Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Feat for Four

About once every couple of years I get an itch to hike the Y. I keep forgetting how steep and uneventful a climb it is. To satisfy Leah's desire to "go on a mountain," and hearing her comment along the lines that a walk at Bridal Veil Falls isn't mountainous enough, I decided she needed to hike the Y, too.

We can see the Y from our house, and she agreed that it would be cool to go that high. We got her some real walking shoes (with laces!) specifically for the trek. (And she wore those pink sketchers for 48 hours straight after getting them). We had countless conversations about how it would be hard, but that we would keep going. We are trying to teach her the idea of working hard to accomplish a goal. As for me, I am trying to train myself that having little kids doesn’t have to stop me from doing hard and adventurous things like this.

Well, Memorial Day was the day that did not get rained out. Honestly, I thought we would turn around half way up. But we pushed ourselves and we encouraged Leah to push herself, and we made it all the way to the top! We had to pace her with a 30-second break at each switchback, but as we got close enough to see the Y, she renewed her excitement at being so close to our goal. Now she can look at the Y and know that she walked there!

Unfortunately, the kids were grumpy the whole way down and Chris had to carry Leah on his shoulders. I had Samuel in a too-small carrier on my back the whole way (30 extra pounds makes a big difference), and he fell asleep on the way down. I have to say going down was nearly as hard as going up as my legs were tired and shaky and I didn't have a lot of traction on the steep, dry dirt/gravel trail. I even got some war wounds-I turned my ankle and skinned my knee on the way down.

Here are some pictures to prove that we really did it! (Note the grumpy children hiking/not grumpy children eating ice cream)


Three quarters of the way up.







At the top.






Chris and Leah climbing on the rocks.




Chris rubbed his cone on his face, too. Happy Memorial Day!

3 comments:

Petersen Palace said...

you really are supermom! ps I need a swap here pretty soon...I'm going a little crazy.

Mom said...

What an awesome view from the top! I now have a new favorite pic. of your family. Congratulations on your energy and vision!

Rebecca Reid said...

aw, how cool for you all to do that as a family! I remember being completely underwhelmed by climbing the Y. And yes, coming down is often more painful! I'm glad Leah made it up, at least.