Last January I was asked by my Stake President to work with a community within our Stake that would be willing to work with us on National Make a Difference Day (Oct 22 this year). Because we had our youth serve in Tolleson the year before I reached out to Avondale. I sent a letter to the Mayor asking to be put in contact with the appropriate person and a few days later I had an email from Gina.
From the early stages they were excited as they had never done a project of this magnitude before . . . neither had I. I had been part of a project of this size (we initially offered 500 volunteers) but had never been in charge of the entire project. Avondale soon let us know that they'd be interested in a smaller of 250 or so. With this information our Stake Relief Society President was asked to reach out to Tolleson and to make arrangements to be part of their service project on the same day.
One thing led to the next, and an Eagle Scout candidate took on early stages of one house to get it ready for our project. The week arrived and we had a HUGE dinner of 650+ people on Friday night where our Spanish speaking wards prepared an amazing meal. We had a presentation by our Mission President on Mormon Helping Hands in the Haiti earthquake aftermath and then we let the attendants know what was happening at the project the next day. Avondale and Tolleson staff spoke on the great contribution this project would have on the community and expressed their gratitude. It was a totally successful dinner with many contributing to make it all happen.
Saturday began with breakfast burritos being cooked in time for the volunteers to arrive. We fed everyone with plenty left over. We made a last minute change sending 40 of our volunteers to Tolleson as they were short a few volunteers. We then went out to complete our project and our captains working with the Avondale city staff captains was a perfect approach. Our volunteers were assigned to work to their strengths and so youth and mature volunteer's skills were combined for the perfect compliment making each of the houses look amazing and every project was completed in a few hours and people went home knowing that they had accomplished something great.
Afterwards I communicated with staff at Avondale and they were happy with our organizational skills, our ability to take a couple hundred people (380+ participated) and break them into teams, perform meticulous service and work in such a cohesive way. I was so happy to be part of such an amazing organization.
Sunday morning I woke up and had this overwhelming sense of gratitude to all of the key players that had lightened my load and made this project a success. Though I'm sure there were more that I didn't know about, I wrote thank you notes through the morning and then went to our three stake buildings finding those that had contributed to personally deliver the thank you notes.
I know that Mormon Helping Hands is a key way for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to create a positive public affairs image and to give us a way to focus our energy in serving as Christ would have us serve. Our church's image was improved in these two communities and people realize that we care and we want to help and follow Christ's example.
Yesterday I dropped some stuff off at the Avondale staff location and met one of the Avondale captains - she was so impressed and she had one of the smaller team (because we sent 40 people to Tolleson). She had my son on her team and they knocked out the project in a few hours. She just kind of gushed about the project. I was already thrilled with our success and her comments just made the impact much more intense. It's good to be remembered, but better to be remembered in a good way. Success, Success, Success! I couldn't be happier!
Andrew "couldn’t be happier” Brown
Thursday, October 27, 2011
4 Decades Old
Yesterday I turned 40, it was a great day and I got to be surrounded by the people I love most. I got calls from distant family members, I got emails and cards from folks I care about.
I'm excited for this next decade as I try and make it the best decade of my life yet. That will be difficult cause I've had some amazing decades already.
Thanks to all of my amazing family for 40 great years, for my friends I've made along the way. The love and loss that has occured has made me who I am today . . . and I am a very happy person!
Andrew "gonna make this decade great" Brown
I'm excited for this next decade as I try and make it the best decade of my life yet. That will be difficult cause I've had some amazing decades already.
Thanks to all of my amazing family for 40 great years, for my friends I've made along the way. The love and loss that has occured has made me who I am today . . . and I am a very happy person!
Andrew "gonna make this decade great" Brown
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Nankoweap - Grand Canyon North Rim Hike 2011
Larry Orwig invited me on a trip many moons ago and despite my best efforts to solicit this trip to my friends, Larry and I where the only participants. Nankoweap is classified as the hardest hike in the Grand Canyon National Park but it is also listed with the most rewarding views. I've been to Thunder River and Deer Creek on the North Rim; so envisioning something more rewarding than that really appealed to me.
