Camping Attempt #1

Wes and I decided to venture out on Monday afternoon to one of his favorite camping spots. He would always go there in high school with his buddies. Last year we tried to go at the end of May, but the Alpine loop was closed down and I was nearly 8 months pregnant- so hiking was not an option. We found that the Alpine loop was open this year, but when we got to the road that leads to the spot, the gate was closed! So, with no other options, we decided to hike in.


Here we are at the beginning of the trail. We were pretty excited...although the backpack with Evie, the queen size inflatable mattress, and the tent were a pain to carry.

Evie was way excited too...although you can't tell by her expression. 

There we go, she looks a little happier there.

On the trail there was a bunch of snow...but that didn't deter us.

Then we ran into some guys who had just been skiing. That should have been our first sign to turn around. They told us that it was five miles to the place they were skiing. Wes didn't believe it, Wes didn't think it could be that along. So we continued on. Later we saw more skiers and they told us it was a mile longer. Well, what they thought was a mile, felt like forever!

The trail just kept getting more and more full of snow....

until basically the whole trail was filled with snow. Finally, we saw the place that the skiers had been and Wes' heart sank very quickly. Everywhere we looked there was snow. We were too bummed at this point to take pictures. It was cold, Evie's lips were turning purple, we were still miles away from Wes' favorite spot. So we did what any sane person would do, and turned around.

Since it was still pretty cold, we just decided to cook our dinner and go back home.
We had BBQ chicken inside tortillas (we carried around that heavy pan on the hike!). It was surprising very good!

Yes, I look like a chipmunk, I know. Evie had a fun time playing around the campsite and on the table.

And here she is eating her cracker.

Although our camping plans didn't work out, it was still a lot of fun, and hopefully a good learning experience. We realized that we need to know a little more about where we are going before we try to get there. Wes had always hiked in from a different way, so he didn't know how long the other way was. When we got home, we looked it up on google maps and it was almost 7 miles from where we started to where the place was. I'm just glad we didn't go any further. Now we're ready to plan our next camping trip!