The hike

Oh goodness what an eternity Saturday was.  It started off with a "fun, nature walk" as my Dad called.  Little did he know that "fun, nature walk" would soon turn into the 11 miles from...well, I think you know where from.  Don't get me wrong, the scenery was beautiful!  But the trail was so hard.  90% of the trail was, like a 100% incline!  And, the last .75 miles, or mile to Lone Pine Lake felt like an eternity.  

It was a one way trail, so of course once we got to Lone Pine Lake, we had to turn right around and go back.  When we started, we had not fully comprehended how far the 5.5 miles back would be.  We had about half a mile left on the trail, and all of a sudden mom said to me; "Do you know what it means when the horse sees the barn?"  My reply, "um...no...not really".  She yells at me, "he runs!"  Confusion filled my face as I barely continued walking and watched her start running down the hill.  I asked where she was going, and she said she was going to go to the store to get water.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the last 6 miles we had absolutely no water, at all.  None.  Dehydration set in just as we began the descent no doubt.  so anyway, I try really hard to bust our a few runs, and I couldn't.  So I just let the crazy woman run.  Finally, I finish and I get to the parking lot, and mom was still gone getting water.  When she came back, she said she was going to go and take the water to Dad, who has a 30 pound pack on!  If anyone was tired it was Dad, he had to haul an extra 30 pounds!  So mom hiked back to him, took water, and then hiked back to the trailhead with him.  I was way too exhausted and hung out in the car.  

So finally we made it home; but not without taking pictures of the flowers of course!  When we got to the lake, there was a beautiful little waterfall with these pink little flowers mom fell in love with.  But, Dad crushed some of the flowers without realizing it and boy did mom not appreciate it.  Dad and I thought it was kind of funny.  Sorry mom...

There are also some pictures from the first hike that mom and I took before Dad came up; we went to Cascade Falls.  It was not a very hard hike, and was only 7.2 miles, compared to the 11 mile hike to Lone Pine Lake.  And, there is also a picture of the cactus that was on the car.  Scroll down further for the story about that from last week.