I'm Gone on Another Hiking Trip!

I'll be gone for a week hiking with my family and our friends around the state of Oregon. I'm hoping in the quiet hours of the night as our kids sleep and we rest our weary feet I'll crank out revisions on several more chapters of my latest novel "Haunted House Flipper." I need to get moving on getting that first draft cleaned up for beta readers if I'm going to release it in October before Halloween! You can become a beta reader right now and read along as I post revised chapters at Wattpad. I'll be sure to thank you in the acknowledgements of the book when it's published in paperback and eBook! Feedback would be much appreciated. You can just leave it in the comments at Wattpad.

As far as our hike, we've had to change our plans a bit thanks to a bunch of fires and heavy smoke in the area. We were super excited to hike Crater Lake, but the smoke in that area is really bad right now so my brilliant wife found another great hike for us to do. If you want to see some gorgeous photos from our hikes of nature, rivers, and waterfalls just follow me on instagram. Check out my kids perched on a rock right above a waterfall before it drops down!

Last year my wife planned our first ever week long hiking trip and those days are some of our best family memories ever. I got some amazing photos and man did we have fun hiking to waterfalls and alongside rivers. This year will be cool because another family is coming with us. They've joined us on a lot of hikes this year and they're awesome traveling friends. So I'll see you in a week! Until then follow our journey on Instagram. I've posted a widget below to show some of the photos right here in this blog post:

Hiking up to Colchuck Lake

I told you guys I'd let you know how it went hiking up to Colchuck Lake. Well, we made it, but it cost us. That's right, the picture you see above is one I took! As far as how I'm feeling after that hike that happened three days ago? Let's just say I'm still really sore!

It was easily the coolest hike we've ever done, but it was brutal! Usually when you do an out and back hike the way back is much easier. Most of it is downhill and it goes by so much faster than the climb up did. While we did get back down the mountain faster than we got up it, it felt a whole lot longer and more grueling. When you're walking back down from Colchuck Lake you're not just on some trail, you're climbing down creeks, over boulders, around tree roots, and pretty much making sure every single step is not one that will make you trip. I'm not kidding. Check out the photo I took of the "trail" below. It was really cool, but the terrain really took it out of us. We were all beyond done when we still had about two and a half miles to go. There were some tears and the kids weren't the only ones complaining that their feet hurt and they wished we were back to the car.

It's the first hike marked as HARD we've ever done. Before we've stuck to easy or moderate hikes. It was a little too much for us, but we did it and for that I'm really proud of us. Our kids are 6, 7, 8, & 9, so this was one hike were we didn't see many other children and when we did they were usually older. The kids have recovered a lot faster than my wife and I have though. It didn't help that my wife's knee has been bugging her and that I had a double header of two softball games on Sunday in 98 degree heat. That was the day after the hike and it just about killed me. I'm doing a bit better today, but I'd say I'm still maybe at about 60% back to feeling normal. I am exhausted. It sure was an adventure though! I love my family.

Hiking the Colchuck Lake Trail

My wife got us into hiking and we love it! It started when my kids complained while walking 2 blocks to the corner store to get a treat. She was mortified that they couldn't walk two blocks so she decided we would start hiking. 

At first we just did a mile or two and they got better and better. We found that they would complain on a walk around our block but when they were out in the woods on trails they were too busy having fun and being distracted with the beauty all around us to complain much. We now try and hike at least once or twice a week. The longest trail we've ever hiked now is 8.6 miles.

This weekend we are going to do the Colchuck Lake Trail. If you follow that link you'll see it's rated as HARD. We usually stick to moderate trails. This hike is probably going to kick our butts and take us like 10 hours but we're going to do it. I'm going to try and get myself to jump in the alpine lake even though there may be snow on the mountains around me and it's going to be frigid! It's sure to be an adventure! Wish us luck and I'll let you know how it goes in a few days when we're back to civilization and I'm done with church music and softball games on Sunday. Thanks for stopping by!