Mark and I spent an awesome weekend camping in Rainy Creek. We went up on Thursday night to get a spot right along the creek. We had cute cows walking through our campsite the whole time. We got back from a hike, and the cows had been on the mat under our awning. They slobbered all over my chair, and knocked it over. :)
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| Some of our cute little cow friends! |
On Friday we did an exploration hike, that ended up being quite an adventure. We wanted to check out a loop trail up Rainy Creek that overlooks upper palisades lake. The trail ended up being super lame! It was unmaintained, and straight up a mountain at the beginning! We were scratching up our legs going through the brush, and we were sick of uphill! We don't usually mind climbing, but we knew we had an 18 mile group trail run the next day, so we wanted fresh legs. We ended up in the middle of nowhere, and saw three piles of bear poop on the trail within a one mile space. That was a bit nerve wracking. Once we hit the ridge where you overlook the lake, it was beautiful. That lifted our spirits, so we decided to keep going and finish the 13 mile loop. We got to mile 6.5 and the trail totally disappeared. We had to turn around and do the dumb part all over again to get back! Ugh! We ended up with 13 miles, most of which were lame!
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| Hiking through the brush! |
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| Bear poop! |
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| The ridge where we could look down on upper palisades lake. So pretty! |
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| It was strange seeing the lake from a different spot. |
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| When we headed down the other side of the ridge, the whole side of the mountain was covered in yellow wild flowers. Bailey would have loved it! |
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| I love wild flowers! |
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| Hahaha, this was fun to get through! |
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| We love the water crossings up rainy creek! The last time we were there, it was snowing, and the water was way too high to cross. It's crazy the difference a couple months can make. |
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| The water felt good on our scratched up, thistle stinging legs. |
Saturday was when the real fun began! We did an IFTR group run up Little Elk, down Waterfall Canyon, and past upper and lower Palisades Lakes. I loved this trail so much! Mark and I met Nate and Jenn at the Palisades Creek Trailhead. They left their cars there, and we all drove in our truck to the starting point at Little Elk. Matt got to the trailhead a little late, and caught up to us part way up. The trail starts with a 4 mile climb up Little Elk. Once you get to the top, you have a beautiful view of Palisades Reservoir looking back the direction we came up. Off to one side is Mount Baird, and the other side is Sheep Mountain. You could also stand on the ridge and look down at all of Waterfall Canyon (where we were headed). The views were amazing, the wildflowers were in full bloom, and the weather was perfect!
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| Getting started! |
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| Flowers were everywhere on the way up, and then they ended up being even better on the other side of the ridge when we headed down into the canyon. |
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| Matt booked it up the trail to catch us! |
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| Mt. Baird; that's on my list for fall, or next summer. |
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| There's nothing quite like standing in a field of wildflowers with your hubby, with this kind of view all around you! |
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| Jenn, Matt, Mark, Tricia, Nate, with Mt. Baird off the the right. |
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| That's Palisades Reservoir behind us. We climbed a long ways! |
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| A selfie with Palisades Reservoir. |
Once we were heading down the backside of the ridge, we could finally start running. We kept stopping though, because the flowers were amazing! So many colors! This portion of the trail took us down into Waterfall Canyon. I was so excited to finally get to see the waterfall I've head so much about. I loved this whole section of the trail!
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| Mark, Nate, and Matt heading down the backside of the ridge. |
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| Me and Jenn in the flowers. |
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| I don't think there could be a more beautiful place to run! |
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| After this run, I decided I need to get a book to teach me the names of the wild flowers. About the only one I know is Indian Paintbrush. |
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| My long awaited view of the waterfall! |
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| So pretty! The whole scene looked like it should be on a postcard. We saw a few mountain goats on the ridge right across from the waterfall. |
We continued down Waterfall Canyon until we hit Upper Palisades Lake. The lake was spectacular like always. We took a break here to eat a snack, and then kept on going past the lower lake and to the trailhead.
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| Upper Palisades Lake. I've been here so many times, and it never gets old. |
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| Lower Palisades Lake. |
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| One more group picture before our fun ended! We had 4 miles to the trailhead from this point. |
We covered 18 awesome miles! The trail didn't even seem that long! I think one of the reasons I like it so much (aside from the fact that it's gorgeous the whole way), is that every few miles there is something to look forward to....a destination. First it's the ridge with the views of the reservoir and Mt. Baird, then it's the waterfall, then it's upper lake, then lower lake, and before you know it, you've covered a lot of miles! Bailey will be training for a 50K next summer, so we are totally taking her on this one!
After that fun adventure, Mark and I went and got square ice cream, and read at our campsite. We spent one more night, and came home on Sunday. Great weekend!
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