Family Day at Paradise - 02.27.15

After taking some time off from work and only getting on snow two days I was desperate to get on snow.  (And one of those days was a pretty mediocre day of skate skiing at Cabin Creek.) So I planned a family back country ski adventure. The goal was to go to Paradise where there would actually be fresh snow and do a little skiing. Jennifer was a little reluctant at first due to the five hours of round trip driving for what we could only hope would be 2-3 hours of on snow activity. I hesitate to call it fun, because you never know how things will go with a soon to be four year old. But Jennifer was also excited about the prospect of having some winter, and trying out her new back country ski kit.

With Jennifer having come home after midnight the night before, and the typical prep work of leaving the house with a preschooler, we didn't get out of the house until 10am. Traffic was light once out of Seattle and we made good time to the park. The road was bare from Longmire to Paradise, but the NPS had left up the "chain up" sign. Fortunately as we were parked in the chain up area, a ranger came by and said we did not need chains, and we were on our way again. There was light snow falling on the way up to Paradise. But it was noticeable how little snow there was down low. (None at Longmire to speak of, and you could not ski to the bridge over the Nisqually.)

We got out of the car and geared up. We had Mirabelle's alpine ski setup and my goal was to be the human rope tow and tow her up the slope. Once we were geared up and got on the snow we found the failing in this plan. It was too difficult for Mirabelle to stay upright in the roughly five inches of fresh snow. After three attempts and three falls we switched to another method. Which was Mirabelle hiking up while Jennifer and I skinned. This of course was not sustainable for a long distance and we made it not too far from the parking lot before I sent Jennifer on ahead up a slope. While I looked after Mirabelle making snow angels and eating snow.

I had forgot to give Jennifer any instructions on transitioning and she spent a good portion of time trying to figure it out. She claims 45 minutes, but I think it was closer to 30. At some point I felt she wasn't going to come down without help and I asked Mirabelle if it was fine with her if I went and helped out her mama. So I raced up to help and found that Jennifer could not get into the bindings (Freerides) because there was too much snow jammed in them. I cleaned them out and she was able to lock the heels and head down the bunny slope to Mirabelle. I rushed on behind.

At that point Jennifer went for another lap while I hung out with Mirabelle. This lap went much better for her and she was back down in a reasonable time. I took another lap while Mirabelle grew impatient with the process of waiting for us. When I got back Jennifer wanted to go for another run. At this point it was close to 3:30 and the gate would close at 5pm, so I told her we should go. Mirabelle got her skis on and I held her hand to ski back to the parking lot. It went well enough as long as she kept her skis in the track Jennifer skied down. Mirabelle would come to a stop if she hit the fresh snow which was now heavier after the afternoon warm up hit it. Right before the parking lot I picked up too much speed and dragged Mirabelle down which was the end of skiing for the day. We packed up the car and headed out after that.

It was a learning experience for all of us. Jennifer realized why I enjoy skiing so much more than slowshoeing. She had a great time and wanted to stay longer, but the park's schedule as well as our child's was not going to allow it. Mirabelle once again enjoyed another day in the snow. But being close to four years old and attempting to ski heavy wet cascade fresh is not the easiest way to do things. Perhaps we'll be able to get her on some corn snow before summer?

Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks 05.31.14-06.15.14 Part I

It had been too long since being in the mountains. The not so snowy (but still adequate) winter hadn't gotten us out too much. So we hatched a plan to take three weeks to hit the big three mountain west parks, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier. The primary reason for this was to see the dying glaciers in Glacier National Park, but it soon became a trip focused around Yellowstone. Where many of the big attractions are less than a mile from the road. This facilitates an easier time with a three year old who doesn't prefer to do her own hiking all the time.

We had taken three weeks off to drive out and enjoy the parks. We opted to head south into Oregon so that we could time our travel well. Mirabelle had stopped taking naps, and we were doing the drive in two days instead of the one that we would have done before having a kid. Our southern route would also take us near Craters of the Moon National Monument. So we had put into the schedule a visit there.

Initially we were going to do the trip without reservations anywhere. But we were blessed with my Father-in-Law booking us two nights in the Grant's Village Lodge in Yellowstone. It put us on a timeline to get there for our reservation. Which had its positives and negatives.

