Pine Valley Round 2

     About a month ago, Paul and I attempted a hike in Pine Valley that we thought we would be taking the stake young women on. That trip was a complete failure. So I had to plan a new trip that would hopefully be a success. I asked my dad to come down from SLC to hike this hike with me. He is pretty much a professional backpacker, and I really wanted his expertise when it came to planning an overnighter for a bunch of girls. My dad was smart and brought my little sister along. She is not a fan of hiking, but the thought was, if Kessla can power through it with out a backpack on, chances are the young women could survive with a pack on.

      We hit the trail head early Saturday morning. It was too early to be up on a Saturday, let alone at the trailhead to a hike, but nevertheless hiking waits for no one! We started up the trail, and it was beautiful.     Plants and flowers were popping up everywhere. We even saw lots of wild raspberries, choke cherries and gooseberries! The trail wasn't too steep at the beginning and it was in the shade a lot of the time. We crossed a stream around 8 times in the first 3 miles. I was really excited about what I saw. This hike was getting better and better by the mile.
   
 When we hit around mile 3, we reached a gorgeous meadow. It was a perfect place to camp, except for the fact that there was no water. We would have had to hike down a 4th of a mile to pump from the stream then pack it back in. But, if that was as far as I could get the girls, it would work. about another mile up we hit a fork in the trails. Three miles up the left fork would take us to a meadow called further water. That was the wanted destination for camping. We took the fork and started up. This is the part where the trail got really hard. It was pretty much all switchbacks after that. Straight up the side of the mountain we went. My little sister was such a star. We had to push and prod her along, but she was able to keep up.


     Half way up the switch backs, we stopped to look at the view. And oh my, it was incredible. My picture doesn't do it justice because it was a little smoggy looking. But you could see for hundreds of miles around. You could see Snow Canyon, and St. George, Sand Hollow, Quale Creek, and even small glimpses of Zion's. We stopped on the side of the trail and had a small lunch just looking at the view. We continued up the switch backs until we got to what we thought was maybe the top. It wasn't of course, but there was another astonishing view. We stopped for our looks, then continue
d up to the top. Once we were at the top we were so excited. We just kept thinking, we are almost there! The meadow should be just around the corner!! But it wasn't.

     The trail lead downward. Strangely, we were hiking downward into... snow? Yeah, snow. Here we were, practically at the summit of the mountain, with out snow, and we were hiking down, lower, into snow. I am just as confused as you are :) Anyway,  it was actually really hard to follow the trail. We had to follow the trail markers through the snow. It was like an I spy game. If you found the cairn you got a gold star. Paul was the best at it. I only found a few before he did. Him and my dad teased about renewing their orienteering merit badge as we navigated through the snow. We finally hiked out of the forest and into basically a huge meadow. We had found the camp spot. It only took us five hours to get there, but hey, we made it.
     The meadow was great. It was huge, flat and very open. The only down side was that we couldn't find any water. I was kind of stressing out at this point. We had just hiked 7 miles in to what was supposed to be the perfect campsite and there wasn't any water. We sadly walked through the meadow on our way out and found water! YAY! Our trip actually turned out to be a success. As long as I can get the girls up and down the 7 mile trek anyway.
   
       The rest of the hike was just painful. Switchbacks up and down and down and down. My knees were killing me. I don't know how my little sister managed to do it because I was dying! We did pass the time by counting how many pine cones we could stab with our trekking poles. That was quite entertaining. Five painful miles later we had climbed up about 500 feet in elevation then dropped 3,000 feet again. We made it to the bottom of the hike. The biggest problem we faced now was not preparing for parking at the bottom. Originally we planned to hike up then turn around and hike back. Instead we followed a loop type trail that took us up one way and down another. We didn't have a car waiting for us at the bottom. We pretty much tacked on 3 extra miles to our hike trying to get back to the car. Our 12 mile trip actually turned out to be around 17. The hike was longer than we thought plus the extra milage at the end. I just have to give a shout out to my little sister Kessla for hiking 17 stinking miles when she didn't even want to come!

     I am really excited to take the young women on this hike. I think it is a perfect start to backpacking. It is close to home, but there are some amazing views and the terrain is just great. Hopefully more of the snow will be melted in two weeks when we all go. If not, we will just make the most of it anyway!