Dalsnuten

Okay, two days in a row now...I know you are surprised! I haven't done that in some time now :)

But, today after church, the weather was amazing, so we set off to find and hike Dalsnuten. It is only about 20 minutes away and we were headed up to the main parking area when we came to a traffic jam on the narrow (yes, shocking, the road was narrow...) road. We could see people ahead trying to u-turn and come back down and at one point, a woman stopped by where we were sitting and said that it was chaos up there! Tons of folks apparently had the same idea we did and the parking lot was over-flowing. So, we managed to get turned around and headed off to find an alternate parking area on another road. We managed to get lucky and scored a parking space with a trail across the street that according to the map would take us up to Dalsnuten in a round-about way. We began our trek...it was a pretty tough trail and very steep at times. It is one that is likely meant for more experienced hikers and we only saw 4 people on our way up! It was a very wooded, rocky area and quite muddy from a week of rain! We managed to get to the top along with dozens of other people who obviously had come up the easier way! We were rewarded for our efforts though! The views from the top were spectacular! This is, of course, why I am blogging now - I wanted to post pictures!

We stayed up at the top for a little bit taking in the sights and then decided we had better begin picking our way back down. Well...we didn't exactly go back down the way we came up...we started off on the right path, but apparently missed the turn to go back toward where we parked and so we basically decided to follow the crowd, so to speak and head toward the main parking area we could see in the distance. We certainly didn't want to get stuck in the woods somewhere as the sun began to go down. We knew we would have a long walk down roads to get back to the car, but at that point, figured it was a safer bet than our other option. The walk back to that main lot was easy compared to how we had hiked up and it was nice to see it from the other side. The walk down the road back to the car was long, but we would be willing to bet it was way easier than if we had gone back the other way! It really didn't take that long and it was mostly a downhill walk, so with only moderate complaining from one child, we found the car and headed for home. I think we can all safely say we will be feeling it tomorrow!

Kyla proved herself to be part mountain goat again and easily maintained the lead. Daddy easily kept her pace with Brendan and Mommy bringing up the rear, huffing and puffing away. It really irritates me that I can't keep up better since I do exercise regularly and consider myself to be in decent shape...Brendan and I had to ask the mountain goat portion of our family to please wait for us on several occasions! At any rate, it was a gorgeous afternoon and we were glad to get out and enjoy a hike and see something new today!

Enjoy the pictures!