Potato Chip Rock

I had tried to mentally prepare myself to get my butt kicked by a hot hike longer than I have hiked in a long while, with no shade and a 1700 feet elevation gain. Let’s face it, I know I’m not in the shape I was in when Suzanne and I did our century bike ride in 2011…a long way from it. But we have tried to continually hike throughout our time of traveling. I don’t know that we did any on our last hike though and we were going with my fit younger cousin. I didn’t want to lag too far behind. I don’t think I realized that the incline would be continuous. I thought it would go up and flatten out, up and flatten out maybe a little decline thrown in here and there. And, I know I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful it would be. Such an amazing view, such interesting enormous boulders. So so so cool. For some of the hike I alternated walking forwards and then backwards up the mountain. But really didn’t stop much at all. Chad carried out heavy pack full of water and the packed lunch. Eve pulled on my arms like I was to just pull her to the top. Seriously girl, you can’t be pulling on me…move your own two legs. Caleb and Hannah paced themselves with Samantha and were gone we would catch up with them a couple times when they stopped to climb a bolder and wait for us.

  The weather was perfect, we had managed to get out before the full heat of the day.

Tired girl, using a rock for a pillow. The line was long to stand on the rock, so we ate our lunch and people watched. The kids climbed around but stayed pretty close. This panarama shows the line, the drop off from the rock, and the amazing view. Definitely is was an amazing experience and a hike we would all love to do again. So so fun.

The big kids and Samantha disappeared so we didn’t take the hike down any slower than the hike up. That is one main reason I would like to do it again. There was so many other trails and cool rocks to explore that we didn’t take time for. The kids did climb on some. But there are multiple trips worth of good memories and exercise/hiking.