Adventure! Day 15-Cataract Gulch
11 people up at 7:30 - 30 minutes to get ready - hot coffee - hot breakfast - only 2 bathrooms. We did it. Out by 8:00. (Well, then we forgot a knee brace. Practice leaving. Out by 8:10 officially.)
We did the Cataract Gulch hike. It took us about 35 minutes to get to the trail head. Lydia drove the bus. I made it up about a mile and a half (at least I think that’s what Lydia said), and then I went back down with Alivia, Kayleigh, and Stella.
As we sat by the stream at the bottom of the hike, we had a moose encounter. It was a little scary, but we did not die. Stella said the moose was staring right into her eyes! We got up slowly and went to the bridge (there was a post blocking the middle and I think it must have been there to stop the moose from following us). When we started moving, the moose moved off; when we felt safe enough, we tried to take a picture, and we do have one but it doesn’t quite capture the whole ordeal.
Caitlin and Torie went up about 2 miles and then came back down and hung out with us by the water. Around 12:30 Lydia, Ollivander, Liam, and Eli came running down the mountain and for a minute I was worried we had a problem but they were running for the joy of it. Yeesh.
20 minutes later Tara, Tanner, Damien, Patrick, and Silas finished the hike. They all did 2.5 miles or so. It’s a 4.9 mile round trip, so we did a lot of hiking. And at the highest elevation it was about 12,000 ft up there, and even us short hikers went up past 11,000ft.
We all got back on the bus as the thunder started and headed into town for our post-hike celebratory ice cream. It’s who we are now.
Some crazy people are out and about walking around town. The rest of us are resting. It was a big hike and it’s hailing outside.
I thought we would do more today, but mostly we’ve packed and cleaned. I am totally wiped out.
The boys are still pretty energetic, which works out well for loading the bus and running the vacuum around. Liam even did the stairs.
It was a very good day, but the best part of the day is now. Jaden just got back from his 116 mile race and his dropping off of his girlfriend. The cousins and friends are all in the living room chatting and making plans for hanging out in the morning before we leave to go see Emme and family in Utah. It’s going to be a long drive.
Before we leave we will make breakfast, clean up a bit more, and go to the local art festival. The only real trick for tomorrow is that we must leave at 11:10. We have to be sure to make it to the cutoff road on time or we will be stuck until way later in the day (that would not be good). It’s nice to know there are beds waiting for us on the other side of that long drive.
