The second hike of the week.

This was the second hike I went on this week. It was kind of an at the last minute decision to go, (don't you love spontaneity.) Ryan was planning on going with the teachers on their summer adventure and I then realized that I had the same 2 days off. So, I ended up going with the boys and men on their adventure. I wasn't sure at first if I should go because it was going to be a long hike and it would be in the back country of Yellowstone. There are bears in Yellowstone and we would be on foot and sleeping in a tent in the middle of their territory!

These first 2 pictures are the before and after. In order to get where our destination was (Union Falls) we had to ford 3 rivers in order to get there. This was a new experience in which I had to bring an extra pair of shoes to wade the river and then dry off my feet and put back on my hiking shoes to travel to the next river. The rivers were a little deep in spots and most of the hike I had wet pants and then mixed with the dust I guess they were mud pants. It actually was quite refreshing though to wade through the ice cold river, (when I say ice I mean your feet and legs were numb by the time you got to the other side. You then felt the tingle pain of them coming back to life while trying to put back on your shoes.)

You can tell this is on the way out by looking at my hair because we went swimming in warm river and then I went to bed with my hair wet. I guess when you go back packing you have to expect some loss of luxuries ( such as a blow dryer, refrigerator, toilets, to just name a few.)

Here is our ritual of changing our shoes.

I will be forever grateful though to Ryan for packing a nice mattress, a warm sleeping bag and all of the things we needed for the trip. I just carried my clothes and towel and it still felt pretty heavy after 10 miles. Oh did I tell you how long this hike was? Well, the hike in was 9 miles
and then after hiking to Union Falls we then went to Warm River Falls,(I don't know if that is what you call it but that's what I called it.) So in 2 days I hiked over 20 miles!!! I have blisters to prove it.

The sacrifice of hiking though was definitely worth the destination, I have never seen a more beautiful, perfectly symmetrical body of water in my life. We stayed here for awhile admiring the grandeur of this beautiful world and then went on to our next destination.

Our next destination was where I could have stayed forever. The river was warm and there was this most beautiful falls coming over the rocks. It felt wonderful and was natures best Jacuzzi ever. It was quite deep in the middle and the boys had a great time jumping off of the rocks into the warm river. I was sad to make the 4 mile hike back to camp because I wanted to wake up in the morning and spend more time in this river. (I really didn't feel like making the 8 mile round trip the next morning though.)

We had a great trip. It was an experience that I will remember for a long time. My feet though are feeling like I may have over done the hiking this week.