within these walls: Minus the Hiking

Monday, August 15, 2011

Minus the Hiking

Every July, my 'knows every lake in the whole Uintahs and has a crazy story about each one' dad, my 'lets just hike up that cliff face because I know the lake we're heading to is on the other side' brother, my 'hot hiking hubby, who tends to trip over logs a lot' Chris and the 'translucent, pasty, pale chick who is too white to wear those really cute hiking shorts' i.e. me, go backpacking through the Uintahs.

Last year, my beautiful brown eyed niece Kira was able to go with us.
She did amazing!

Also last year I was a month preg-o and didn't realize it :)
We always have some classic adventures like two years ago when we started out just like every horrible hiking trip, where the people have to be rescued, start out. We began hiking way too late (we stopped to get a burger at the famous 'polar king' before starting our hike). When we arrived at the trail, it was already getting dark, so we had to sprint the first 2 miles then scale a cliff-like trail(at one part my bro had to hoist me and Chris had to push me up some rocks because my pack was too heavy and I couldn't lift myself up...despite my massive muscles). Finally as the sun was going down we decided to sleep under the stars, which ended up being amazing! but we almost got trampled in the middle of the night by some crazy big animal that came crashing down through the trees. I'm pretty sure it was Bigfoot but it was too dark to take a picture.

The next morning, we crawled over a log that had been strategically placed to make sure that hikers turned left instead of heading straight...we headed straight and got lost for a while but no worries, we found our way back and didn't need search and rescue to come find us.

Last year we got caught in a monsoon during the middle of the night and my bros tent was leaking. Kira(his sweet little daughter) had to sleep with her legs on my bros chest so she wouldn't get wet. It was so bad that at one point we thought we would have to leave our stuff and hike out during the night. We all thought we had ruined Kira from ever wanting to hike again. Luckily she woke up and said "Did it rain last night?" We saw mountain goats with their babies play on the rocks, which was awesome and made up for the crazy lightning and thunder storms.

Chris and I had been trying to figure out a way to pack our backpacks and the little miss, but alas we decided we would have to wait until next year for her first backpacking trip. But we did go up for a day of fishing and hiking. Minus the hiking, add a couple of camp chairs, the view of beautiful Butterfly lake and that ladies and gentleman is one perfect day.(Although there was a little more crying than I imagined).