Backpacking

Last weekend we scattered our children to the four winds and had a backpacking trip with some friends. We hiked up Herman Creek and Nick Eaton Trails to Deadwood camp.

Imagine if you can, this amount of steepness for at least a mile.  We went about 4.6 miles the first day up, and it took us about 4 hours because of the ascent.

I made these pants myself!

This is a beautiful shot up the Columbia from Indian Point.

That's Indian Point behind us.  Waaay down there is Washington across the Columbia.  About 2700' elevation here.  We got up to 4050' on our second day hiking.

As we wandered over the ridge on the middle day of hiking, we came across an underground river beneath a massive rock slide.  We could hear the water rushing beneath the boulders, but couldn't get a glimpse of it.  At the very edge, I climbed up into the brush and found the tiniest pool of water, but there was a lot of sound that didn't have anything to show for it.  It was pretty weird to walk over water hearing it, but not seeing it.

All together, Shonee hiked 19 miles and I hiked 17 miles in about two full days.  So much fun, I can't wait until our next trip!

Stuff we've been up to

We've had quite a flurry of activity the past few weeks.  Here's a quick tour of our fun:

We went hiking a few weeks ago on a moderately dry Saturday.  It was drizzly, but we didn't mind it at all.

Check out the gigantic tree trunk, and the very cool mine shaft.  It was "rainier" inside the mine than outside.

Shonee and I also took a hike up Wakeena Falls two Saturdays ago, which had gorgeous weather for hiking. The view across the gorge was amazing!

I made a "fiesta" dress for Alena because we had a fiesta for the last day of school on Friday.

Montana and Alena were waiters.  Emma was the owner (she designed and printed the menu).  Everything was made to order.  Emma also made the pinata.  Alena and I revisited my childhood while making paper flower decorations.  Emma made an enormous one which leant the light fixture a festive air.

And finally, last Saturday, we all went to the beach to soak up the sunshine.  The water was unusually warm, so all the kids got soaked more than once.  There was a mountain of sand we climbed.  It's really hard work climbing up sand!

This shows how steep it was.