(written on July 1st 😅… from nose taken previously)
I was up early, as I needed time to scout out the hike before even going to pick the kids up.
But just choosing to do that brought with it a little bit of a dilemma: One of the rules for hiking is that, at least in Utah (not as big of a deal in New Zealand), you don’t go alone.
I have seen a bear in Provo Canyon before, and I was on Mount Timpanogos the night that young boy got dragged out of his tent and killed by a bear. In fact, I think we drove right through the camp where he was killed, and our vehicle was stopped by police as we went through. If I’m correct, they still hadn’t found his body and thought that maybe it could have been a kidnapping.
So… it’s possible to run into bears in this area. I’ve seen multiple rattlesnakes up Provo Canyon, and though I’ve never seen a mountain lion, they’re definitely around.
So the dilemma… do I hike up the canyon alone and break the rules of safety that I’m about to teach kids? 😅
In the end, I decided to do a quick hike, lockblade in one hand, bear spray in the other, and making a fair bit of noise as I hiked up so as not to catch any dangerous critters off guard. 🙃
Gratefully, the spot that I was most concerned about turned out to be a lot less of a concern when I got to it. I knew it was a little bit of a scramble, but in my mind, I think I thought that maybe it was harder than it was?
I’m grateful it wasn’t. 🙏
And gratefully, there were no adventurous encounters with dangerous creatures.
I did happen to see a section of the path that was lined quite thickly with poison ivy, though. 😅
Accordingly, I grabbed my bottle of dish soap and threw it in my bag, so we’d immediately be able to wash off any oils we might come in contact with accidentally.
On the way to Highland to pick up the kids, I passed what I thought was a super cheap gas station, only to realize after already starting the pump that it wasn’t giving me the cash discount.
Well, that’s because what I thought was a discount for cash was actually a discount for using their credit card. 😶
That’s the first time that I’ve noticed a gas station that flashes two prices for the same product have it be one price for regular credit cards and another price for their special credit card.
So I burned through some of my cash, and didn’t get the discount. Nor did I get the cash back card bonus that I usually receive from paying with a credit card.
Double whammy. 🙃
Oh well, it’s only a couple of bucks, if that.
At my brother’s place, I chatted with the kids a little bit and with my brother and sister-in-law, made sure everybody had what they needed, and off we went!
I spent the drive over running through a whole bunch of different hiking rules and strategies and what not.
I think it was probably pretty boring, especially for the teenagers, but… safety first.
… 😅
At least for everyone else. 🙃
The hike turned out to be harder than I thought it was going to be for the youngest. I knew there were going to be some places that would be a little challenging, but being taller and quite experienced, I hadn’t thought much at all about the parts of the path that were steep enough that it feels like you could slide down.
As we went along, however, the youngest got more and more courageous and more and more confident as I taught her how to navigate the obstacles in the path.
It was really cool to see. 😊
I love kids. I’d adopt these in a heartbeat. 🥰
The first perhaps third of the hike is on a trail, and then after that, there’s a whole lot of creek walking. Sometimes there’s a trail by the creek, and sometimes you just walk through the creek, because it’s easier. As
As we were walking through the creek, I noticed an absolutely massive bone on the edge of the creek bed. It was way too big to be a deer, and it was way too big to be a human, so I figured it was probably a cow?
The biggest chunk was next to a couple of other large pieces, but I only picked up the biggest one, tossing it up to the girls who put it in one of their backpacks, the youngest one wanting to keep it. 😊
It took us about two hours to get to the first waterfall, our official destination, which was a lot longer than I expected. When we started the hike, I had told my brother and sister-in-law that max we would be gone four hours.
😅
Having taken two hours to get up to where we were, and still needing to eat lunch before heading back down, our timeline was a little strained.
Gratefully, I had pockets of reception, so I was able to send off a message to let them know that our timeline was adjusted, and to not send out anyone to look for us if we weren’t back in four hours.