The trip started smoothly, although finding food on the road was a bit tricky, but we managed to get a decent, if not too salty, dinner in rural Oregon before spending the night in a Walmart parking lot in outside of Boise. In the morning we drove into Boise, and ate breakfast at Goldy's. After a long breakfast session we went to the local food COOP and purchased some provisions before heading out to Craters of the Moon.

The drive out to Craters was pretty amazing with some high desert scenery on a two lane road. But it could not prepare us for the scenery at the park. Most of the area at the park is covered in black pumice, with some small hills that are cinder cones or craters. Except for the abundant wildflowers and some trees, there is good reason to think of the park as moon surface. It is wild and other worldly. We hiked to the top of Inferno Cone and had some great views. Then we checked out the Spatter Cones and Snow Cone, which lived up to its name by having a pile of snow in the bottom. Due to our schedule of having to get to the lodge for our reservation, this is all the time we spent at the park. (We did picnic and visit the visitor's center too.) I would have like to have camped a night in the park and explored the lava caves, but it was not in the cards for this trip.

We left the park and continued to our final destination that evening, the Gros Ventre campground in Teton National Park. Of course, we made a stop for dinner in Idaho Falls first. This was a better offering of food than the previous evening as we stopped in MacKenzie River Pizza and Pub. Oddly situated on the Snake River near the river walk. A stop for dinner and then Mirabelle biking on the path and playing at the river's edge before we got back in the van and headed east. Soon we left the high desert and were in the trees making our way up to Teton Pass where the van topped the 8431 foot pass at 25mph and then we coasted down into Jackson and straight to the park to a campsite to go to sleep.

We awoke to moose in the campground, and the Tetons peeking out from behind the trees. Bison wandered the sagebrush out in the plains, as well as pronghorn. With this abundance, we decided to go check out Mormon Row, passing lots of wildlife on the way there. When we arrived there was a group of photographers with telephoto lens waiting patiently. We discovered that a coyote had put its den underneath one of the buildings, and there were seven coyote pups playing about near the house. We watched a bit and then took a walk along the row, watching magpies and ground squirrels before heading back to the car and driving up to Gros Ventre slide. On the way back into town we stopped at the Kelly Warm Springs and put our feet in. The water was warmer than anything we have at 6000' in Washington, but the air temps and breeze didn't make us feel like we need to submerge. After the dip we headed into town.

In town we went to the visitor's center and learned a few things, including getting a coupon for a future activity; The Jackson Hole Tram. In town we hung out at the square and ate ice cream from Moo's. We checked out the local area a bit, and then headed to the Jackson Whole Grocer for provisions before returning to camp.

The next day we planned to take the boat across Jenny Lake to the Inspiration Point hike. We drove up to the lake and got on a full boat with a nice ride across the lake before reaching the other side. Mirabelle had a snack, and then we hiked up. The trail was fairly crowded but we still managed to see a fox run across the trail in front of us before reaching our high point at Inspiration Point. Mirabelle got out of the pack for a bit to jump and climb around while we had our lunch. Then we headed back down to the dock where we were the last people to get on board the ferry that was leaving toward the visitor's center.

After that we drove into town to have a dinner. Unfortunately, none of the local restaurants were really in our price range. Although many looked interesting, a burger was going to run us over $15 in many of them. We walked around trying to find something that had local flair, a menu we liked, and prices we could afford. Right before almost settling on something we walked past the rafting shop. There was a sign in the window advertising the Snake River Brewery. This was what we were looking for in a dining establishment. We walked inside to ask for directions and made our way over for some delicious food and beer. Then we returned to camp to sleep for the night.

After Mirabelle had gone to bed that night, some bison wandered through the campground. Since there were no calves, we presume it was an all male group. They were only a few campsites away from us when two tussled a bit, butting heads, before the group of seven or so wandered off into the night.

Our next day was a travel day, so we packed up and headed to some sights before  arriving at our final destination. We rode over to Teton Village Tram to the top of Rendezvous Mountain. After days of staring at mountains I could not climb on this trip, it was nice to get on a mountain, even if by tram. With the coupons, it was still quite expensive, but we wanted to get to some snow and be in the mountains more. The only way to really make that possible with a three year old is via the tram. Of course, once at the top I just looked around and saw terrain I wanted to ski or climb even more. I realized I would have to live in Jackson for a few years just to do everything I want to do in the Tetons (and the Winds.) After a short stay outside, and a mediocre waffle inside, we headed back down.

