My Happy Place :-)

If only everyday we could play in a beautiful meadow munching on flowers.........

Barley and I ran/hiked to go up to 6 mile meadow for the first time ever and loved it.  Super great for trail running.  We probably ran about 3/4 of the 13.5 miles we covered that day.  I also had the opportunity to spend the day with my friend Loring, who I have to say I don't get to hike with nearly enough.

Apparently my feet hadn't had enough by that night, so I convinced the kids (didn't take much) that we should hike the 18+ miles (round trip) up to the Matterhorn the next day.  We left the trail at 7am, an hour later than I wanted and it got HOT.  98ish degree's I believe.  

The west fork river is super high right now (well, all the rivers are) with all the recent rain and now hot weather and snow melt off.  It didn't bother them much at all to cross this and Lex heard all about it from her mother when I saw her run as she was nearing the end of the bridge.

 On the way, about 4.5 miles in we ooohhhed and Awwwhhed over the enormous niagara falls like water flowing from the mountain top.  We encountered the falls several times over the next couple of miles.  It's pretty spectacular this time of year.

 The roaring thunder of the water was way more impressive in person than through photo's.

The lake is about 7 1/4 miles in and sits at 7800ft and it took us roughly 3 1/2 hours to get up there.  The Matterhorn is in the right hand side of the photo and the route up still had more snow than I was excited to see despite the super hot weather.  

My friend Fred had been the one who "invited" us to come along.  I told him since I had the kids and it would be hot we would leave before him.  Since he was running up there I was sure he'd catch us before the lake.  This is the kids waiting for fred.

After we waited for Fred and dipped our feet, hair and t-shirts in the icy cold lake for an hour we decided we couldn't wait any longer.  Mid way around the lake we hit this ice patch which prevented us from going any further.  We tried to go up around it but it was a little sketchy and added too much time to the trip so we bailed, much to the kids dismay.  Nojah kept saying "I didn't come up here to see the lake, I came to climb the Matterhorn"  I told him another day.  They were bummed and so was I.

On the hot trek down they were pleased to find some natural air conditioning and moved from rock to rock, Nojah airing out his pits and Lex enjoying the cool break.

We later found out Fred ended up with a motorcycle flat and couldn't get to the trail head and he felt terrible.  I told him the kids said they were never hiking with him again but they forgave him after a sincere apology :-)  He also said he never crosses the snowfields like that because of a friend that almost died after sliding down into one of the icy lakes.  Just not worth it.  Nojah and Lex learned a good lesson as hard as it was to turn back.

This has been a good week off.  The kids have been keeping up on their chores, the house is staying clean and we get to play a lot more.  So far they have put in close to 40 miles with bike rides, hiking, and golf.  I love that they are getting stronger each year and enjoying doing things like this with mom and dad.  They are truly great kids and friends to have around.  I can't imagine my life without them.