My tough little hikers

As a farewell to Summer, Scott took Sarah and Caden on a back packing trip. He was originally going to  take just Caden, but Sarah insisted on going. Because she is such a tough kid, Scott let her go. They found a nice little hike that was supposed to be 7-8 miles round trip.  

Well, 11 miles later, and 3 hours past their estimated arrival, they got home scraped up and extremely tired!!! 

They hiked in 4 miles the first night and camped (a huge heard of elk trampled by the next morning , shaking the ground). The next day, however, a very steep and trick terrain forced them to go off the trail   to find an easier way. What they thought would be a quick change in plans, added 3 miles to their trip!!! So the poor kids hiked 7 miles the 2nd day. Scott said they were really good and carried their own bags for about 5 miles of it. 

I am so proud of my little hikers.

Caden loves that survival show where the guy gets dropped off in remote areas and has to survive off the land. (I think the guys name is Bear Grill?)

He pretended to be him on the hike.

These were the very steep and rocky cliffs the kids had to hike. Caden kept getting worried that they were going to encounter a mountain lion because he studied those in school last year and he knows they live in rocky cliffs. 

BEAUTIFUL!! The thing I love about back-packing are the beautiful things you can only see if you hike into them. You won't see this at a campground. 

Sarah kept saying to me. 

"Mom, you can't even imagine how beautiful it is there.....it is a miracle.....that was the best hike I have ever been on, it was even better than camel's back...."

Scott thought that they were going to have to stop and sleep one more night because it was getting dark and because they had wandered off the trail a bit he didn't know exactly how far they were from the car. But, his phone was dead, and he had no way of telling us this so he told the kids to just keep pushing and make it out of there so we wouldn't be worried at home. 

Troopers!!!!