On the way back into town, we stopped at the Teton Raptor Center. Which was pretty standard fare for that sort of thing. Get to see a hawk fly, and get fairly up close with some raptors inside the barn. A nice little side trip before heading back through town and up to our next campground at Colter Bay.

The Colter Bay campground was the opposite of the Gros Ventre campground. It was nearly full (although partially because two loops were closed.) There were lots of RVs and plenty of noise. We got there in time for us to make dinner and put Mirabelle to sleep. The mosquitoes were worse there, so we didn't spend too much time hanging out after Mirabelle's bedtime anyway.

The next morning I awoke early and took a walk by the lake. This is the point where I was really glad we purchased the bear spray before the trip as I would not have walked alone, by the water's edge, at dawn, by myself without it. It was a nice morning activity and headed back to camp to eat breakfast before we rented a canoe. The simple two hour canoe trip was the best thing we had done to this point, It reminded Jennifer and I why we like being in wilderness. We really didn't see other people for a major portion of the paddle. Mirabelle enjoyed it too. We have had a portage! We got to see a white pelican and a number of raptors as well. After the paddle we packed up camp and hung out on the rocky coastline for a while before making the trip up to Yellowstone for our reservation that night in the Grant Village Lodge.

Had we not had the reservation, we would have like to stay in Teton a bit longer.

Pics can be found here. 

Dragontail Peak - Backbone Ridge - 07.23.13

Matt and I had talked early in the year about getting out and doing an alpine climb. Some grand ideas were tossed around until we landed on the Backbone Ridge with Fin Direct on Dragontail Peak. This was a route we could do in a day which was all I really had available for a climb.

We had worked out some logistics, but Matt and I had never climbed outdoors before with each other. Our calculations put us at 16 hours car to car which we felt good about for the trip. So we headed out the night before and slept in the car with a wake up time of 4am.

We hit the trail at 5am right behind a mountain goat and followed him to the first creek crossing. We were making good time to the lake when we stopped for a break at the one hour mark. We were off again and hit the far end of the lake and went around it a bit before ascending to the moraine. This turned out to be a bit longer and more time consuming than heading straight up the moraine from the corner of the lake. At the time we thought nothing of it, but looking down from the route later it was obvious to me that the way we had chosen was longer and not necessarily less difficult.

We got to the top of the moraine and that is where the difficulties arose. Crossing the snow was easy with a fair amount of sun cups. I took the lead in my heavier approach shoes while Matt followed with his trail runners. We took a bit of time to figure out where we should gain the rock and after taking that time made an incorrect decision. We took the highest of three ramps which had a steep start and at one point a tree to climb through. Higher up on the scramble we noticed the nice ledge system below us and worked our way down to easier terrain. Then we were questioning where the route started. A quick look at the route description told us we had to gain 500' of elevation scrambling, so off we went until we got to what we decided was the base of the route.

I geared up for the first pitch and at this time another party caught us and their leader climbed past me leaving me in a position of having to climb under his rope to continue which I did not look forward to. So I waited until their second climbed past, and I remained hot on his heels. I brought Matt up to the belay and we waited for their party to finish the pitch before we started.

Once Matt started the off-width pitch he made steady progress. It didn't look too hard, especially seeing the second from the other team going up it. Matt got to the top and put me on belay. The first moves in were easy enough with some extra cracks and bulges to use for hands and feet. The lower portion of the main crack was also taking a foot jam from me without any real off-width technique being employed. Then I got stuck. I could not make upwards progress. The nubbins for my right foot ran out, and I got in a position where it felt like my right half of my body was useless in getting me up the pitch. I struggled. I grunted. I thrashed. Nothing was working. I yelled up to Matt about the possibility of lowering me back to the bottom of the pitch and hauling the pack. He wasn't into it. I contemplated a lowering and putting the approach shoes back on for the ability to jam the crack. I wasn't going to get lowered. I put a prusik on the rope and tried to pull up a few times. This got me a little progress, but not significant. As I panted and my heart raced, I decided we needed a quicker way and yelled to Matt to set up a haul. He did, but I still had to help him somewhat. So I still thrashed up the route. Every time I would stand up, he would haul rope. I eventually made it to the top and we had a talk.

We had blown lots of time in the approach and the first two pitches. Matt asked if I was up to continuing. I said yes. I told him we could be more efficient, and being there was no more off width, I could run up pitches if he led them. We opted not to rap off at this point, but knew we were setting ourselves up for a significant uphill battle for the rest of the route as we had lost a lot of time. Neither of us wanted to descend Asgard Pass in the dark. We had about eight hours of daylight left to make that happen. We had a brief lunch and continued.

