Fall Break- Arches National Park

For Fall Break, we took a very long road trip. First, we drove down south and visited Arches National Park. It was a little rainy the night we arrived but the morning dried up enough for us to do some nice hiking.

Arches National Park is stunning.

Ram Rock

Hiking to Delicate Arch

Little lizards, sunning on the rocks.

Wolf Ranch, trailhead to Delicate Arch

Southern Utah is known for its red rock, so when we saw all this green rock, we were surprised.

Red Rock Country?

Look at that skyline!

It's easy to get lost in the majesty of the arches. Look how small Parker and Bryce are in this picture where the arrow points.

At the Turret Arch, Parker found this crevice and clambered right up into it. Bryce was quick to follow. 

Camille and Rachel wanted to follow too. While they were trying to find their way up....

...Bryce was taking in the view from the inside. 

The girls had a little bit more difficult time getting up AND getting down. :)

We had a lot of really good laughs through the whole thing. 

Double Arch

On the hike back to the car, Bryce found a dead lizard and the kids devised a plan to put it on Sterling's door handle. Gross!

We had lunch overlooking Balanced Rock and then headed to Park City for the night while Sterling had a meeting in Oakley.

Mount Timpanogos

Sydney and Parker hiked Mount Timpanogos with Sterling. I think this is the 3rd time?

I'm so glad they are able to do things like this together. There is something special about being in the mountains. Its such a great time to talk, about fun things and serious things. To commune with each other and commune with God. 

They faced-timed us when they got to the shack at the summit!

Montana Day 3

Day 3 the rain stopped so while Sterling was in meetings, I took the kids on another hike to Avalanche Lake.

It was a much much MUCH more enjoyable hike. Not even steep.

 Just beautiful!

A gorgeous, glacial lake!

So gorgeous that Sydney decided to dunk herself in the FREEZING water!

And then we were on the road again. 

Racing with storms.

Montana Day 1

After Cascade, we headed to Montana. We stopped for lunch on a side road next to a river.

It was Father's Day!

We entered Montana and headed straight for Glacier National Park!

GORGEOUS!

Words are just not adequate.

This was interesting because a cabin seemed to be built on top of a rocky pillar. 

The day started out overcast, but the higher we got into the mountains, the rain started to pour. But we had a hike to go on, so we purchased over-priced raincoats and started on the trail to Cracker Lake.

We look like little hobbits walking through the woods. 

The problem was, we were hiking on a horse trail and so it was extra rutted and extra muddy.

This is not Cracker Lake. I don't know the name of this one but it sure was large and beautiful.

The horses caused quite a problem for us. They made the trail extremely difficult to walk on (see the deep puddles in the following pictures)

The first time we saw horses, they were carrying a family on an excursion. The leader in front told us to stand aside and be quiet, so we did. But the horses got spooked anyway. They reared and backed up and tried to turn around on the narrow trail. It scared all of us and actually looked very dangerous. 

The horses had a hard time identifying us in our raincoats. They thought we were walking trees and it spooked them. So when we saw horses, we had to hike off the trail and up into the woods and hold completely still. 

We are all smiling here, but there was an awful lot of crying along the way. I didn't worry about bears because we really were making a lot of noise. :)

We were about one mile from Cracker Lake and saw other hikers coming back. They said it was super windy around the next bend and they made it to the lake but it was so unbelievably cold that they hardly had time to look at it before they turned around. 

So we turned around early and came back. 

The hike was beautiful.

It was also one of the most difficult hikes we've ever been on as a family because of the weather.

I guess this is just an excuse to return!