Getting Ready for a Vacation

A couple weeks ago we went on a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park as a family. We knew we would be doing a lot of hiking on our trip though, so we made sure to go on some hikes beforehand to make sure we were in good shape and ready. Actually, with as much as Nate has had to work lately, just Austin and I ended up going on both hikes by ourselves with Zipper.

Our first hike was along the Davis Creek trail. We tried doing a different, shorter loop than last time, but ended up a trail that turned out to not be a real trail. (Some of that area can be pretty confusing!) We were pretty lost for awhile, had to hike up and down a really steep hill a couple times, ended up spending about twice as long hiking as anticipated. Zipper gave us a real scare at one point too...I didn't want to take her down to the Indian Bathtubs since that area is slick an narrow, so I told her to sit and stay at a more stable spot above them. Austin and I went down to see them briefly, and when we got back up we found that Zipper was sliding down the hill. Apparently she took the "stay" thing so literally that she didn't bother to adjust her position at all to prevent herself from sliding on the gently slopping sandy spot we had left her at. She tried to get back up when we came up to her, but she slid all the way off the edge of the trail and down the hill. She came to a stop half way down, then turn and ran the rest of the way down. Horrified, I was hoping she had managed to stop sliding and running before she came to the swift moving creek below. I was incredibly relieved when she came running up alongside the creek and back up to us a moment later...

Our second hike leading up to our trip was much better. We hiked Silver Lake up American Fork Canyon. It was beautiful, and Austin did great! He especially enjoyed eating a picnic lunch at the lake.

At the brink of the waterfall that rushes
down from the lake