Rick was called as our Ward Scout Master...which he quickly told the Bishop of his LOATHE of Scouting as soon as the words came out of the man's mouth. However, over an hour later we left his office with a smile on Rick's face and him accepting the job. So he has lots of exploring to do to find places to take his group of crazy 12/13 year old Deacons camping the 3rd weekend of every month...did I mention he hates camping ALMOST as much as Scouts? This will be interesting!
Today was the first day in MANY MONTHS we have had nothing to do, so we hopped in the car and headed to Sheep Creek out past Dayton.
Where we stopped for lunch there was a little trail that we had to cross the creek on a log...if you have been hiking with my children you can guess the experience it was to get them to cross the log! It was at least 5 minutes each...only to find out the trail ended about 100 yards past and they had to turn right around and cross again to get back to the car.
After a picnic lunch we headed up and checked out lots of small campgrounds and found lots of great spots to take the boys camping and a trail head to do some hiking.
The trail started out nice and easy for the 1st hour we were out there, so when there was a fork in the road we picked our way and continued on, hoping to get to the summit to check out the view.
Blake was excited to have his Camelback backpack we got him for Christmas.
He was pretty skeptical that we were ever going to reach the summit...every time we stopped for a rest it seemed like we were almost there...until the next time we stopped and it looked like we still had a LONG way to go...but then we would stop again and it looked like it was just up ahead...so we trekked on.
At one of the rest stops us girls decided to snap a selfie...or as Rick tells us since there are more than one of us we have to call it an "Usie".
There were a TON of downed trees that we had to climb up/over along the trail.
After hiking up pretty steep terrain for over 2 hours we decided that Blake was probably right...we were NEVER going to reach the summit of the hill, just wander further along the canyon.
It followed a really pretty creek the whole time though.
But it just kept going further and further, not taking us anywhere. So we called it quits after about 2 hours and turned around.
3 1/2 hours later we made it back to the car... VERY sore and tired..to find this trail map...
It was a great topographical map showing that the trails go NOWHERE they just wander through the wilderness. I can't believe we didn't see it BEFORE the hike. We saw a ranger on our way out of the park and he said you could hike for weeks up there...glad we called it quits when we did.
This was us back at the beginning of the trail AFTER the crazy long hike...all sweaty (even though it was only in the low 70's up there), tired and REALLY sore...but with smiles still on our faces! We get really busy with the kids' sports schedules most of the year so it is fun to have some down time to explore every once in awhile!
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