What NOT to do on a Hike

Trent and I agreed to take the kids on a little hike. I had played a double header the night before and was a bit sore since that was my first time playing in a year so newly exercised muscles were not happy with me. The kids can't endure a long hike anyway, so the combination of me and them meant something small, easy, short, a little stroll even. But this is not what we experienced. Not even close.

Luckily, the weather was perfect. Kyleigh and Brenden were comfortable in fleece (since they wouldn't be walking much, they wouldn't be as warm as Trent and I, but just to make sure, I asked Brenden several times if he was too hot. He said no, and I'm glad he did because #1 thing NOT to do, is to not put sunscreen on the kids). Kyleigh had a very tiny pink color on the top of her hands. But it went away by the next day. Brenden did get slightly burned on his neck. Kyleigh was wearing her sailor hat, so she escaped that one. I got it bad on the arms, and Trent was burned on his arms, neck and little on the legs. To give Trent credit though, he did ask if we should put sunblock on, but I told him we wouldn't need it since we'd be up in the trees and the kids were mostly covered in clothes anyway. But we should've blocked up what little was showing anyway. Lesson learned.

So far, so good. This hike is good. Except for the lack of Spring bloom in the Canyon.

Brenden found Deer or Elk tracks. And tried covering it back up with dirt.

So Trent put Brenden on his shoulders so that we could move the hike along at a quicker pace (since Buddy takes frequent stops) and to make sure Brenden didn't tire out too easily at the beginning.

We run into water pretty quickly. Normal. It's Spring so the snow is melting...

Brenden immediately wants down to stomp in the water.

 This should have been our first clue to get off the mountain...Snow before you reach the top. It didn't look too bad, a guy who passed us who looked like a very seasoned hiker told us that the trail led to a ridge just above us, once we cross the ridge, it meets with Mill Canyon, which takes us right down back to the lake. Sounded easy enough. And he pointed to a ridge that didn't look more than 10 more minutes, so we were halfway and then begin our decent back to the reservoir. We thought we could definitely handle that. It wasn't cold at all. So if 10 minutes and we're out of the snow was all it took, we decided that we would keep going forward instead of turn back at the first sight of snow. Little did we know....

The snow had so many places where the water was running underneath or the layers were melting thin...but you couldn't see that with your naked eye. So every so often, your foot just sank anywhere from up to the knee to the mid thigh (and later, all the way to my butt).  Brenden was still too light to sink....as of yet.

Trent is directing Brenden to scoot to his right in this location........

 ...because the creek had compromised too much of the snow to his left and he could fall through and get too wet. Luckily, Brenden listened to his Daddy.

 At this point, everything was still kinda neat. Snow on the trail, but it's nice warm weather. A fun adventure not knowing what your next step was going to take you...forward or down....in this case for me, it was down. We decided to stop and eat. It was supposed to be the halfway mark, the worst of it from the tone of the guy we met, so we unpacked our oranges, granola bars, water and MnMs.

 Kyleigh back in the saddle and we're still having fun...

After this first jaunt, I turned back and took a picture of the depth of the snow we were walking over.....and into.

At this point, we couldn't see any visible trail. Luckily the guy we had talked to had 2 big dogs on a leash so we found the paw prints and followed those.
But, once we saw snow shoe prints with the paw prints, we should have turned back.
#2-If a man with 2 dogs and well equipped to take long hikes, has the need of snow shoes, then the trail is probably not a wise one on which to take 2 small children and a wife who is wishing we would have stayed near the reservoir. But, we kept hoping the guy wasn't leading us on, by telling us how 'quick and easy' to the ridge it was and then down, that it was no big deal to take on with 2 small kids.

 It was pretty cool to be that high and in the middle of nowhere...

But it was not cool that our feet kept falling deeper and deeper...

Here is the ridge the guy told us to cross to find Mill Canyon (in the map below, this is the 'trail' marked 173)

 Again, without the paw prints and snow shoe tracks, we would have had no idea which way to turn to find Mill Canyon. This was also the hardest stretch, but was redeemed only by the beauty of being so high up and all alone with just our family and the surrounding mountains for neighbors. I'm sure they heard me cursing this "supposedly family friendly trail" that Trent had looked up online before we went. The reason for the curse was because at the end of this meadow, there was a very large tube that collected snow melt water and directed its course down the end of this meadow. Unfortunately it was positioned right where we had to cross. Trent made it over alright (which is incredible, and a miracle, since he was carrying both children adding a significant amount of extra weight). But when I crossed, I must have hit an especially weak spot because I fell all the way to my butt, exposing the running water right underneath me. I was actually getting scared that if I made any more wrong moves, the snow would cave underneath me and throw me into the running water and possibly trap me from getting back up or take me further down and underneath the snow. I carefully reached out with my hands and leg that was still on top of the snow out to all sides so as to spread my weight better. Then I lifted my foot up and crawled the rest of the way until I was well out of the way of the running water under the snow. It was that exact spot that forced us to no longer think about turning back since we didn't want to risk going across that patch again. We would just have to keep going forward. (I didn't take any pictures of the running water patch for some reason...I think I was just distracted with thoughts of gratitude mixed with growing anger that our 'short, easy' hike had just turned into a long and painful one. That meadow cut Trent up on both legs since the snow melting created ice as he would fall into it.

