Climb-Utah.com turns 15 today

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :party:

Climb-Utah.com turns 15 today. A story on Climbing Grand Teton is the first item ever posted to the website. I posted the trip report to the web so I could learn how to create a website and program in HTML, it was just a personal learning experience for me. I had no intention or thoughts of the website growing into what you now know. The original article was just something I had lying around the office I had written earlier and was not selected for any special reason other than it was right at hand. The next few items I posted were trip reports of a couple canyoneering adventures I had done. People looked at the pictures and read the trip reports and began emailing me for more information so they could duplicate some of my trips. I soon got tired of answering all the emails personally so I started placing route descriptions in my trip reports, which is similar to what many now do, but it was kind of rare back when the internet was still brand new. The website exploded in popularity soon after when the "Circle of Friends" was created, which was originally intend as a way for me to share information with my inner circle of friends.

Thanks to everyone who has supported and been a part of the Climb-Utah over the years. I have made a lot of great friends through the website, which to me has always been its greatest value.

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Congrats!

Tom

Nice work

Your site has led me on many fine adventures! Happy birthday and hopefully many more!

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Originally Posted by pigburner

Your site has led me on many fine adventures! Happy birthday and hopefully many more!

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Ditto!

Shane, your beta has been the facilitator of many good trips! Thank you!

:cheers:


:rockon:

Congratulations, Shane:2thumbs:

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Originally Posted by Kuya

Ditto!

Shane, your beta has been the facilitator of many good trips! Thank you!

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Double ditto - it's been a great help to some great trips! :2thumbs:

HBD!

If you are interested this is what the front page of Climb-Utah looked like in 2000.

https://web.archive.org/web/20000517...homestead.com/

And by 2001 it had grown to this

https://web.archive.org/web/20010721...homestead.com/

Adding Heaps to the website was a big deal, as that was the first publicly available beta for the canyon. It also opened up the Phantom Valley entrance as most groups doing Heaps before us, which was only 1 or 2 a year, were using the Gunsight Entrance.

Fun stuff. Here's my canyon beta website from the same date:

https://web.archive.org/web/20000613...utah/index.htm

and from 2001:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010826...tah/latest.htm

It is amazing how few canyons you did, Shane, before plunging into Heaps with the always-cheery Mel Brown!

Tom

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Originally Posted by ratagonia

It is amazing how few canyons you did, Shane, before plunging into Heaps with the always-cheery Mel Brown!

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I had done more canyons than are listed, mostly around Lake Powell from our boats, but I didn't keep detailed records or route descriptions until I decided to start posting to the inter-web's. I didn't discover Zion canyons until 1999 when a friend showed me Subway and Pine Creek.

But after canyoneering around Lake Powell doing canyons in Zion was like making love to a fat girl... slow and easy... :lol8:

But yeah, I probably was not as well prepared as I should have been when I first did Heaps.



Downtown Mel Brown and I after the final rappel in Heaps.

http://climb-utah.com/Zion/Files/heaps111.jpg

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Originally Posted by Iceaxe

Downtown Mel Brown and I after the final rappel in Heaps.

http://climb-utah.com/Zion/Files/heaps111.jpg

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wow, crazy low water back then. I remember doing Pine Creek in the same era with the only wetness being a 5' damp spot in one of the narrowest passages. Cathedral bottom was a lovely white sand beach.

Here is a fun one for ya.... a couple month's after the Heaps trip I did Imlay in October 2001 with Tom Jones and Kip Marshall. It was the first trip through Imlay for all three of us and we really didn't know what to expect. Yesterday I was just thinking about that trip because it was over UEA weekend, which is this coming weekend.

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And the first canyon I ever did with Hank Moon I believe was Gravel Canyon followed the next day by Leprechaun, also in October 2001.

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Love your site. Enabled me to pick up this great sport of canyoneering with friends as well as with my wife and two young daughters!

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Originally Posted by nkanarik

Love your site. Enabled me to pick up this great sport of canyoneering with friends as well as with my wife and two young daughters!

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I have always tried to make sure there was plenty of family friendly adventures on Climb-Utah.com, which is one of the things that makes it different from some of the others.


Tap'n on my smart phone.

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Originally Posted by Iceaxe

Here is a fun one for ya.... a couple month's after the Heaps trip I did Imlay in October 2001 with Tom Jones and Kip Marshall. It was the first trip through Imlay for all three of us and we really didn't know what to expect. Yesterday I was just thinking about that trip because it was over UEA weekend, which is this coming weekend.

And the first canyon I ever did with Hank Moon I believe was Gravel Canyon followed the next day by Leprechaun, also in October 2001.

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With Scott Holley, actually. Fun Trip.

Tom

Congrats on your site and thank you for all of the info you share....

Great to hear the story behind Climb-Utah Shane. I certainly appreciate your work and hope to get out in a canyon with you one of these days.

Christopher