Adventuring {July Hikes}

July was another great month for hiking.  We hiked around our valley, like usual, but we also had some fun ones (posted elsewhere) in Logan Canyon, at Red Canyon, and in the High Uintas.

2 July 2018: Ice Box Canyon Loop from the Art Nord Trailhead.  A Monday Night Hike with dinner along the trail (eaten in multiple stops, if I remember right).  Things were still pretty green along this trail, which was nice.  And Cal impressed us by hiking the entire loop (almost three miles!) without being carried a single time!  Sam did awesome, too, only being carried the last half mile or so back to the car.  What a great hikin' crew!

I will never ever tire of the view as the caboose of our family
hiking train.

16 July 2018: Slowpoke Trail to Sundown Lift at Powder Mountain. This was a new trail for us!  (Those are always exciting, especially since we've hiked so many trails, new ones are getting rarer.)  It was basically a dirt road up to the lift, but off to the sides of the trail on the hillsides, the wildflowers were in peak form.  Cal and Sam enjoyed having a rest on the chair at the top while I wandered around a bit on the ridge and found a sego lily!

That fam and those views.  Practically perfect!

Paintbrush!

Dinnertime!

Good cloud day, too.

Group shot attempts - none of these are really great family photos
 on their own, so I'll leave 'em all for your entertainment.

Be still my heart!

Caution taping is still a thing.

18 July 2018: Paper Airplane Trail with the Tyke Hikers.  We didn't have a Tyke Hike for two weeks to start out July, so it was nice to get back on a trail with lots of new and old friends.

Dance party at the "treehouse", about a quarter mile into the
trail.  This may have been an even bigger highlight than the
paper airplane statue itself.

Kid shot attempts - always good for a laugh.
(starting with Cal, going clockwise: Callie,
Beau, Sam, Leo, Bennett, Theodore, Jack, Azaelea?,
Charlie, Harvey (standing in front))

In the depths.

Group shot!
Holly, Beau, Walter, Maren, Jack, Callie, Charlie, Erin, Emmeline,
Ashley, Bennett, Leo, Theodore, Harvey, Lincoln, Annalissa,
Annahlea, Azaelea (Sam was not pleased, so he was grumpy
next to me while I took the pic)

Paintbrush!

Time to rest (and dance) on the platform on the return trip.

Cal and Jack, just chillin' by the road.

19 July 2018: North Fork Waterfall Trail.  Our former home teacher (but still our "ministering brother") invited us to hike with his family one evening.  He suggested the waterfall in North Fork, which we were honestly not thrilled to do - it's super steep and slick in some spots and is kind of overrated in our book (it's super popular, but only because people don't know about any other trails that are much better).  Anyway, we (well, I should probably just say I) started out a little bit grumbly - the Binghams were late meeting us, which pushed our already late-for-us start time even further back, and then they were slow getting geared up and ready to hike once we got to the trailhead.  It felt like more of us doing them a favor than them serving or helping or making us happy.  BUT.  As all mountain time and walking through trees will do, my attitude totally changed as we moved along the trail.  And by the time we got to the waterfall and watched the kids climbing all over the rocks, we were quite enjoying ourselves.  It was good to get out with other people.  And we do love to hike.  And the trail wasn't so bad when you're not pregnant/carrying a kid in a front or back pack.  Callie has been requesting this trail almost every week since.  And while I don't think it will ever become my favorite trail, I am glad we tried it again with friends.

Too cool.

Not much of a waterfall in late July, but the rocks
made for a really popular jungle gym for the girls.

He can always find a rock to splash.

Group shot!
The Binghams: Sarajane, Rob, Olivia, Ruby, Ellie, and Julia
and The Blanchards

23 July 2018: Slowpoke Trail (again) to Lightning Ridge at Powder Mountain.  This was a repeat from earlier in the month - the part from the parking lot to the saddle, anyway.  This week we turned right to head up to Lightning Ridge.  The kids liked to pretend they were mountain goats on the cliffs next to the trail.  I kept hiking "to the top" (it was a series of false summits until I was so out of breath I just had to stop) while the rest of the fam worked their way down.

Dinnertime at the saddle.  Behind them is the trail to the top of
the Sunrise Lift that we had hiked to the week before.

Squatting practice on top of a mountain.
(We took this trail up through the aspens
this week.)

It got pretty steep pretty fast - we're not used
to quite this much elevation gain on our MNHs.

My views from the top.  I kept hoping that I'd get high enough to look down
on Cache Valley, but I never made it that far.

Totally not staged at all.  ;) Ha.

Perhaps my favorite hiking photo ever.

Big weird snake on the side of the trail.

Flowers were still pretty, but I could tell
a difference from the week before.

25 July 2018: Mule Shoe Trail with the Tyke Hikers.  This was one of our smaller turn-outs for a Tyke Hike, but we never were stood up a single week this summer, so I call that a win.  An easy trail through the trees, with the highlight being wild raspberries to pick along the way.

Cool clouds in the parking lot while we waited
for the Barretts to get there.

Looks a little jungley in some parts of this trail.

Group shot slefie this week.  The Barretts (Jack, Beau, Walt and
Maren) came all the way from South Ogden to join us this week.
I'm so glad they did!  It's been fun to catch up with Maren again -
we met in IWA at USU, but have only really been in contact
through Instagram until I started our hiking group last summer.
She was on the text list last year, but never was able to come up.
So to have her there for two hikes this summer was so fun!