An Adventure We Won't Forget

Hi friends! I hope this post finds you well. We started school last week and are trying to get into a rhythm. Its always exciting to start a new school year, but because each year looks so differently for us, it does take some time to find our groove.

In an effort for one last hurrah before the school year was up and running, we planned a vacation for the beginning of July. We decided to head out of state where some of the mask restrictions were a little less stringent. What began as an escape from our daily lives for a few days, ended with a life-impacting adventure. Read on...

Our first stop was at a friend's house in Oregon. They live along the Ukiah River. It is literally in their backyard. How amazing it was for the kids to swim, or hop into a boat and fish from the middle of the river, all while we watched them from the back porch. What a fun experience!

From there we headed to Ketchum, Idaho, with a one day stop in Boise to break up the driving. I really wanted to explore the area a little more and find some natural hot springs, but we were ready to get to our VRBO condo and settle in for a few days of adventure.

Our first day in Ketchum, we headed out to The Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. It was about an hour drive one way. All the caves were closed due to the current circumstances, but we decided we still wanted to explore the short trails. We chose to bypass the 1.8 mile trail and drove around to the other side instead. There was still plenty to do and see, with one being a short steep trek up a hill. Unfortunately, something in the air there massively impacted my husband's asthma during the climb (it was insanely windy), so he hung out in the car while we did the last short hike. All in all, it was an enjoyable day. It is likely a two to three hour excursion for most. If you are passing through, it is worth a stop.

Our second day, was an adventure like no other. We decided to explore the opposite direction, north of Ketchum. After much consideration, we chose to hike from Pettit Lake to Alice Lake. Now, let me preface this story by telling you, we hike short distances a few times a year at most. This hike was a 5.5 mile hike ONE WAY. We had the option of starting at Pettit Lake and hiking east, toward Yellow Belly Lake instead, and it would have been about 6 miles round trip, but my family was convinced we should effort Lake Alice; after all, the reviews were amazing, as were the pictures!

My son lifts weight, my daughter is a competitive dancer, and their dad and I have an athletic history, so we headed to the grocery store on the way out of town to stock up on a few necessities thinking we can manage this hike, no problem. I have many food restrictions, and food is really important to me. I munch all day long. So, we grabbed a large bag of almonds and almond butter for me, and for everyone else trail mix, granola bars, fruit snacks, a few more "necessities". Oh, and I didn't forget the water; three large bottles for four of us. Yeah, so as I mentioned, I am not a hiker, so stick with me here.

We drove an hour to our destination. I led my husband down a wrong turn, thinking it was a short cut (I guess I should have remembered all those childhood fairy tales), and we didn't make it to the trail head until nearly one. After a quick potty stop and packing the backpack I decided there was too much weight in my Dance the Magic Disneyland backpack (our sole take-along item), so I pulled one of the three waters out and left it in the truck, thinking we could drink it when we get back. So now, in my backpack, I have two large bottles of water, but I also have plenty of food, a first aid kit, and bug spray. Yep, we were ready for an 11 mile round trip hike for sure!

We headed to the trail head with visions of mountains, Idaho's El Capitan, and welcoming aqua blue waters. After about 15-20 minutes we came to the registration box. As we stopped to fill out our permits, we began noticing a couple mosquitoes. It was a shady moist corner of the world, so my husband and I promptly filled out our permit sheets while the kids hovered behind us swatting away mosquitoes as fast as they could land. I personally think they just enjoyed having an excuse to repeatedly slap us, but who knows.

I knew the permit box was at the 1.2 mile mark, so I was pretty impressed with our time. Granted most of it was fairly flat and well marked, but it still made me feel optimistic. After all, we were already 1/5 of the way to our destination and halfway point. So, onward we went. We enjoyed stopping to take photos in front of a beautiful waterfall, and then realized we had to cross a stream. A nice couple told us if we headed up the trail a bit we could find some logs to shimmy across. The wife, however said she likes to just walk right through the water, shoes and all. Well, of course the boys opted to walk through the stream while my daughter and I headed up to the logs and wobbled our way to the other side, being ever so careful to not get our shoes wet.

