Hike

Saturday I had a full day planned! I had a camp meeting in the morning and while there one of my favorite people ever said, "Hey, I'm going on a quick hike, do you want to come too?" Now this favorite person of mine is always going on hikes and tells me of her adventures and I always want to go and I always have an excuse. I had a meeting that I had to be back for by 3:00 and she said, "No problem!" I asked her when she was leaving and she said, "Right Now!" So I am thinking to myself.."I can do this, run home, drop baby girl off, change my clothes,pack a quick backpack and be over to her house in less than 10...home by 3, have my meeting, get the rest of my list for the day done! It will be great!"
Well, silly me, I should know better! Any time I am with DaNae, there is NO clock!
I didn't ask where we were going or who was going or anything, just that I wanted to go!
When I got to DaNae's house, Jill was waiting and very anxious to get going. (So glad she waited for me...just going to throw that out now...)

Back ground...DaNae is a mother to 5, all grown and most have children of their own (I know..hard to believe!) She is a lover of words and outdoors! She needs a T-Shirt that says, "Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt" cause she has! And is very much in shape!... Jill is the mother of a gazillion boys, she raises Llams, is an incredible lady and very athletic.

Ok, getting back to the day...So Jill is waiting for me to get there and the 3 of us jump into Jill's very little car that goes really fast. I find out that we are headed North. Great! About 1 hour North, maybe a little more than that. We are going to scope out a hike that she wants to find for taking her YMYW on. (Realizing that some of her YMYW and some of the leaders are not hikers and we don't want it to be too difficult for them that someone will have to carry them off of the trail..)(I am the perfect one to go on this hike..If I can't make it..try a different one..)
Soooooo, after a bit of turning around in a few spots, we find the beginning of the trail. DaNae assures me that it is only a 6 mile round trip hike and we should be able to do it in about 2 hours. Well my brain starts doing the math on time and realize that I will be cutting it close for my meeting. Jill says, "No problem, lets give _____ a call." (Wow, you have phone reception up here? AND you have ______'s number?) (_____ says no problem, better yet, lets meet tomorrow after our first meeting that we have at 7:am. Great, no more stress to be home at a certain time.)
Well, the first part of this trail goes I kid you not, straight up. Ok, maybe not STRAIGHT up, but it is a bit of a start justoutofthecarnothavingdoneanyexercisinginyears straight up. It starts to level off a bit and we come to a great waterfall!

Photo moment! (Not to mention a great time to catch my breath!!!(Insert heavy breathing here!)
We see a group on the trail and talk to them for a minute...Keep talking DaNae....PLEASE!!!!
Feeling better and we get moving again. We see some remarkable large Red Woods. We see little patches of snow...then we see big patches of snow...What tha...

Well we keep going...we have some big patches of snow that we have to walk on (Slushy mushy)and then back on the trail. Ooops, another patch of snow...no we are good...oh, more snow. Yep it is that way for the rest of the hike. (Are we there yet?) We meet two off road bikers on the trail who are basically caring their bikes since they can't ride them through the snow. They came for OMYGOLLYHOWFAR away and assured us that we were almost to the top and then it will go STRAIGHT down from there. We assured them that they were just about out of the snow. We finally got to the place that I think was the top..hard to tell...

What a view. Well, eventually it did go straight back down...(how did those bikers carry their bikes all the way...wooo)so we turned around and started back. About half way back we stopped for a little nibble. (So glad I dumped those bottles of water in my pack and the granola bars.) The girls shared with me some of their favorite new goodies and lets just say, they are both on my new favo list. (will have to share another time..)
We FINALLY made it back to the car, and would you believe it, it was 5:00. Jill became SPEED RACER! We made it back about 6, just enough time to get home, take a shower and get to the church of Stake Conference. I was a bit sore and then I sat for two hours...THEN I WAS REALLY SORE!
Today, I walk funny. My calfs are MOOOOing! I loved the hike! I need to do it more often. The hard part is finding the time to do it.
I love my friends!