Birthday Hike to Lake Catherine

I told you Daisy and I were laying plans to do another hike before the wildflowers were gone. And thanks to Sam, we managed something I've always wanted to do—hiking up one canyon and down the other! It was the perfect way to start Daisy's birthday morning (and even though both of us were sick with colds in the surrounding days, we both felt good during our hike, a tiny miracle!).

We left the little ones home with Malachi during this hike (which made it go lots faster!). Junie came with us, and Sam hiked up too for the first half hour or so, then descended, got in the car, and drove around to the other end of the trail where he talked to Abe on the phone while waiting for us. It was great! Sam drew this on his iPad while he was waiting:

Quite a good use of his time, I must say! :)

The girls are always cold when we hike early in the morning. I'm usually fine, but even I was a bit chilly, since we'd had some rain and the temperatures were lower. It was perfect for hiking!

Junie the Troll

Sam catching up, after nobly running back down and up again to get Daisy's inhaler from the car

The wildflowers were slightly less profuse than they were a few weeks ago, but it was nice because we also got to see different kinds of flowers flourishing.

The highlight of the hike up was seeing a large fox running around! The couple near her on the trail (in the picture above) told us she was running around and at them a bit aggressively, and surmised there might have been a litter of babies nearby. I wish we could have seen them! But seeing the adult fox was cool enough. I've never seen such a big one, or any at all in these mountains, actually.

I took the girls' picture on the traditional Picture Rock

(Here's tiny Malachi on that rock many years ago.)

(And three tiny girls almost as many years ago.)

(And the three girls with lurking Abe, just a few years ago. We miss Abe!)

We were happy when we finally caught up with the sun!

This meadow was still covered with a light coating of frost.

It was really pretty as the first rays of the sun lit it from behind!

Still some frost visible here

Birthday girl! 13 years old, if you can believe it (and even if you can't).

Another familiar picture spot—

(Look at little Junie running up that same hill!)

Here we are at the overlook. We've turned around here many times, and we've also continued on up to Sunset Peak. But we haven't ever headed from here down the other side of the trail toward Lakes Mary and Martha.