4th Year Hike

This year Will and I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a 4th year backpacking trip with 48 YW... 10 were from our ward.  It was great!  Tuesday morning we were up early, drove the truck with 3 girls and were VERY grateful they slept the whole way!  We hiked up Horton Springs, it's about 15miles outside of Payson (by the Tonto National Fish Hatchery).  On the way up, we took a wrong turn, went down a windy road and almost hit a cow… it was really funny… (side note: you know how rabbits always seem to jump in the road RIGHT when you drive by, then run alongside you before realizing they need to get out… just like that)  needless to say, we did not have beef for dinner and made it to the right place for the hike to start.  

The hike up was beautiful with it being mostly in the shade, and some sunny spots, and following the creek.  There were a lot of small pretty waterfalls.  We stuck back with some girls, and enjoyed the relaxing hike with lots of rest breaks… At last, we made it to the top.  It was really nice to take my pack off… but I wasn’t dying… Defiantly not a bad hike to backpack in to.  

I LOVE the headband they
made for us!

Will and I set up camp up a steep hill about 100feet from the girls.  At first I thought I was going to have to hurt him by the end of the trip for making me hike up this KILLER hill so many times throughout the trip, but was very grateful for it seeing how nice and quiet it was with about 4 of us couple leaders up there, and 2 small tents of girls who were pretty quiet.  We left all the noise down at the bottom of the hill…amazing…  The rest of the afternoon we spent setting up camp, playing games with the girls, some certification, and a short night hike for their astronomy class.  After that, we were all grateful to head off to our nice soft sleeping bags to get some much needed rest… for most of us.

Chillin' on his "chair"

Will and I ended up getting food poisoning from the MRE’s we had for dinner so I was throwing up all night, and Will needed too.  As soon as there was light enough outside, we packed up and told the other leaders we were hitting the trail early, for fear that we wouldn’t make it out.  Lol.  It took Will and I 2 ½ to 3 hrs to hike out of there… I wish we had a video camera with how pathetic we looked.  J I swear every 100 yards Will or I had to stop and breathe.  I don’t think I have EVER taken so many rest periods on a hike ever, or total in my life!  I am very grateful we left early because it was a lot cooler hiking out which helped, and we made it to the car about 40min before the rest of the girls showed up, so we were able to take a quick nap which helped a lot.  I am sad to say, it took ALL the girls no more then 1 ½ hrs to pack out… I am very glad we left early so they weren’t stuck waiting for us.

The rest of the day seemed to go better.  Will and I got more energy, but never feeling a 100% and sitting down whenever we could.  We took the girls over to R bar C Ranch where they went repelling and swimming.  Will and his brother in law took over long repel, and I was the only girl so I had the fun task of donn/doffing all the girls harnesses.  It was fun to see how they were all different.  Some were scared to go down…sat and watched for a long time…. Then finally went down, took off the harness and got as quick as they can off the cliff.  They others who really liked it went up to the long repel and had more fun cuz they weren’t scared.  

After that we drove the girls up to Taylor Ranch and headed home ourselves for some much needed sleep.  After 10 hrs of sleep we were feeling much better the next day and were starting to get our appetites back.   Besides the food poisoning, it was a really fun trip!  I would defiantly recommend the hike.  Even for a nice day hike it’s about 3 ½ miles in, and very quick hiking out.  So pretty!  I know AZ can be really hot at times and we don’t see a lot of green where we live, so it was fun to go up among all the green.  It kind of reminded me of NE following along the creek and green foliage.  Only, in NE there aren’t rocks on the trail :)