Not so fun

I haven't posted anything for quite some time, not much has really been going on; however we had quite the adventure this last weekend. It's taken me till just today to actually want to sit down and blog about it - I'm still mad about the whole thing! As I've mentioned before, our family likes to get out and go hiking right? Well, on Saturday we drove over to Liberty Lake, WA to hike Liberty Lake Loop. Mal and Denali are standing in front of a tree that a beaver has chewed down. They wanted us to hide and be real quite so we could wait for it to come back out - no thank you.


You start out the hike going up hill, I had Mal stand here while everybody else went on ahead so you could see how we had to zigzag up the steep mtn side. I was out of breath by the time we got to the top - I guess that's not surprising since I'm not really in shape.

Nate picked this particular hike, because at the top where you're supposed to "loop" back around to come off the mountain there is a waterfall. Denali is holding up wildflowers she and Chloe had been picking on our way up.

I love wildflowers - Liz do you remeber what these ones are called? I don't, I need to buy a wildflower book so when my kids ask me about them I will know the answers.

There is a small protected grove of cedar trees that are only about 100 years old. It's a nice place to stop and have a picnic before moving onto the waterfall area. It was pretty peaceful and quiet.

After the grove of cedar trees the trail gets rough and even steeper. You eventually make your way to this summit where you can see Liberty Lake off to the East.

From this point on is where everything all goes down hill (I only wish!). There was a T in the trail with two different ways to supposedly take you back down to the beginning. We didn't know which one it was and unfortunately we chose wrong. We started going up hill again and this is where I started complaining - "Nate, why are we going up hill both ways? This is killing me!". He calmly let me know that it would only be like this for a little bit. Then we ran into some snow, not shallow snow, but sink to your knees snow. Oh great, should we turn around I asked? No, let's keep on going says my hubby - fine, but we better make it onto dry ground soon. As we hike on and on and on - still continuing to go up hill. When Julee and I were little my dad had these nicknames for us, "Whimper" & "Whine" - I certainly felt like I was living up to these names this day. We were lost - I knew it, I started noticing all sorts of animal droppings which included bear doody. Great, that's just what we need, to run into a bear. Low and behold as we rounded a corner in the old logger road we finally picked up (Nate and Malachi were ahead of us girls) when Nate speed walks back to me and in a loud whisper tells me there's a mama bear in the middle of the road with her baby - oh, fantastic. I turned around and looked at the way we had just come, and he says, "We can't go back, we've already been walking for hours". Waaah, I felt like crying. We started whooping and hollering to scare them away. Normally when we sing and make noise our dog goes along with us. She was not cooperative, she just looked at us like we'd lost our marbles. So after we all yelled and screamed (except for Chloe who was crying profusely, because she's terrified of bears) and a quick prayer, Nate went back to check and see if we'd succeded. She was indeed gone and we ran like the wind. Long story kinda short, we were in the mtns for 8 hours. Not too fun - we didn't have enough food and we had to keep filling up our water bottles in the fresh water running out of the mtns. I was worried we'd all get giardia, but no one got the runs thankfully. I guess I shouldn't say we were lost, because when we were at the top we could see the lake and knew which way we had to go - it just took a very long time finding our way there. My son kept saying, "Call the FBI, call the FBI". We did have a phone with us, but since we weren't too terribly lost, we decided that if we didn't make it down by the time it was dark, then we'd make a phone call for help. When we made it back to our car we were starving and exhausted. While I complained, our kids did not - holy cow they were amazing, these are the kind of kids you'd want to have if you had to pull a hand cart across the country!

We took this picture at the beginning of our hike. There is a sign that says: WARNING! Bears have been sited at this park, park users should exercise precautions. Now, we took this because we thought it was funny and we were kinda making fun of Chloe - if you'll notice, she's standing farther back in the road with her arms crossed. She wouldn't even stand by the sign. We have decided we need to put a whistle and some bear spray in our backpacks from now on, and also to pack plenty of snacks no matter how long we think we'll be gone for!