We ate lunch a tad bit further up the canyon from The Falls, stopped to treat some blisters with bandages and duct tape 🙃, hung around the falls a bit taking pictures and what not, and then began heading down.
Generally, going down is harder (more technical might be a better word?) when you’re dealing with obstacles and uneven terrain and what not. It might go quicker, because it’s downhill, but then again, it might not be, because it’s more awkward going down.
But the kids killed it on the way down. 😎
No time updates needed (though we thoroughly took advantage of the extra time we had arranged for… but we’ll get to that. 😁).
The youngest, who had struggled a fair bit on the way up, was super diligent at following the instructions that I had been giving her about how to handle obstacles, where to place your feet, etc.
Because she was careful and diligent in following instructions, her confidence grew as she could see following those instructions kept her safe. Eventually, her confidence grew to the point that she actually began singing on the way down.
🥰
Makes the heart happy. 😊
We had a few dirty butts (including yours truly) and a few cuts and scrapes with a little bit of blood, but that’s pretty normal for a hike like this.
Good times. 😊
We did tangle a little bit with the poison ivy, and consequently took a couple of quick baths in the creek, washing both our limbs and the walking sticks that the two younger girls had grabbed for the journey. 🧼
One of our party, getting a little too comfortable around the super slippery moss at the top of a natural water slide accidentally took the 1/2-second ride down instead of the 30-second scramble down. 🙃
Stay away from rainbow moss. 🙃
Gratefully, he was uninjured, just a little dirty. 🙏
Maybe a third of the way down the canyon, I realized that I had left my water bottle up at the waterfall, so I gave the oldest the charge of helping the younger kids continue down while I ran back to grab my water bottle.
The rest of the climb down was relatively uneventful, I took a gazillion pictures. I think by the time we were done with the trip, I had taken something like 120 pictures? 🙃
There was only one spot that was a bit more challenging for the youngest, going down one of the steeper slopes that we scrambled up.
Even I, with all my experience, recognize that it’s super easy to slip in those areas, and you could slide down a little bit. You’re not really going to get hurt much, maybe a little scrape, but it’s still easy to be scared by the thought of sliding down.
Fortunately, I was able to teach her a way to go down that was not only educational, but made it so the scary slope was actually kind of boring. 🎉
I told her to crouch down and sit on her ankles using her feet as skis, so that her butt was just barely off the ground and all her weight was on her ski feet.
I did the same, going down in front of her, showing her that as hard as I tried to slide down, there was just too much friction.
As she tried it herself, seeing that even trying to get herself to slide, she couldn’t slide down, her fear left her, and she was right back to being chatty and relaxed.
Those parts of life are my favorite, especially teaching kids and youth. 🥰
Back safely at the car, we decided to stop off at the Walmart in Pleasant Grove to get… can you guess? 🙃
Yep! Pipsicles. …Lots of pipsicles. 😆
We ended up buying I think four boxes (different flavors) for a total of 30 popsicles, which meant six each. 🙃
Having time left to kill on the clock before we had to be back, we headed over to the little park at the base of American Fork Canyon, the only ones there, and downed the rest of the pipsicles (we’d already eaten probably half or more just on the way there 😆).
It was lovely. 🥰
Back at the house, we talked about the hike with my brother and sister-in-law, got all the photos from the hike uploaded to share (and my brother gave me a digital photo album frame thingy 🙏).
We goofed around a bit, tried to figure out what animal the bone came from (elk or cow by size after research), ate food, and played a little bit on the piano.
While we goofed around on the piano, the youngest decided to give me lots of ponytails. 🙃
Hard to say goodbye. Love those kids. Probably won’t be back in Utah until next year, unless I swing out there for the Christmas season. We’ll see.
South Dakota until September, Great Eastern Road Trip, Arkansas, then… who knows. 🙃
Though it was late, I started heading east, deciding not to swing by the Tetons and Yellowstone again, as I wanted to get the barrels back as quickly as I could.
I didn’t make it super far before exhaustion overtook me, and it was dangerous to keep driving.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 