Hiking like a girl

Sometimes, the way to experience an adventure to its fullest is through the eyes of a child. And though I have been told I sometimes act like a child, this is a recounting of time spent with actual verifiable children. 12 year old children to be specific. My daughter, Lilli, along with her sister and 2 of their friends wanted to go hiking, so Huffygirl and I took them to Mueller Park in Bountiful to do just that. To be clear, there was some hiking that went on. But there were so many other side trips and activities that it’s kinda hard to pinpoint the actual trail traveling.

The stream was the magnet immediately upon our arrival. Crossing it on a log at first, then finding good crossing rocks down the stream. At one point, someone needed to use a bathroom which was across the stream from where we were at the moment. There was a beautiful wood and steel bridge right in front of us that majestically traversed the 15 foot wide stream as part of a wide and well-marked path to the park bathroom. The girls were not able to see the bridge that was 20 feet from them and must not have heard me over the sound of the rushing water. One of the friends (referred to forthwith as Wild Girl, or WG) was semi-carefully looking for good rocks to cross on. I was a little nervous because there really weren’t enough rocks at this point and I wondered if we would have to go home if someone got a toe wet or something. Suddenly WG’s foot slipped and went into about 6 inches of water. There was immediate laughter and then the other foot went in and she simply sloshed across the stream as happy as could be. WG was followed into the creek by the other friend, who would take upon her the nickname of Trippy Girl (TG) on this trip and they headed off to the bathroom together. Lilli and her sister (LS) worked hard to pick a better path to get across. Though they came close, in the end, 8 pairs of shoes were soaked and we hadn’t even started the hike yet!

Real hikers - no posers here!!

Huffygirl works with preschoolers and she told me the kids in her classes had nothing on these 4 pre-pubescents when it came to being busy. Here is a list of just some of the activities we found ourselves observing or sharing in during this 2 hour “hike”:

- Climbed atop a giant boulder and posed for pictures.

- Scrambled up a hillside and found a skull of a carnivore. Had to keep it. In the trunk it went.

- Also found a dried out husk of corn. Had to keep it too, but it got dropped and it broke apart (so sad).

- The gate to the trail had an opening for hikers. This was ignored and climbing and squeezing through and over the gate ensued.

- Found a 12 inch pipe shooting a large stream of water into the creek. Lilli asked if she could stand on it. I said yes and TG also balanced with her. Didn’t look very exciting to me but they seemed pretty pleased.

- Found pretty rocks in freshly-graded sections of the road. Pockets were filled.

- Pretty gold flakes were found in the road. Spent several minutes collecting.

- Found several piles of elk scat. Garnered lots of attention.

- Lilli started crossing the stream on a narrow, not so sturdy log. Turned around when she found nothing to hold onto. The log was about 6 feet over the stream. I felt good about that decision.

- Found hiking sticks halfway through the hike. One was at least 5” in diameter. Funny girls.

- Climbed around on a little diversion dam. Threw rocks into the water. Tried to get me wet.

- WG scrambled into a clearing on a hill while the others pointed out a sign that said to keep off the hill. Something about a reclamation project - they asked me what it meant. I told them it was where they recycled used clay. They thought that was cool.

- After turning around, they stopped at the elk scat piles and squished them all with their hiking sticks. I told them that the sticks were not going in the car.

- We skipped rocks in the little diversion dam, which was no more than 30 feet across. I tried to teach 2 of the girls how to skip rocks. Eventually I just had them skip rocks across the road. It was easier and they were happy.

- An anthill in the road found large cylindrical wood things attacking their colony. They ran around in confusion.

Disrupting McDonald's customers at the post-hike meal...

At one point there was a split in the trail where one path took the girls up a short rocky wall. We met them 50 feet along the trail where they had to slide down a steep section to get back to the main trail again. I positioned myself so as they slid down, I helped them onto the level part of the trail. LS took this as a challenge to take out Huffyman once and for all. She was the last one down and slid directly into me, which then caused my feet to fall over the trail lip and toward the angry raging river below. I tried to push LS up as I went down but to no avail. As my life flashed before my eyes (wow, I really did some dumb things!) and little girl screams filled the air, my feet caught onto a root that crossed the face of the slope and we stopped sliding. I stopped screaming. Saved by a root! On the return trip, when we reached this spot in the trail, the girls giggled and I heard whisperings of “Scream, Huffyman, scream…” Huffygirl held my hand – not to keep me from falling but just because she wanted to at that very moment. All was good.