Matt led the next pitch which mostly felt on route, although had quite a bit of lichen on the later part of the pitch. The two of us climbed that third pitch in less than a half hour which lifted our spirits for getting back on track. The next pitch was decidedly off route and took a touch longer, but we were still optimistic about our timing. I led a short pitch and then another to a corner feeling like perhaps we were finally at the pitches we might be able to simul climb. This was untrue as Matt had to climb around a corner and upward still. I fell following that pitch on a lie back roof, which left me further beat up.

Once at the top of that pitch we finally simul climbed. Rope drag slowed us down and I stopped us a bit short of the fin so I could belay Matt in from the shade of a rock. I led up the fin next but also stopped a bit short, although I had most of the rope out. Then we wandered up the ramp system on the fin for two more pitches before Matt saw a ledge system he was willing to conquer. At this point I told him I was too tired to lead and it would be all him if he wanted off the peak without sleeping up there.

This is actually where the nice climbing began. Unfortunately for us, we were too tired and thinking about getting off before sunset to enjoy it. Matt led out on a ramp than turned upward and left to a hand crack with some exposure. (Pretty much the first exposure of the route for us.) He went a touch too far to the other side for the belay, so I set up a belay at the top of the ridge to belay him back up and on his way to the next pitch. Unfortunately during that belay up and out we forgot to transfer gear to him and a bit out on the pitch is where he realized. He down climbed back to the first piece he had in and then hauled the gear up on the rope so he could continue. I followed the pitch which had a crack that widened to off-width. This one was significantly easier. However, having struggled through the previous off width and having been on my feet for the past 15 hours I was done. I didn't have the strength or the reasoning to overcome the problem. I applied a prusik to the rope and yarded up through a few moves before reaching easier ground and a traverse to Matt's position.

We did one last pitch on the fin (total of six pitches on the fin) as we watched the sun set over the mountains to the west. We simul climbed the last of the ridge to the finish where I heard Matt exclaim "we can descend!" as he popped over to the south side and witnessed the full moon over the enchantments. We took our first rest in hours sitting in the glow of the moon while we removed rock shoes and put our approach shoes back on. We left our helmets and harnesses on and put most of the gear away before starting down. I gave Matt the lower portion of my whippet to use as a tool to help get down the snow and we made our way slowly down to Asgard Pass under headlamp and the shine of the moon. We stopped for water on the snowfield briefly and continued down. The snow was soft enough for plunge stepping and we made good time for it being dark and having been up for so long.

We really started to slow down on the way down Asgard Pass as we had to pick our way down trying to stay on the trail. We passed a few people camped out in tents who perhaps underestimated how strenuous it is to get up Asgard before dark.

Back at the lake we lost the trail a bit and wandered through drainages until returning to the trail to hop some boulders back to the other side of the lake. Then it was a relatively uneventful hike out in the darkness for a few hours. We arrived at the car around 3:10 am a full 22 hours after we left it in the morning. Our hope was to drive into town and get some food before returning to Seattle. But as suspected, Leavenworth was all shuttered up and we could not get food. So we drove to the rest area west of town on Highway 2 and slept for a few hours before continuing home.

It was really fun to get out, but this trip highlighted a few concerns about my lack of time in the mountains. One is climbing ability. While I don't know if I would have had an easier time with the off-width if I had been climbing a lot, it would be nice to have at least been ready for the rest of the technical climbing. I don't feel I did as well as I could do on the rest of the route. Of course this could be related to expending a ton of energy attempting to thrash up the off-width and being significantly more tired for the rest of the route something that more climbing would probably not have mitigated. But that brings me to the second concern of conditioning. While I was able to complete the 22 hour long trip, I was slower than I would like at many parts of the trip. (The walk out most notably.) Could I have been faster and less tired if I was doing this every weekend? I'd like to think so, but perhaps nothing really prepares you for 22 hours on your feet? Part of the time while on the climb I was thinking "You're 43 now, and 'off the couch' is not working anymore." While it may be true it is not a good idea to work hard for 22 hours off the couch, I feel more like this was a unique circumstance as I did seem to feel fine until climbing that second pitch.

Oh well. Next trip out might determine just what kind of shape I am in.

