Thursday

::Hiking and Repelling at the Crags::

Dad decided to take us on the scenic route to the Crags.  The route we took was the Phantom Canyon Road, which is part of the Gold Belt Tour.  It was so beautiful and worth the extra drive!

There were a lot of very narrow places that we barely fit through in our 15-passenger van!

At one point, we stopped to watch a herd of elk grazing with some horses.  There were also quite a few bedded down in the forest - you can see them if you click in on the picture.

They eventually discovered us watching them and all took off into the forest... it was fascinating to watch.  There were too many to count, but there was at least 30 of them including a couple of huge bulls!

I loved all of the wildflowers.  It's amazing how these grow just anywhere out of rocks!

A manmade mountain! :-)  It's a deposit pile from the gold mine (currently in operation) just outside of Victor. 

We arrive at the Crags Campground where we are to meet Justin's for lunch before we head out on our hike.  It was unclear where we were to meet them, and there were 3 different parking areas; so we drove around awhile hoping to run across them.  To make things more interesting, we had NO cell reception... just like the good old days.  To make a long story short, we never found them and decided to drive to a nearby town to get cell reception.  We passed them on the way and found out they had been doing the same thing.  We had just been BARELY missing each other during the hour-and-a-half of driving around and stopping and waiting!  It made a memory we will laugh about for time to come. ;-)

It started to rain and everyone was starving, so we had our lunch in the van while waiting.

Eventually, it quits raining and we finally get started on our hike.  After hiking awhile it starts to rain again!

So, we pull out the ponchos and some find shelter under a boulder while we wait for the rain to abate once again.

On our way again :-)
The rock cliff in the background, straight ahead of the trail, is where we stopped to repel.

Bethany, Kara & Justin
It was a bit of a challenging climb to the top - and yes, with no ropes.  It made repelling back down seem so much more safe (and it was)! ;-)

John climbed this part with no help... one advantage of still having small fingers and not much weight!  He climbed all the way to the top of the cliff and back down with no fear!  Don't worry, someone was with him at all times!

Mark & Trevor
Ummm....couldn't you pick a better place to arm wrestle?!

The view from the top!

We only had one rope, so it took 3 hours for 9 of us to repel down.  Thankfully it never poured on us or started lightening while we were up there.

Dad

Ryan

Bethany

Mark

Kaden & Aunt Ashley

It started to cool off really fast, and the little boys were getting cold; so Mom, Laura, Ashely, Emily, John and the little boys hiked back down to the van while the rest of us continued repelling.

Uncle Trevor & Kaden relaxing back at the house.