The hike ended at the parking lot where our little car patiently waited. The trunk was filled with a skull, pretty rocks and 2 walking sticks that I was assured had not been in contact with elk poop. The ride to drop off the girls was very giggly, as most of the afternoon had been. If there is anything that can remind you of the amazing variety of interesting activities and side-trips that exist on a very normal looking trail, it’s a small group of 12 year old girls!

I said Corona Pass, not pass the Corona!

Huffygirl and I decided Colorado was a good place to spend a week celebrating our country’s independence. It was also the week following our wedding and we were told the moon would look like honey. We looked and looked and it appeared more like a thin slice of moon pie than honey. Anyway, Fraser, Colorado became our home base for a few days and today, July 4th, we were headed to Corona Lake, near the top of Rollins Pass. We had explored some mountain biking paths earlier in the week and had visited the wildlife and the glaciers in Rocky Mountain National Park and now wanted to hike to a little backcountry lake for a relaxed day. The trail description stated, “Corona Lake is a 2 mile out and back trail located near Nederland, Colorado and is good for all skill levels.” There were other words like beautiful and historic in the description as well, but I latched on to the words, “good for all skill levels.” That was MY kind of trail!! Even though I trip over rocks a lot and get really tired, I have been walking for so dang long (almost 50 years!), that I felt I had to be on the upper end of the skill level scale.

Huffygirl called from the other room, “I have the first aid kit, dear. All set to go!” This was one of 7 first aid kits we received as wedding gifts. I have the best friends ever!

We allotted ourselves a whole afternoon since it was a pretty good drive into the mountains to get to the trailhead and we brought along some light raingear since it was July 4^th and it always rains on Independence Day. One of the first challenges was to find the dirt road that would take us to the Corona Lake trail. We used a little tourist map of Winter Park and got real close, I mean real close, but couldn’t quite get there on our initial attempts. We found a small road that we thought was right, and tried following some mountain bikers who seemed to be headed in the right direction. After a while, Huffygirl thought we might miss the evening fireworks at that pace so we gave up on them. We asked a local who told us the road was too rough and narrow and steep for my little Honda Civic and that he couldn’t tell us due to liability concerns. He looked straight at my passenger and said in a very deliberate and raspy voice, “A man’s got to know his limitations, Ma’am. If he has the brains to, I reckon.” Then he wished her good luck and he and his Gran Torino disappeared in a cloud of dust.

After a couple of failed attempts, we finally found ourselves on the proper road and seemed to be headed into the right direction. I was a little worried about the sign that said 4X4 vehicles only because I assume it meant 4 wheels and 4 passengers and we only had the 2 of us… The road itself was pretty rough and curvy, and we found ourselves adding lots of turns in the attempt to avoid rocks and potholes and small canyons. The Civic has a full 3 inches of clearance with the tires fully filled so I was sure we’d be fine. There were 2 spots where I got out and had to figure out a path through some obstacles. Huffygirl drove while I directed. She is always so good about noticing the cool sights… “Oh, at this angle, I can see straight to the bottom of this ravine!! And Sweetie, the drinks spilled from the drink holders again… ”

At some point, a big Jeep passed us with a guy and a girl – I think they were on a date. I’m pretty sure we could hear a female voice sharing, “I thought you told me this was a Jeep road that only big, tough, cool Jeeps could drive up?! I thought you said you would take me on a road that only a real man could handle??!! THAT WAS A CIVIC WITH 2 INCHES OF CLEARANCE! And that guy was clearly NOT a real man!” I was about to clarify that we had 3 inches of clearance but they bounced over a ledge in the road and were gone…

We rounded one corner and came upon an old railroad trestle bridge and decided we had to hike to it. It was raining pretty hard at this point and the hike to the railroad bridge was pretty steep, but we felt we had to see this piece of history up close. After slipping and scratching and digging, I finally reached the top where Huffygirl was patiently waiting. Standing next to a nice road, she sweetly asked, “Is this the same road we were already on?”