Echo Ridge Nordic - 02.26-28.13

We had some time to get away and decided on trying out Echo Ridge. A Living Social coupon sealed the deal for accommodations and we were off. Our drive out was planned so we would stop in Leavenworth for lunch and then Mirabelle would nap between there and Manson. Arriving in Leavenworth to our favorite lunch spot, the Munchen Haus, closed had us spending more time there then we wanted. And as hard as Mirabelle tried, she didn't fall asleep until we were near Knapps tunnel which had us driving around before we arrived at the hotel. So we didn't end up getting any skiing in the first day, but due to the daily fee of the location that may have been for the better.

The next day started well with breakfast baked goods from the Red Apple before making the 30 minute drive up to Echo Ridge. I hadn't seen the grooming report for two days and wasn't sure what to expect. They were clearly getting close to the end of season, but it was difficult to determine how close. And they were still grooming almost all of the runs, so it had to be good...right? The drive up involves leaving town and heading through orchards until reaching the Echo Valley downhill ski area, which seems like a nice little family place to ski. Then the road turns to dirt and continues up switchbacks with some snow drifts and steep drop offs thrown in. We arrived to bluebird skies and parked in the lower parking lot expecting perhaps to only ski the green runs out of the lower lot. The goal was to ski those runs in the morning and return to the van for lunch and head out again in the afternoon. But we would see what Mirabelle might want from the day.

After bundling up Mirabelle in the Chariot and handing her a churro, we were ready to go. It appeared the trails were groomed the previous day and there was about a centimeter of fresh snow on top as well. Conditions in the track were a touch icy going uphill. And pulling the extra forty pounds or so behind me kept me out of the track all morning. The trails were pretty mellow and we were having a good time so when we completed the trails out of the lower lot I asked Mirabelle if she wanted to keep going and she said "yes!"


We headed up the connecting trail to the upper lot which was the only blue we would do for the day and then did all but one of the green trails out of the upper lot. At some point Mirabelle had fallen asleep which allowed us to get in about eight miles of skiing for the day. The conditions we found on the upper trails were equal if not better to the lower trails and we really had a good time. The upper trails offered more views including down to Lake Chelan and over to the Stuart Range.
We skied back down the steeper blue trail to the car and had lunch.

After lunch we donned snowshoes and walked away from the parking lot thirty meters or so to build a snowman. Mirabelle at first enjoyed snowshoes, but as the terrain became more uneven she had difficulty not stepping on her own feet and was starting to lose patience with them. The end result is her memory of snowshoeing is positive. After snowman construction Mirabelle did a lap of the parking lot on her skis before we opted to head back to town.


The next morning it was raining in town, but I had hopes of snow level occurring before the ski lot and I was right. This time we headed up to the upper lot to get on some blue runs. Snow was coming down steady, but not very heavy as we geared up and left the parking lot. Since we weren't sure on conditions we started out on the only green we had not yet done and if we found it to be too icy we would turn around and repeat some of the trails from the previous day. While the grooming done the previous afternoon had hardened up overnight, the fresh snow falling on top made conditions pretty good in most places with some more sun soaked parts being more icy than treed sections. This trail would have offered some nice views, but due to the snowfall, there was limited visibility. An interesting thing this trail did offer was what I'd call the magic white carpet. Some areas where there was no snow around except for the eight foot wide (16" deep) swath in which we were skiing on. The surrounding hillsides looked almost like summer. Turn the corner on the ridge, and you were back in winter wonderland complete with better trail conditions.


We arrived at the end of our green trail and opted to take blues back. These were pretty fun and not nearly as steep as the lot to lot trail and were not significantly more difficult than the green we had been on. I feel like they did offer more terrain variation though. Somewhere on our way back Mirabelle said she was done, so we headed back to the car sticking to blue runs and finishing our morning with about 3.5 miles under our feet. The snow was still coming down, but it was around the time we wanted to leave for home. We thought about staying another night, but opted not to and started heading down the mountain for home.

This was a really fun outing and reminded both of us why we like Nordic skiing so much. Mirabelle had a great time too! We had a lot of fun and so no one else on the trails while we were out. (We saw some people in the lot, and the groomer about to go to work, but we had the trails to ourselves.) It was really fun and a great location. We are thinking of making this into an annual trip.