After a couple of these crossings, we came to a beautiful valley. Our climb started to kick up just a bit, then bits of rock sprinkled the path. Then, larger rocks and even boulders were covering the path. We had to walk cautiously so we wouldn't roll an ankle. It was not an easy climb. Nearly all of the 1600 foot climb took place on the rocky switchbacks in less than a two mile stretch.

At this point we had passed numerous people on the trail, and even though we were beginning to fatigue a little, we kept thinking we had to be getting close. In reality, we were probably at about mile four, but after the climb we were beginning to dehydrate and the climb was feeling more challenging. We stopped to drink some water, and after numerous short small water breaks, mostly for the kids, my husband realized we had already drained one of our two bottles. Mind you, at this point, we are about 1/3 of our way through this hike. After a small discussion, he told the kids we had to be cautious with our water intake or we would have turn back.

There was water all around us, but because we are not experienced outdoors folks, I had no idea if it was safe to drink or not. So, we each took our sips of water and pushed on. We went for what felt like another 1.5 miles and we were beginning to cramp and dehydrate even more. It was apparent we were likely in trouble and had to turn back. We were either going to dehydrate trying to conserve the water, or we were going to run out of water and eventually end up in the same predicament. We took a seat to rest, get a snack, and discuss our options. I must include at this point that my husband, who is a pretty funny guy, has had a great time harassing me about my over packing of food and under packing of water. Yes, I fully admit, that was my bad. The water seemed heavier than the food, so I thought it was the smarter item to remove to lighten the backpack quickly. Well, hindsight is 20/20, isn't it folks. Lesson learned.

Back to the rock , the snacks, the lack of water, and the long discussion about what our next move should be. A group of hikers came upon us and they inquired about whether we had made it to the destination and were headed back. We told them we were considering heading back as it was getting late, and they assured us we were just over a mile away. They insisted we would regret turning around. After they left, we pondered more, but were very concerned about our water.

Along came another group. They also inquired on our status (it was beginning to get late, remember we didn't start until nearly 1 pm). I was honest and told them I didn't think we could go on because I messed up and didn't pack enough water. The gentleman at the front of the group grinned and offered to use their filters to refill our bottles with the river water. They were so kind! They all pulled out their filter nozzles and bags and started filtering water for our bottles. They hung out while we all re-hydrated and then refilled them a second time. They were our little hiking angels.

Almost instantly after drinking the water, we felt re-energized. Don't ever underestimate the importance of water for your body. What a difference a good guzzle of cold water made! We were bound and determined to finish the trip since we had water back in our pack. At this point, it was about 3:00 pm. The hiking team that filtered our water told us the lake was a little over a mile away because the permit box was the start of the 5.5 miles. So, in reality, this hike was not 11 miles, it was actually 13. Whoops, I guess that is an important tidbit of information, especially when 11 miles is a stretch. Well, that explained why we kept thinking we had to be close and yet the trail just kept going.

About 30 minutes after our water refills, we saw the corner of a lake. I knew it was not Lake Alice, though, because as uninformed as I was, I had read that there was one small lake that we would encounter before the actual destination would come into view. The blog I read called this Not Alice Lake, so that is also what we dubbed it. We stopped to take pictures in front of Not Alice Lake and were promptly besieged by mosquitoes. I began to frantically pull the bug spray out and haphazardly took aim at my fellow family members. I am not sure if the shrieks that echoed were from the attack of mosquitoes, or the bug spray, but I kept going and we eventually received a break from the frightening large blood suckers.

Encircled in a fog of citrus, we set out on our last leg before Alice Lake. We could see Idaho's El Capitan so we knew we were almost there. I cannot tell you the relief that flowed out of me when we turned that last corner and saw the beautiful, vast, blueness out in front of us. It was completely empty. Apparently all the other backpackers (the ones who made it a couple day trip, which was almost all of them) were further up the lake setting up camp. So, we had the entire lake to ourselves. We promptly pulled off our shoes and socks and, dropped our aching hot feet into the cool water pulling out some snacks to munch on.