 Even Brenden was glad that we crossed that area and made it in one piece.

 Brenden's little weight was enough to begin to make his steps fall into the snow, and he wasn't enjoying the sudden change of height, so he found his place on Trent's shoulders. Trent said that he felt so bad for picking this hike that he read was a family friendly one, and didn't want to make it any harder on me, so he carried both kids for the majority of the 4 1/2 hours it lasted.

 In August, this hike would be a good one. Or, if you can't wait that long, bring snow shoes.

When Trent emptied his shoes, he dumped out many ice cubes from each one. And already had several cuts and good scrapes on each leg.

 But we were just happy that the kids were still smiling.

 Right before this sign, the dog tracks seemed to disappear and we couldn't find the trail. We were getting nervous and very anxious to find Mill Canyon that was supposed to be close. Again, no way of turning back, so we were just hoping that we were headed the right way so that we wouldn't go down into the lake, but to the side...where there's a way to get to our car. Not 20 seconds after a desperate plea, we found this sign. Buried. But present..

Now we were just hoping the dog and snow shoe tracks knew the right trail since there was nothing visible except that and a few trees here and there with some initials carved into them. I have never been so glad to see trees defaced. It meant we were on the right trail...if you can even call it that in these conditions.

This footprint fall into the snow caught Trent by surprise so much so that you can also see his hand print to the right to catch himself and keep the kids from falling off his back.

This one also caught him off guard and I just happened to have the camera out to capture the above shot, that I just turned and clicked. And then put it back in its case to keep my eyes fixed on the snow and continue to guess which patch of snow would most likely be firm. And be wrong most of the time...

This one got him past the knee. We thought once we hit the ridge, crossed it, and headed down, that it would be like the ascent....not much snow. But we were wrong. This side of the mountain was more wet and deep. Which caused me to seriously consider how much money it would be to call a helicopter to come and get me off this mountain because 4 hours was enough and we still weren't finished...and still in snow....following a bunch of dog tracks hoping they knew what they were doing...

2nd sign we found. And 2nd time we had just finished wondering where the dog prints went. We looked at each other and looked around us to find the right way down. We decided to take a certain course, and then found this sign...which gave us alot of hope. I was no longer tired at this point. All my adrenaline went into finding the right way down without getting lost and causing more time in these conditions and finding the path of least 'surprises'. As difficult as the hike was, there were some pretty incredible happenings.

And then we came to this. Luckily we found a trail to the left that led up the mountain but it had about 4 inches of snow with 2 inches of dirt to its left and a sheer cliff drop off on the right and the side of the mountain going straight up on the left. I was carrying Kyleigh at this time, and she had been kicking and rocking just before this because we were supposed to be home by now and giving her a nap, so I was so happy that right when I got to the steep and skinny part and had to grab onto the rocks and trees just for added comfort and security that it was when Kyleigh fell asleep and stopped rocking in the backpack. Unfortunatly, we couldn't avoid the river altogether because just after scaling that part of the trail, we were forced to cross it downstream a bit. Trent carried Brenden and Kyleigh separately across and I came over afterward.

Finally, after 4 1/2 hours, over and through snow and 3 different trails, we made it back to civilization.

The mountain to the right is the one we went over.

Our next hike is going to consist of hiking down this little path to the rivers edge and parking it for 4 1/2 hours.

The dirt being carried down off the mountain from its creeks and into the reservoir. I liked the colors it made.

Start at Tibble Fork, take 041 to 173, across to 040 down back to the other side of the reservoir. Pretty hike, but not one for little kids in May. Without treading and falling through the snow, it wouldn't have been a bad hike at all. It didn't have too steep grade inclines to get to the top, it had a pretty flat area and easy descent. I would seriously consider doing it again...as long as we sunblock everyone, there is no snow on the trail to fall into, you can see the trail at all times, and we don't take 4 1/2 hours to make it back to our original spot. Not having to trudge through snow would cut down on our time by a good portion since we were in snow more than half of the hike.

Again, beautiful weather.