much...

The next day was to be Andrea's last day with us, and she was sad to leave despite all the crass talk she'd had to put up with from us, so we all stayed up very late under the light of the ever-present Hale-Bopp with the spaceship obviously trailing behind it. Since Andrea had to be at Green River to catch the bus back to SLC at 4:30 on Saturday, we decided to hit the Fiery Furnace for a while. The Fiery Furnace is a veritable maze of rock, taking up about 2 square miles, which is plenty big enough with that sort of landscape to get lost in for many hours. So we got lost in it for many hours. We went up, down, forward, backward, left, right, and every combination thereof, in a sea of red rock, sand, and fortunately very few bugs. I got roadrash on my leg though, which is quite painful if you haven't experienced it before... (or even if you have)...

When we finally managed to find our way out of that wretched place, we had to hurry to Green River, where we had fries with ranch sauce and watched as Andrea blazed off in the bus. It was sad to see her leave, but we had high satisfaction levels and a head full of memories good until our next adventure.

— Dan Aylward, Livin' the Life for MountainZone.com