Steven's Backcountry - 02.10.13

Steve was kind enough to invite me along for some powder hunting when I had no other partners. We got a mellow start and got to Smith Brook Road around 10am. There were others parked on the side of the highway, but after five minutes of skinning in the road, we didn't see anyone for the rest of the day. 

We were out looking for slopes still holding snow and after a fair bit of climbing we found some. Our first run was low elevation and pretty good considering it hadn't snowed in days. Our second run was at higher elevation and was really good considering again that it hadn't snowed that recently. 

Our run back to the car was somewhat ugly with wetter heavier snow due to the sun and warmer temps. It was good to be out for the first time this winter. It also made me realize just how much more fun I'd have if I had newer and bigger skis. 

It was a beautiful sunny day out, but both Steve and I neglected to bring cameras. Steve at one point lamented as the views were great. 

Orcas Island - 09.16-18.12

In a stroke of luck I had off for two days while my father in law would be camping in the San Juan Islands. So Jennifer and I hatched the plan to join them on Orcas Island.

After Jennifer got home from work on Sunday we packed up and drove up with the intention of Mirabelle sleeping in the car. It worked and soon we she was running around on the Ferry having the time of her life, interacting with others, and enjoying the wind and views.

After the hour boat ride, a reasonable car ride got us to our campsite in Moran State Park. We had grand ambitions of heading to the summit of Mount Constitution for the sunset, but by the time we were done preparing dinner, we were all ready to call it a day. Our guests would be meeting us the following morning and we wanted to be ready.

I awoke early and went for a hike near the campground while waiting for them to wake up. When I got back we had breakfast and then attempted to hike to Cascade Falls from our campground. We stopped a tenth of a mile short of the falls at a small waterfall where Mirabelle got to play with rocks and leaves before we headed back to the campground.

At the campground we found our relatives and hatched the plan to drive to the false summit of Mount Constitution and hike to the summit to give Mirabelle a nice nap, and conserve energy so she could walk down the trail. Mirabelle slept from early on to the Summit Lake and then proceeded to do her own hiking for most of the final mile on her own. Making the hike a bit longer than anticipated to reach the summit.

We stayed a while on the summit taking in the fantastic views while Mirabelle played with a new friend on the rocks.

 Mountain Lake and beyond

Mount Baker and the Twin Sisters group

Then Mirabelle got into the pack for the significantly shorter hike back to the car. We then drove into town (Eastsound) and had dinner before retiring to camp.

The following morning we were leaving, so we opted for a short hike to the beach at Obstruction Pass State Park. Mirabelle did the hike in by herself, and played/explored on the beach while we explored and took dips in the refreshing water.

Then we made a quick hike back to the car and an even quicker ride back to the ferry to be on time at the dock.

This was Mirabelle's first two night camping trip and she loved it! Hopefully we'll get a few more trips in the next weeks before it may get too cold for her.

More Toddler Camping - 08.24-25.12

Another last minute decision to make the most of time off and go camping. Packing for camping with Mirabelle always seems not worth it as we struggle to wrangle her and gear to pack in the morning of a trip. This usually has Jennifer second guessing our decision to go, and also has us leaving later than I'd prefer. Not to mention forgetting some things. (more on that later)

The idea was to drive up and secure a site at Tinkham campground off I90, then take a hike up to Denny Slide while Mirabelle takes her nap. Securing a site was not a problem and we soon took the short drive over to Denny Creek Trail Head for out hike.

Mirabelle is at an age where she does not want to be cooped up in the pack for a trip and enjoys doing some of the hiking on her own. (Although she is not at an age where she can keep from getting tuckered out pretty quickly.) She wanted out of the pack early and proceeded to inspect every rock leave and hole near the trail. She didn't want to sleep in the pack or the Ergo that we brought along as well. So we all soldiered on to the slide.

It was surprising to see so many people there early on a Friday afternoon. She got good and tuckered out there, and we continued up to Keekwulee Falls while she napped in the Ergo until we got back down to the slide. She did a fair amount of the hiking back to the car and then we headed back to camp where we needed to borrow a lighter to start our stove to make dinner.

After dinner we headed to the river where Mirabelle just had to get in and wade in the South Fork.

As you can tell from the jackets, the air was not warm.

After a breakfast of fresh picked red huckleberry oatmeal, we headed to Twin Falls State Park to get in another hike. Unfortunately, all the hiking Mirabelle did the previous day left her a little too tired to accomplish that hike and we cut the hike short just after the switchbacks leading closer to the falls.

Speedy little hiker