Monday we got up and on the trail at 7am and charged up Tilted Mesa (yeah right). It took us 4 hours to climb (not hike, this was climbing). We got there and met a man "not feeling well" that refused our offers of water, food, minerals etc . . . we later heard back from the Park Service that he and his brother did get out safely. We were worried when he made the comment "This would be a great place to die". Yeah, that's nice for you while we all suffer from survivor’s guilt! Honestly though, we were so worried about getting our own hides out of the abyss, we didn't really know how to get him out too. Hiking from Tilted Mesa to Marion Point was more scary now cause frankly the trail doesn't exist for large portions and is very sketchy in even more places. Many times, hiking out I would step on a "secure" looking part of the trail and watch that part of the "trail" crumble and slide off into the abyss, leaving yet another void for future hikers. At Marion Point (a location that Larry had GRACIOUSLY cached 10 liters of water the weekend before, we had used 3 liters when we were going down, 2 liters was stolen by others and then we had 5 liters for meals and hydration coming out) we setup camp after having endured a slight rain from Tilted Mesa. We got our tents up just in time to dive in as it started pouring on us. After it stopped, we adjusted to ensure a drier experience if it rained again (Thanks Rachel for the suggestion to bring the Shammy - lifesaver!) and then made dinner . . . at this point I enjoyed my meal for 2 so much that I had another (feeling safe with all the water at our cache) and so I ended up eating 4 meals of freeze dried beef stew - DELICIOUS! As fate would have it, it started raining again and so we dove into our tents and then during the hardest part of the rain I heard voices asking if they could share our campsite. We got out after the rain and greeted the new arrivals - 3 men drenched, a day late from their itinerary and loving every minute of it. Shortly after salutations, it rained again and we all went to bed.
We started out our hik
e Friday AM, camping just outside of the park that night so the Saturday AM we could charge our way down into Nankoweap and see those rewarding views. While the distance is only 14 miles from the trail head to the Colorado River, the distance is deceiving since the trail is barely more than a goat trail in the best sections. This made the going slow, lots of climbing over rocks, skirting the edge of a cliff while trying not to slide off into the abyss. In short it took us 1.5 hours from truck to Park perimeter, 1.5 hours to Marion Point (Sat AM), 2 hours to the top of Tilted Mesa, 2+ hours down to Nankoweap campground. The thing is you are level with the South Rim at Tilted Mesa and then you do the complete drop down into the canyon from there, so in 2 hours and 4 miles we dropped 4,000 feet and I was absolutely drained, dehydrated (didn't bring enough water from the truck) and just short of passing out when we got to the river.
e Friday AM, camping just outside of the park that night so the Saturday AM we could charge our way down into Nankoweap and see those rewarding views. While the distance is only 14 miles from the trail head to the Colorado River, the distance is deceiving since the trail is barely more than a goat trail in the best sections. This made the going slow, lots of climbing over rocks, skirting the edge of a cliff while trying not to slide off into the abyss. In short it took us 1.5 hours from truck to Park perimeter, 1.5 hours to Marion Point (Sat AM), 2 hours to the top of Tilted Mesa, 2+ hours down to Nankoweap campground. The thing is you are level with the South Rim at Tilted Mesa and then you do the complete drop down into the canyon from there, so in 2 hours and 4 miles we dropped 4,000 feet and I was absolutely drained, dehydrated (didn't bring enough water from the truck) and just short of passing out when we got to the river.So here is the k
icker, those amazing views at Nankoweap have been swept away earlier by a flashflood! The entire creek area is no longer sandy beaches and amazing views, it is all now boulders with pockets of sand trapped between them. The beaches are gone and to hike down stream is more like rock hopping. Fortunately I love rock hopping!! We stayed the night getting water from the creek/spring and trying to refuel.
icker, those amazing views at Nankoweap have been swept away earlier by a flashflood! The entire creek area is no longer sandy beaches and amazing views, it is all now boulders with pockets of sand trapped between them. The beaches are gone and to hike down stream is more like rock hopping. Fortunately I love rock hopping!! We stayed the night getting water from the creek/spring and trying to refuel. Sunday we hiked down to the Colorado River (2-3 miles) making a detour to the granaries. It was supposed to be a light day since Larry and I had decided to cut our hike one day short since the side trails that we were previously thinking of hiking involved some major elevations and our promised Nankoweap views were no more. Along the Nankoweap confluence and the granaries were occupied with many rafting parties. We got down from the granaries and hung out with some boatmen (guides) refilling our water supply from them and having dinner on the beach downstream from the confluence. We then hiked up to the confluence of Nankoweap and back to camp. At camp we had one more series of refueling and hydrating in preparation of the hike out to Marion Point the next day.