“No way”, I told her. It was clear that the little speck down below that was our car was on a very different road than the one that went right by this railroad bridge. And I’m sure the guy who drove by in the big truck who told us our windows were down was talking about a different champagne-colored Honda. On a completely different road.

The trestle bridge was pretty awesome. I squeaked past the big red and black “Danger” sign (they put it in an awkward place that really made it hard to get around) and scrambled onto the remains of the bridge and pretended I was a train (“Choo, choo!!”) and admired the pretty view. There were plenty of creaks and groans from the bridge (everyone’s a weight critic) and Huffygirl took some pictures and asked if we should maybe go roll our windows up. So we headed back down, traversing the small stream and waterfalls that had formed in the steep trail and got back to the car much faster that we had gotten to the bridge. We opened the doors to let out some water, rolled up the windows, and decided we’d better head back down the road before we slipped off the side.

The way down was much faster as we were generally able to just float along with the small uprooted trees and boulders that were being washed downhill. In spite of the rain, the mountains and squirrels and lakes and glimpses of the green valley below made this a spectacular drive. I was thinking this was one of the prettiest roads I had been on when Huffygirl brought me back to the present…

“Paddle, Huffyman, paddle!”

Takes Two to Tandem

July has been a full and exhilarating month. So much has happened, adventure-wise, that it’s hard to know how to get it all on paper (figuratively speaking, of course). So rather than try to cover it all, over the next few weeks I will try to share little adventure vignettes. Maybe I should call them adventurettes? Or possibly vignettures…?

Anyhow, the way I see it, adventures are made up of a lot of little decisions and discoveries as well as climbs and vistas in a wide variety of locations and time frames and levels of importance. So I’ll start with an adventure that will now encompass all future adventures… A little thing called marriage.

June 29th seemed like a great day for a ride. My old biking buddy Paul rode next to me up the hill in Hyde Park, UT past tall cottonwoods and grass fields and picnickers. The picnickers were looking at us funny like there was something wrong with us. Could it be they recognized me as that Huffyman dude and were just waiting for me to hit a tree branch and go flying? Or was it that we weren't wearing helmets? Ya, it was the helmets!

It certainly wasn't the fact that we were both wearing full formal suits…

As we reached the top of the hill overlooking a beautifully decorated pavilion in Lion’s Park, inspirational music drifted up and beckoned to us from below. This was our cue and we 2 old guys started our descent down the rocky and weedy hill to the small, well-dressed group below. This ride into my own wedding had been a closely guarded secret and there were many surprised guests.

“What’s that idiot think he’s doing?! Bobbi – it’s not too late to change your mind!”

“That’s Huffyman! He’s gonna biff it for sure! Quick Marge, get this on video!”

It was fitting that the short ride was with Paul, who had been with me on my very first mountain bike ride 16 years earlier. During those first few rides so many years in the past, we ran into a lone rider who had just moved into the area and was looking for friends. This lone rider, Greg, was now waiting next to Bobbi in front of the gathered friends and family members where he would soon perform a beautiful wedding ceremony. Paul and I rode down the hill gloriously (my own description, not anyone else’s) and parked our bikes proudly (after I got my suit pant untangled from the chain) and took our places. My place was beside to the soon-to-be Huffygirl…

Words were shared, beautiful words. Words that celebrated each of us to the other and also united us in matrimony. And I finally got to kiss the bride!! These events were followed by greetings, congratulations, pictures, and then it was time to head off to start our new life together. And what would be more appropriate than heading off into the sunset (as much as there was at 1:30 in the afternoon) together on a tandem bike with a “Just Married” sign hanging from the rear reflector amidst a cloud of bubbles blown by all present!

In on a single and out on a 2-seater. I can’t think of a better way to start this grand adventure…