Little Hikers

Near the end of May we decided to go for our first hike of the season.  This is met with a combination of dread and excitement from the kids.  Here they are during a brief photo shoot before the hike.  Happy little campers....

 The Talapus Lake trail hike was really pretty and not too steep. Round trip was a little over 4 miles with an elevation gain of 1250 feet.  We probably should have done a bit more research than just the miles and elevation gain before we headed up though.  About 3/4 of the way to the top which was a beautiful lake we hit snow.  At first just a little bit off to the side where the kids happily played for a bit and then kept right on trekking up the trail.  But after about 5 minutes of the snow just off to the sides we found that the trail and everything around it was covered in snow.  Marty and I have good hiking boots but the kids were just in (very water absorbent) tennis shoes.  By the time we got to the top their feet were soaking wet and ice cold!  They both took off their shoes and socks and we tried to warm them up the best we could.  They were troopers and didn't complain much.
Here they are still on our way up and just getting into the snow hiking over one of the several little bridges.

 Snow at this point is still fun, novel and their feet aren't too wet....yet.

 And finally at the top.  Notice Benjamin's bare feet in between Marty's bare legs.  Trying to warm up as we eat lunch.

 And after lunch and heading back through the snow to the bottom.  In the video, Marty had just accidently stepped into some melting snow and his foot went down to the ground putting the snow up to his hip.  Amazing that the snow was this deep and he was saying that if Benjamin had gone in the whole it would have gone up over his head.  It was a little precarious trying to avoid the parts of the snowing that were melting and stay on the packed part. a

 Benjamin's face says it all.  It was a longer and more difficult hike (due to the snow) than we expected but it was fun.

 The true sign of a good hike is how quickly they fall asleep once they get buckled in.  It was probably no more than 5 minutes before this....