Look who started preschool...

 Sadie is loving it.  She started a week ago and has nothing but good things to say.  Boy has she been waiting for this day.  It is hard to see your big sister go to school and you have to stay home with mom.  When she gets home she is such a chatterbox.  She has so much to say about everything that happened.

It wasn't so Gory

A week ago I got back from my first backpacking trip in more than 15 years.  My brother-in-law asked me if I wanted to go along with him on one and I figured it would be a lot of fun.  I know some of you think walking around in the middle of nowhere with everything you need strapped to your back would not be much fun, but you would be wrong.  The only thing that worried me a little was that any gear I had was stowed away at my dad's house 500 miles away.  Luckily, I have some good friends and a very loving wife so I was able to get pretty much everything I needed (and probably a little more).

We hiked around the Gore Mountain Range for four days just before Labor Day.  We wanted to beat the long weekend rush and it worked out pretty well.  We didn't see many other people until the last day on our way out.  It may have been because we only spent half the time on the trail or because we weren't hiking the 14ers or it may have been some other reason.  Whatever it was, we were happy.

I know this looks professional, but it really is from the trip.  That's Scott in front (pretty typical), me in back (also pretty typical) and Bryan taking the picture.  He had some amazing shots.

We camped at a different lake each night.  This was the first night and it was called Mirror Lake, though most would qualify for that name.  The last day, we tried to count up all the different lakes we saw and we think we came up with 18 and that doesn't count all the swampy ones or the ones we saw from a distance.  Here are some of the others:

It was an amazing trip.  These pictures are pretty nice, but they don't really compare to the real thing.

Probably the best night we camped at a lake that surrounded our campsite on three sides and gave us a nice mountain ridge view.  We had to survive a nice rain storm and hiking through a lot of bushes and rocks to get there, but it was well worth it.  The campfire that night even helped to dry my shoes and socks (maybe a bit too much).

The next morning we took our time getting going because it was so nice we really didn't need to hurry out of there.  The water was cold, but the sun was warm and the weather was perfect.  Eventually we continued on and were pretty happy with the next day's adventure.  Our GPS guide, Bryan, led us down a steep mountain side to a very beautiful area.  We took a look around and were in awe of the cliffs, mountains and trees and lake that surrounded us.  There were other campers there and we asked if there was a trail out because we didn't want to go back the way we came in.  They explained where it was, but if there was a trail, we never found it.  We did eventually find the main trail and it took us back to where we wanted to camp for the night.  We refer to that lake as "No-trail Lake."  Bryan said if anyone asked, he wouldn't tell them where it is, but he would be happy to take them there.

In the four days, we officially traveled about 36 miles.  The weather forecast showed a 30% chance of rain each day and we joked about it when we got rained on every day.  It wasn't too bad though.  The only time it really hit us was when we were above tree line.  It happened for about an hour just after the first picture at the top was taken.  We made the trip with very few complications.  The most significant injury was when Scott hit his shin into the tailgate of the car while loading our packs at the end.  As for wildlife, that is a different, but similar, story.

When traveling in the mountains, I have always heard stories about bears and other animals that try to get your food.  Each night we would bag everything and hang it in the trees to keep it away from prying hands.  We saw some brave chipmunks that came searching for seeds and other good stuff, but the only other wildlife we saw was a couple of deer as we were walking back into the parking lot.  That wasn't the end of our wildlife experience though.  Oh no, as soon as we got back to the car, we noticed a mouse had turned Bryan's car into a vacation home.  It ate some of Scott's sunflower seeds, enjoyed some uneaten doughnuts and left trails on one of Bryan's shirts that was left behind.  We cleaned out everything we saw and joked about how it was probably watching us pack up and was waiting for us to leave.  We didn't really see how busy it was until Scott went to get his wallet out of the glove box.  This is what we found there: 

It was quite impressive.  That little mouse turned the glove box into a mouse house.  I'm hoping it wasn't still in the car as we went home because if Bryan found it, it would not be a pretty sight.  Scott and I laughed about how funny it would be if we got pulled over and had to show the officer the chewed on registration.  It was funny because it wasn't our car.  It just goes to show you, you don't have to worry about the bears as much as you do the little mice.  I'd still do it all again and look forward to the next adventure.