Big Pine Vacay and the Mother of all Hikes.

July 10, 2011

After 2 weeks with my family in Colorado and Texas, a three day 4th of July weekend of family fun, and one half day back at work - it was time for another family vacay. We're just living it up this summer.

So, this time we were off to Big Pine, CA with Dusty's whole family - all thirty something of us. The boys have been geared up and excited about going camping since Christmas. The long awaited trip was finally here. So, after unpacking my bags, doing laundry and re-packing, we loaded up the car and were off. The boys were amazing in the car, as usual, enjoying a quite extensive iTunes library full of movies and tv shows to choose from. Seriously, who wouldn't enjoy a long car ride full of snacks and your own movie theater in the back of the car. We had the laptop perfectly set up and the audio was running through the Mazda speakers. Yeah, so no radio or music for us - but glad they enjoyed themselves :)

Once we made it to Big Pine, we picked our cabin and the boys thought it was simply fabulous. They were wilderness boys. They wanted to explore. They were born to be mountain men. Well, for a few hours at least. When Silas realized he was without all his "awesome toys" and there was no Netflix, it was a little shocking. Sad, but true. Ha - seriously, it's kind of sad even our kids miss technology but I guess that's our society these days. All joking aside, the boys enjoyed fishing, going on a hike, using their flashlights in the dark to explore the great outdoors, going berserk in the cabin, going to a Railroad Museum, making s'mores (or rather, Silas enjoyed catching marshmallows on fire), swimming in the hot springs pool, making a few trips down the mountain for ice cream cones and K-mart runs, etc. We had a great time with the whole family, enjoying running into one another here and there and then all getting together for dinners. But I have to say, the 4 of us had a blast. I think it's nice getting out of touch for a few days. No wasted time on silly tv shows, hours browsing the internet and occupying ourselves with mindless things. I mean, I enjoyed checking facebook on occasion to see what was going on, but I also enjoyed having to be creative and just spend quality time together as a family. Our boys are great. I mean, exceptional kids. And, I love spending time with them goofing off and having fun.

Dusty and I also had quite the experience. Dusty had in his mind that he was going on a hike - one that he had heard about from some people in his family. When Dusty mentioned a hike, I said I wanted to go, having no idea what I was getting myself into. Then, it became this big deal about how hard and impossible it would be for us to make it the whole way. Suddenly, I had a challenge - a goal. I was bound and determined that I could do it and we would make it. All we knew was there were 2 falls, Cheney's cabin, 7 lakes and a glacier. Our goal was to follow the trail and just go for it. From what I understand, most people do this trek in two days, camping overnight halfway through. But no - Dusty and I could do it. We're both in good shape and if you give us a challenge, we'll set you straight. The only problem is we had no idea how far it actually was, mileage wise. Regardless, it didn't matter. So, we began.

We got up early, dropped the boys off with Grammy and started at 6:30 a.m. We passed both falls and made it to Cheney's cabin in under an hour. We had a good pace going and had heard most people say it took them around 3 hours. So, we were feeling pretty great. A mile after that, we found the first lake. Soon after, second lake. We were both so determined to not only make it, but have a good time that we were barely talking. We were hiking as fast as we could, not stopping for any breaks. The trail was easy enough to follow until we reached fifth lake. There was a fork and after coming to a dead end at each, we had to guess. Problem was, we ended up having to scale boulders and somehow eventually managed to get to another lake (either sixth or seventh- we are not sure which). There were no signs. All we had was a vague idea of what we were looking for and our gps. The last lake we reached was surrounded by piles of snow. There was no way we could make it any further in the conditions, so we had no choice but to turn around. (We also knew this going into the hike - that at some point we'd possibly have to turn around due to snow - and with this in mind, our goal was to go as far as we could -- even though we both wanted to reach the glacier). Seeing that we didn't follow a trail to get to said lake (sixth or seventh), we had to go back the way we came. Back over the boulders. Back through the mosquitos. Back to the fork at trail 5. But we did make it, and were in the clear, right? Wrong. We continued to follow the trail, but at some point there was another fork and we took the wrong one. We were on a trail, but not our trail. We made a huge detour and eventually made our way back to the original trail using Dusty's iPhone and gps. In the end, we're pretty sure we saw an additional lake (Black Lake) on our way back, which we thought was Fourth Lake at the time. It was a mess. BUT, here's the awesome part -- we hiked 15 miles, climbed to 11,084 ft (a 3,465 ft ascent) and did this in 6 hours, 9 minutes. And this was including scaling the boulders, twice. Excellent time, if I say so myself. Our average speed was 2.4 mph and our max speed was 6.4 mph.

the map of the trail we found after.

a map of our hike (thanks, Motionxlive)

When we got back and found an actual map online (which would have been helpful before we went), we realized we did it all wrong. Well, to get to the Glacier, that is. If we wanted to see the glacier, we should have gone a different direction at third lake. We were under the impression that you had to see all 7 lakes before getting to the glacier, but that was indeed wrong. We couldn't get accurate information because no one we talked to could give us good information. Nonetheless, we were proud at our accomplishment and like I said - once we viewed the map, we realized we saw more than we thought. I think I should petition that someone label that trail better!! BUT, the biggest lesson we both learned was -- wear mosquito repellant. This was not something either of us even thought of. Big mistake. We were eaten alive, literally. We could not stop or we were swarmed. I mean, in our eyes, up our nose, zillions covering our limbs. Our only defense was to keep moving. For this reason, we did not stop - we did not sit down, we did not break. Not even at the top. We made it as far as we could go, and turned around. We both have who the heck knows how many bites - hundreds - and look diseased. Literally. I'd post a photo, but it's gross. Benadryl and hydrocortizone cream, folks.

So yeah. It was awesome. We were dead tired when we got back and my legs were like jelly. But, we did it. In fact, we ran probably a few miles on the way down because it was easier to run than to walk. I told Dusty, "If I stop, I may not be able to start back, much less walk again." So, we booked it.

I'm thrilled we had the experience and was even more glad to get back to my boys and spend more time with them. The last day we went to an awesome pool that was built in the 1920's, that was filled with running hot springs water. Amazing. The boys both loved it and it sure felt good on our skin for the time being.

I am so glad we had the opportunity to enjoy a few days in the middle of nowhere together. We created fun memories and have great stories to tell. At that, I'm a little vacationed out. Back to the grind and a normal schedule tomorrow.