This backpacking trip was a complete dream come true for me. I’ve been dying to backpack with the family, and it has felt difficult to pull off from a scheduling, and weather perspective, but we finally made it happen. Even still it almost didn’t happen because Lily tripped and fell an uneven piece of cement at night the night before. I went to bed thinking it wasn’t going to happen, but in the morning Lily felt ok going forward. We bought her ice packs and an ankle brace. I was very worried about having her hike on it, and it did hurt and it was sore, but from what we can tell, her ankle did ok. That was really the only concern. The rest of the trip was pure bliss for me.
The only other semi-concern was that we drank way more water than I expected (probably about 16 bottles work) getting into camp. I had brought a filter as a backup, so I left camp before 6AM to go a little over a mile up the trail to filter water for all of our bottles for the trek home. I’d never used the filter before and it was a gravity system that took a very long time, but fortunately I got back before Lily started to worry. It was fun to be out on a survival mission for my family (running out of water would have been a huge problem!)
This is campsite 6. We were in campsite 4. Campsite 6 has a nice area in the stream for dipping, so took the picture here for future reference. I had to go to the spring by campsite 7 for water pumping though because apparently this stream has bacteria in it that can’t be filtered out and it’s very dangerous to drink in significant quantities.
Back at camp, Lily was already packing up and getting the camp ready to go, which was a huge help! Before packing up, I took sentimental pictures of our cooking area (the tuna casserole was soooo good last night!) and took videos of the kids singing and dancing in the tent. I don’t know what I love more, the singing and dancing or the smile on Lily’s face while she’s watching them.
While I finished packing up camp, Lily took the kids to the river where they had a wonderful time playing.
Then we hiked back. Hiking back was easier from the standpoint that most people’s packs were lighter, and I did a better job distributing weight according to people’s abilities. It was also easier from the standpoint of knowing the trail. But it was much much much harder from the standpoint that now we were mostly hiking up, instead of mostly hiking down. The family did amazing. I am so proud of them! Part of what I love about backpacking so much is you don’t just get a beautiful immersive experience in nature and the people you are with, but at the end of it, you all feel proud for achieving something difficult. I’m so proud of how everyone did! Part of what made the way back doable was we took a few nice long luxurious breaks.
This was our longest break, and Clarissa took a full 20-30 minute nap.
After finishing we went and got ice-cream at a gas station. This was one of my favorite experiences I have EVER had with my wonderful family. Thank you all for going with me!
