Mom and daughter adventures

I have to start out with a preface. Whatever that means.
I lived here for a few months before I met Bill and decided to move home to "prepare to be a missionary", (in that order, except marriage happened 4 months later).Then I happened.;) During that short time here, I lived about 1/4 mile away from this unmarked trail head, that led up to some gorgeous waterfalls. I used to "run" which I can hardly believe up there often with a few dogs, (woof woof) (who belonged to the family I was living with), watch the sunset, and then "run " stop egxagerating back down before it got dark. I LOVED that trail.
That was 13 yr ago. Ahhh . . yeah.
I can count on one hand how many times I have gone hiking since then.
So I got the brilliant idea to take Jade to that same spot that made me fall in love with this area. Yay for me! (we now live less than 2 miles from the trail head) yippi-i-yay! I do not remember it being difficult. Mom . . . you were YOUNGER. I thought we could handle it, no problem. I could! And you . . . not so much. :)

I had no idea that is was over 3 miles to the lower waterfall, which is not the one I used to go to. I used to hike to the higher falls (I'm guessing it's over 3 miles, one of the hikers told me it was 6, but I have a hard time believing that) I know what ya mean.Also, it is relatively flat for about 1/20th of the way. HA...HA. Yeah . . . HA HA. (why are we laughing?)
I know it may not sound like much for some of you, and before Eddie was born, it would not have been much for me. But this was a killer trail for my out-of-shape-post-3rd-child body.Oh boy. You got to be kidding me! Every hiker we ran into was like, "wow, your taking your daughter up there? Yeah, it's a tough one". Ha! Big deal it was SOOO not hard!Most of them were coming down with ski poles. I know! They are SUCH wimps! That should have been my first clue to what we were up against. Think again mom. But JADE was determined and set, she wanted to make it up to the falls. So we set out...... BOOO YAA!!

This was on the way to the reservoir. Now there are houses built right at the trail head. I know I mean what is up with that? And clear markers for the first mile. When I used to hike it, there were no markers, you just had to know where to park on the side of the road and start. The world has changed alot since the past 13 years, let's face it, it's a fact.

We reached the reservoir, and it was as lovely as I remember it. What do you mean by that? If you can tell, kind of in the middle of the canyon, you can see the first granite spot, right above the trees. Right above that lowest rock spot, is the first waterfall. It was one mile to the reservoir, I really wish I knew exactly how far it is to the falls, but it looks a good distance. Face it mom you kept saying that we were never going to make but we made it! Told ya so. We were a little intimidated at first, since we were kind of pooped already after the first mile, but Jade was a trouper and wanted to push forward. I was not intimidated! Gosh! Plus I wasn't pooped, you were!

This was the nice flat part of the hike, I sure felt my age at this point. Yeah I noticed. We even saw two deer, SO close, like 20 feet away from us as we stood as still as we could. It was really cool actually.

There were a number of pretty little crossings like this. I thought it was funny, the difference from 13 yrs ago. I had to rock hop most of the way to the falls before. Now, there are 3 or 4 little bridges to cross, and the trails are marked.
It's really hard to clearly see how steep this it. Jade is up there taking a rest while she waits for her old lady. Actually it was really easy going up. I don't know how to explain it, but it felt energizing.This is how most of the hike was. LOTS of rocks going up, up, and up. Well don't complain, it was fun.

This is the view looking down. Again, it's really hard to tell exactly how steep this is, but we were using our hands to help us climb over some of these boulders, and this is not as rocky as other parts. I love how Jade was SO determined to do this, even after 1 1/2 hours of climbing up rocks, and no waterfalls, she kept going. What a trooper I am.
We actually passed the turn for the lower falls and kept going up for another 15 mins. Thankfully, a nice man and his son who were hiking down from their DAY HIKE. You should of underlined that. To the higher falls, told us we had another 45 mins to the higher falls and that we had missed the lower ones. Too bad. He was nice enough to lend us each one of his ski poles since it was so steep going down. (his son looked about 13, and kept staring at Jade, I had a good chuckle over her embarrassment) Jeez mom! He wasn't even cute, plus I think he was mentally challenged. Why did you even bring that up!?!

We made it!!! It was SOOO awesome to see how far we had gone! If you can tell, there are two hills down at the bottom and a light little speck right in between them. That is the reservoir we hiked to at first. We made it pretty far, and we both felt SO proud of ourselves for tackling such a tough "first hike". What can I say, it's in our blood. :) No comment what-so-ever.




We left our house right after dinner, hiked for 2 hours, (it was actually 1 1/2 hrs to the lower waterfalls), and then we "ran", almost as well as I used to do it, rock-hopping most of the way down. I was SO proud of Jade, she really got the hang of it once she got going, and it's amazing that we did not sprain any ankles in the process. Luckily, sometimes she had to RUN to cacth up with me.I forgot how thrilling it is to rock-hop a down hill trail at running speed. We ran down and made it in 45 mins. Jade flew past a number of adults, I was just bursting with pride. :) Yeah I did! I saw a pair of adults going down while we were at the water fall and 15 min. later we passed them! Suckers.
This is a look back at where we were, and how far we had gone for our first hike together. We were almost back to the reservoir at this point. Right above the shaded treeline in the middle, is the little round granite spot where the lower falls are right above. A proud 45 min. record of going down.

We were worn out and happy. (I know, I look a little bit crazy, yeah mom you looked a bit cooko) Jade said this was better than any of our other dates. We decided to try and do a hike once a week until the weather turns bad. She wants to shoot for the higher waterfalls. hmmmm..... I already know your not going to make it.
We are taking the boys to the reservoir on Wed, since that is more of a family hike, even though there is some climbing. Mica and Matt are going to join us in two weeks to go for the waterfalls again. I am actually really excited. This reminded me how much I love the outdoors, and we live in a PERFECT spot for it. We are surrounded by hundreds of trails, there is so much to do, I can't believe I didn't pick up on this earlier in the summer. Next summer will be better. :) Why did I wait so long to rediscover this? It's because your a lovely scatterbrain.