9.18.2009

Huckleberries, Hikes & Handle Bars

Rachel & I
We spent 3 days up at Schweitzer Mountain as part of our family vacation. It has become a favorite winter destination and now a summer one too. One day the girls and I hiked the whole mountain. We spent the morning hiking along the base searching for Huckleberries. We hadn't done that before so it was pretty fun. We laughed a lot, frolicked along the trail and stopped to take LOTS of pictures. The girls rightly observed that they were happy the guys hadn't gone with us...they'd be complaining the whole time that we were moving to slowly or taking too much time stopping. We took the Snow Shoe Trail. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get to Upper Grr but only 20 minutes to get back. Tells you how much lollygagging we did! Next we took the chair lift up the mountain and headed back down taking the Nature Trail. It was a spectacular day with views into Canada, Idaho and Washington.
While we were hiking and picking 'power balls', the guys went extreme Mountain Biking. We brought our bikes with us, but the off-road trails would have trashed them. So the men rented bikes and took off. Of course there is no photographic evidence, but they said they had a blast! Dave flew over his handle bars 3 times! Luckily, he said, his Camel Back full of water softened the hardest blow to his back! I can't imagine flying over my handle bars and landing smack on my back and then getting back on and doing it again?!?! Adam never fell...he is obviously very proud of that. They went down the mountain 4 times with a round of disc golf on top of the mountain in between. At 4 pm we all met at the bottom of the mountain. Dave and Adam were the dirtiest I had ever seen them. Dave had to SCRUB the dirt off his body. He also had some serious road rash to once again prove his manlyness.
On a side note: Bethanne took all of these photos.

Named Upper Grr for the sounds the bears make when you try to pick their Huckleberries on Huckleberry Hill!!

Those stains took a while to come out of our hands!






Wild St. John's Wort

My Beautiful Daughters...





2 comments:

LAURA said...

LOVE this! Not only because you FINALLY updated this stinking thing, but because the pictures are beautiful and the one of your fingers is so creative, and because your explanation of Upper Grr made me laugh, AND because I've only seen Aaron's warts, never St. John's - how cool!!! Heehee

dana kangas said...

I also love the finger picture with huckleberry stains...great vacation pictures!!!