Our first 10 miler of the season and it was a doozy! Start to finish we hiked 10.5 miles and crossed 6 rivers/streams that required taking our shoes off and getting wet or journeying up river to find log jams to assist...the rivers were very swollen from the rainstorms at the beginning of the week. The trail was steep and pretty overgrown from little use; we gained 2500 feet in elevation just to turn around at the top and come straight back down. Grueling!
Sadly, this strangely warm winter has not been kind to the ice cave. Although there was a bit of the frozen stuff in there it was in no way comparable to when I was there in the mid-90s. Excellent day nonetheless!
Jammer and I headed south to the Kyburz and Desolation Wilderness areas of California, not too far from Tahoe, to catch up with some friends and family for the long weekend.
We had planned on hiking Hamilton Mountain yesterday, however, the droves of people crowding the parking lots at Beacon Rock SP gave a pretty good indication of what the trail would be like. So we left and drove east on HWY 14 to the Bridge of the Gods and picked up the Pacific Crest Trail from there. The only cars at the trail head where those of the fishermen casting lines in Icehouse Lake. It was a truly beautiful day for a hike and we were happy we didn't stick to the original plan as we only came across a small handful of other hikers - far better than feeling like a herd of cattle stampeding down the trail. We'll save Hamilton for later!
Yesterday's hike to Gillette Lake was 6.5 miles round trip, but since we've been pretty lazy lately, we're definitely feeling it today. Here's a link to the GPS track: http://tpks.ws/ygWJ Kids weekend! The boys had never snowshoed before so we loaded up our gear and hit the rainy roads with snow on our minds... We're fortunate to have two extra sets of older snowshoes and enough boots to fit the boys so there wasn't much of a financial impact on us for their new adventure. And with gas prices hovering around $2/gallon it cost less than $20 to drive our Xterra round trip to Timberline Lodge.
We all had a blast! The boys will hum-and-ha about it when asked, however they were all smiles and laughter through the whole day... We're truly happy that we can introduce them to new activities, create exciting adventures, and safely pull them out of their comfort zones. Jammer got a new set of MSR REVO Accent snowshoes last weekend. We had to head to the mountain to test them out! She's so busy with school that we have to plan a day well in advance so she can work ahead and afford a day off. Today we kept it easy and drove up to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. There wasn't much in the way of snow, however, we still had a blast. Be ware of the nacho plate at the Wyeast Day Lodge. It's MOUNTAINOUS!!
In an effort to start the year off right, we decided to set a milage goal for 2015. Not having set such a goal, we didn't really know what a reasonable number might be. Plus, while living in the South we were not as inclined or interested in hiking our immediate area; Augusta isn't really a hiking hotspot. But we're home now and surrounded by miles and miles of prime hiking trails! The number we came up for the year is 200. Two Hundred miles seems reasonable...
Our Blog has officially been published and we're ready to rock! The proverbial seal has been broken...
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