A Hike to Remember

Friday we took our first hike of the season up Grove Creek Canyon in Pleasant Grove. We ended up starting the hike at about 5:50pm and we got back about 9:20. It didn't even get dark until we were pretty much finished with the hike anyway so it worked out just right. It was a long, steep hike (very steep in some places) and I don't know how but I actually made it! Of course, I was pretty sore Saturday and Sunday. I'm already starting to feel much better today which is good because tomorrow Paul wants to go on another hike already, up Battle Creek Canyon in PG. That one will be a lot shorter and easier though so I'm not as nervous about it. We've made that hike a couple of times already but we figure the boys will really like it because there's a pretty big waterfall at the end. It's also a much safer hike. We probably should have started with the other hike but no, we started with the harder hike!


Papa and Kendall went on their Father/Son campout so the rest of us decided to hike up to Paul's bridge on Friday evening. He built a small bridge up the canyon for his Eagle Scout project and I hadn't been to see it yet so we accepted Kendra's invitation to accompany Grandma, Lisa and her on the hike. We were excited to see it was still in relatively good condition despite some severe flooding of Grove Creek a couple of years ago.


We even took the boys with us, though, after experiencing the steep terrain and the narrow trail with the dropoff to one side of the trail, I don't know if that was the smartest decision we've ever made. Still, we all made it without injury (other than sore muscles) and the boys really enjoyed it! There was one moment where we stopped to rest and Ryan started running toward the edge of a cliff. That about made my heart stop and all my paranoid panic begin but I was able to grab him before he got too close and I think all of our panic scared him enough to not want to try it again. Just thinking about it still scares me to death! It'll be awhile before I'm willing to take them on that hike again.


Paul actually carried Ben on his shoulders the whole way up and Kendra had Ryan on hers for most of the hike. They're amazing!!! I barely made it up myself and there's no way I could have done it with a kid on my shoulders the whole way! Ryan actually walked most of the hike back holding someone's hand after we got through the more treacherous part of the trail and he was so happy the whole time! We'd tell him what a great little hiker he was and he'd say, "Thank you!" Ben got to walk a few stretches here and there and really enjoyed that but was carried most of the way and didn't seem to mind that either. By the time we were on our way down the moon was out pretty high so he said "Bye moon!" most of the way back. He's so cute!