Monday we got up and on the trail at 7am and charged up Tilted Mesa (yeah right). It took us 4 hours to climb (not hike, this was climbing). We got there and met a man "not feeling well" that refused our offers of water, food, minerals etc . . . we later heard back from the Park Service that he and his brother did get out safely. We were worried when he made the comment "This would be a great place to die". Yeah, that's nice for you while we all suffer from survivor’s guilt! Honestly though, we were so worried about getting our own hides out of the abyss, we didn't really know how to get him out too. Hiking from Tilted Mesa to Marion Point was more scary now cause frankly the trail doesn't exist for large portions and is very sketchy in even more places. Many times, hiking out I would step on a "secure" looking part of the trail and watch that part of the "trail" crumble and slide off into the abyss, leaving yet another void for future hikers. At Marion Point (a location that Larry had GRACIOUSLY cached 10 liters of water the weekend before, we had used 3 liters when we were going down, 2 liters was stolen by others and then we had 5 liters for meals and hydration coming out) we setup camp after having endured a slight rain from Tilted Mesa. We got our tents up just in time to dive in as it started pouring on us. After it stopped, we adjusted to ensure a drier experience if it rained again (Thanks Rachel for the suggestion to bring the Shammy - lifesaver!) and then made dinner . . . at this point I enjoyed my meal for 2 so much that I had another (feeling safe with all the water at our cache) and so I ended up eating 4 meals of freeze dried beef stew - DELICIOUS! As fate would have it, it started raining again and so we dove into our tents and then during the hardest part of the rain I heard voices asking if they could share our campsite. We got out after the rain and greeted the new arrivals - 3 men drenched, a day late from their itinerary and loving every minute of it. Shortly after salutations, it rained again and we all went to bed.
Tuesday we got up, Larry was convinced that it had hailed on us through 
the night but the weather was amazing. Visited with our new friends and parted ways as we hiked the last 3 hours to the truck and headed off for lunch at Marble Canyon, drove through the rain to Phoenix and got home late Tuesday night totally exhausted.
the night but the weather was amazing. Visited with our new friends and parted ways as we hiked the last 3 hours to the truck and headed off for lunch at Marble Canyon, drove through the rain to Phoenix and got home late Tuesday night totally exhausted. A note on my truck; we had rattled my front bumper off on the way in and I had to reattach that, my battery cable rattled out of its connection, fixed that, my vacuum ball that controls the direction of airflow in the cab had melted against my exhaust the day before the trip and so the air only blew on the windshield, my transmission had just been rebuilt and had some hard shifting, my radiator was brand new but the manufacturer had a defect in this one so it leaked and because of the transmission place, I couldn't start my car sometimes because Park was misaligned. Poor Larry had to endure all of this as I was running around with my tool box addressing everything. Progress Note: to date it's all been fixed except for the hard shifting in the transmission and that is scheduled to be fixed soon.
On a separate note, my anxiety kicked in heavily on this trip, again Larry had to deal with this. For some reason after my hike in 2004 I have had an anxiety about being able to safely hike out despite rain, snow, or darkness. In 2009 I had repeated the hike that initially caused this anxiety and felt like I had slayed my demons. For the most part I had but I guess that I will always have a streak of anxiety. I sure am grateful for Larry's understanding as he was the only person I could share this with. Larry was a great trip leader and made this hike amazing. He made great choices in preparing for the hike, scheduling the hike, and modifying the hike as needed to accommodate our abilities once the realities of the hike occurred. Thank you Larry, it was a great hike!
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