Saturday, July 14, 2012

Palisades Lake Hike

We hiked with the McCalls to upper Palisades Lake. It was an awesome 13 mile hike! Everyone got their wish except for Mark. I wanted to see a moose, Mark wanted to see a mountain goat, Bailey wanted to swim in the freezing cold lake, and Sawyer wanted a thunder storm. All of it happened except for the mountain goat.

 Ready to start!

 We hiked along a beautiful stream most of the way. This was a rock that looked down on the water.

 Sawyer and Bailey

 This is the stream we followed most of the way, until we branched off and started up to the upper lake.

 The lower lake.

 Just past Chicken Springs, we saw a moose. We were able to get pretty close to him! This made my whole hike :)!

 This was our final destination. Palisades Lake is gorgeous! We spent a couple hours here. We had lunch, some people swam in the lake, some fished, relaxed, fed the chipmunks, and Sawyer mostly screamed at the bugs :).

 Conner, Anna, Ethan, Sawyer, and Bailey having lunch by the lake.

 Bailey was determined she was going to swim in the lake. It was freezing! We forgot her swim suit, but that didn't stop her. It took her and Anna a while to build up the nerve, but they eventually both dunked under, and swan around for awhile.

 Sawyer and Mark relaxing in the shade.

Leaving the lake and heading back. Right after we took this picture, the thunder clouds moved in. We were all excited about a little bit of rain. The little bit of rain turned into an all out downpour!!! It was crazy! Thunder, lightening, and pouring rain for most of the hike back. Everyone was soaked (even the ones that wore ponchos), the trail was a muddy mess, and it was SO MUCH FUN! Sawyer loved it! I wanted to take a picture of how wet and dirty we all were, but it was raining too hard to even think about getting the camera out. 
We stopped in Swan Valley on the way home and got some square ice cream. The perfect end to a great day of hiking. We were all excited to get home and take a warm shower and rest our sore feet.

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