I had no reason to go on this hike with the Young Women at their camp, except I really wanted to. The president allowed me to tag along, so I met up with the Parri Ward at their campsite on Wednesday, July 28 and hiked 12 miles from the trailhead to the Continental Divide trail (and just a few steps further to a cute little mountain lake) and back. Our family had done the first couple of miles of this hike with Rachel and Justin and their family a few years before. That's the easy part of the trail. It stays relatively flat until you hit somewhere between 3-4 miles in. Then it quickly gets steep. Some of the leaders and young women opted to hike just two miles in a two miles back, but the majority of the group decided they were in for the long haul.
The weather was fine until we reached the top and it started to sprinkle. It rained on us nearly the entire way out, so we looked by drowned rats by the end. The precipitation also made the steep downhill trail very slick, and at times our boots had nearly an inch of mud caked on the bottoms. It was an adventure for sure, but everybody survived.