We knew we were cutting it close on time, so after refueling, and numbing the pain of our feet in the lake, we threw our shoes back on, took a handful of beautiful family selfie pictures for memories, and headed right back out the way we had come only too recently. It was about 4:00 pm, so by my best guess, we had about four hours to get back to the trail head before dark. I knew we had made the first 6.5 miles in about three hours with all the uphill switchbacks included, but I was highly concerned about how fast we could move, even if it was downhill, as we grew more fatigued.

The break did a body good, because we started out at a good clip. We kept it up through all the rocky downhill switchbacks. There were about five stream crossings each direction. Just as we did with the first one, my daughter and I rock hopped or did the fallen log shimmy across each subsequent one on the way up. However, on the way back, we were completely over staying clean and dry and began clomping through the rivers, socks, shoes and all, in an effort to alleviate any unnecessary delays. We had one job and that was get to the car as fast as possible without injuring ourselves.

About halfway back to the car, around the ten mile mark, we were slowing down quite a bit. The mosquitoes were swarming around us and we had to stop and apply more spray. We were walking with our arms repeatedly swinging around to fend off the literal hundreds of mosquitoes ferociously landing on us (yes, mosquitoes can be ferocious). I had rolled my ankle in one of the river crossings and was suffering sharp pains through my entire right leg. My husband was having pain in both of his shins, and my daughter was completely running out of gas. I know my son was not 100% either, but he is not a complainer, so he trooped along at the head of the pack.

By the time we hit the permit box, we were a hot mess. We were thankful there was no one around to witness the madness. We looked like a bunch of zombies, hobbling down the trail, feet dragging, arms swinging, bodies swaying side to side. Visualize this moment with me. It was a sight to see, I am sure. Then, my daughter hit her limit. It started as a whimper, then began to turn into a sad, smothering cry. She literally cried on and off the last mile to the car. I felt awful, but I had no idea what to do. We didn't want to stop because it was approaching 7:00 pm and all of us, including her, just wanted to be back at the car.

We were heads down, on a mission, hiking with all our hearts and then literally about a quarter mile from the parking lot my husband whispers "look". We all stopped to see what he was pointing at. On the hill to our left, not ten or fifteen yards away was a beautiful deer grazing. She looked up at us, and we started back at her. I pulled my phone out and recorded her just staring at us. For a whole minute, the world stood still. We enjoyed the view and the peace and the beauty of everything around us. In all the craziness, desperation and exhaustion, we all stopped and enjoyed that moment as a family. It was the tiny burst of energy we needed to get our feet moving the last quarter mile.

During this entire experience, I felt guilty. I put our family out in the wilderness with a sorely subpar amount of water, and an inaccurate number of miles to our destination.I messed up, big time. But, during the whole hike, I just kept telling my family they were my superheros. I was truly so impressed by how hard they hiked and how little they complained.

I really expected massive harassing when we got back to the car; everyone giving me a hard time about the hike, but I have to tell you, my family, the ones I had been calling superheros all day, surprised me once again. No one knocked me for the misadventure. In fact, my husband started laughing and told me he wanted to be irritated, but realized this was one of those experiences that none of us would ever forget. We had made a forever memory that we could all share together as a family. In addition, my son supported my daughter on multiple stream crossings, we spent time together as a family, and I think we were all honestly impressed by each other person in our family. It was not an easy hike, and I don't think any of us would have thought we could complete it if someone had asked us beforehand. We pulled together and and worked as a team, making a forever memory that will last us a life time.

This experience taught us that we can rely on each other when things are tough. It taught us that we can accomplish things that seem too difficult if we persevere. We learned that we have an ally in each other. With the World in it's current state, I don't think this experience or lesson could have been more timely. Even with an uncertain future, we have each other and we are a strong alliance. We can get through anything together.

Trying something new can feel daunting, overwhelming, and downright scary. I hope our experience motivates you to try something that is just a bit out of your comfort zone. Push yourselves beyond what you think you can accomplish and you just might surprise yourself, and make lasting memories. The lessons learned and the confidence built may be just what you are needing to reignite your family's connection.

If you are looking for more ways for your family to explore, create adventures, and make memories, here is a great starting place. Greta Eskridge is a fellow homeschool mom, who shares some great ideas to help your family start making memories, in her new book Adventuring Together.