Well we had a great time doing nothing yesterday, and it's sunny again today, and you know what that means?
Today we go on an adventure.
The boys and I got up early, headed to the Exchange to get summit snacks, and headed to Heitman Mountain!
Heitman is a long, and I mean long, mountain. 9.5 miles round trip, basically. But, once you get past the first third of it (past Heitman Lake), it's very pleasant, gradual, and not at all difficult.
Until the summit push. But we'll get to that later.
That first third though, it's a doozy. It's steep, swampy (see: super deep squelchy mud that completely covers the trail and forces you to either crash through thick underbrush to make your own trail or flood your boots with mud and water and go right through), and due to the thick undergrowth, HOT.
But past the lake? It's easy, it's gradual, it's FREAKING LONG.
But it's not straight up, so I'm a fan of it.
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| Heitman Lake, with the Pacific in the horizon |
The boys and I have the best conversations while hiking. There's no distractions, so screens, no headphones. So we can just have a nice chat about random things, like our favorite super powers we'll never have, inventions we might create, and how it would be great if they put a chair lift from the tree line across the gully to the summit.
Honestly the conversations are my favorite part of these hikes.
The summit push is a little sketch city, which neither kid is really a fan of heights (even though this is their third time summiting Heitman), so we took our time and had a conversation about fear versus phobia.
We made it! We ceremoniously placed our rocks on this year's summit rock tower, had lunch and our celebratory summit snacks.
Apparently there was a Haribo theme today
The summit is fun, but that's only the halfway mark. Now it's time for the long hike down the mountain.
I'd rather go down than up any day.
At one point, Cam set his pocketknife down and walked away, then realized half a mile further down the hill. Luckily he somehow knew exactly where he had left it, so he took off at a sprint back up the mountain half a mile to grab it, and then sprinted back.
And yes, he found it.
And after? He said "Wow, that run was refreshing!"
This was after a 7 mile out of 9 mile hike. I should put a daily step counter on that kid.
Three summits down! 9.5 miles (thanks to that bonus mile from Camden's lost knife adventure), 2,270 elevation gain. We are tired and happy!
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