Needle Falls Hike day 6

       So if you read the previous post, you already know this, but just incase you are jumping in right now, just know that the day before we got lost hiking in the dark and ended up sleeping on the side of the mountain. When the sun came up at 5:30 we all wanted to sleep a little longer, but we also all wanted to get up and out of there as fast as possible. We slowly started packing up and getting things ready. While in the process I found out that my bite valve of my water bladder had been squished all night so my entire 3 liter bladder that had at least 2 liters of water in it was completely empty. I was pretty frustrated because I had been saving my water for my mom just incase she needed it. I knew that unless we hiked all the way down to the outfitters post there wouldn't be water for a while, and now I was completely out. Also, poor Levi some how contracted food poisoning. He said he was up multiple times during the night trying to cleanse his poor body of what ever he ate (he thinks it was a boiling mayo packet).
      Anyway, after praying about everything, and sleeping on the decision, we decided the best course of action to take would be to back track until we hit the fork in the road and then choose the correct path. Coming down the mountain was so much easier. Not just because it was down hill, but also because it was light outside. We could easily see the path we needed to take, and we could easily see how it was so confusing for while hiking in the dark. I also felt very humbled and watched over as we came down the path. There had to have been angels guiding us that night. Looking at some of the terrain that we crossed over, in the dark, without any accidents or injuries, was just crazy. Huge rocks, huge roots, rocks that I swear weren't there before, big deep holes just off the side of the trail. I mean seriously, I don't know how we would have made it up that in the day, let alone at night!
        On our way back we happened to run into our cowboy friends. They asked if we had taken the wrong trail, and we had to sheepishly admit that we did. We asked them where water was, and how far away it was to get their. They said we could continue on in the right direction and about 2 hours away we would find some water to drink. We figured it was sixes either direction we took and one would propel us in the right direction, the other would make the path longer if we back tracked to the water that was just a tiny bit closer. So we chose to head forward. We said our goodbyes and kept walking down the trail. Just a few minutes later we got to the fork and made sure we were going in the right direction. That morning is hazy to me, probably because I was sleep deprived and dehydrated, but I remember doing some steep switch backs. My mom was hiking pretty slow because she was super tired and thirsty, so Lena, Tallus, and I stayed with her and helped push her along the trail. We sent everyone else ahead of us so they could get to the water and get what they needed. After hiking a bunch more switchbacks we hit a flat spot and heard water! A few minutes later we had hiked low enough to get to the water, and found that our group had found a small little camp site that was perfect for what we needed. We all pumped water, and made some breakfast. After breakfast all the priesthood holders got together and they gave Levi a blessing. It truly was so powerful to sit and witness. The spirit was so strong that almost all of us had tears in our eyes. The miracle was that almost immediately after the blessing Levi seemed just about normal. You could still tell that he wasn't 100% but he didn't look like he was going to keel over and die at any moment either. Soon after that Brytt and my Uncle Tim left to hike out early (they were crazy!!). We all pulled out towels, and tarps and took a nap in the shade.
       We only slept for maybe an hour or so before we got up and moving again. As much as I wished I could have slept all day, I really didn't want to climb the saddle with the sun blazing down on me. We loaded up, had a snack and set off. From the time we left our nap spot to the time we hit the summit is pretty much a blur to me. I don't remember how long it took to get there. I do remember how steep those stinkin switch backs were. And I remember that we took a small shortcut that cut out 2 switch backs, but it also went like straight up the mountain! When we made it to the top, we stopped and rested for a bit, regrouped, and headed on. It was really hot outside, and we didn't have hardly any shade so we really didn't want to sit unprotected for too long. We hiked down and up a little and around the mountain and ended up on a second pass that we needed to go through. We stopped here and had lunch before setting off again.
     Now, according to the map, we only had four miles to go until we hit a place to camp for the night. After our crazy long night, and our rough day, four miles sounded great. Long, but definitely doable. So we started down the mountain. But it just kept going... and going... and going... We had to stop and pump water because we were all getting low and we didn't know how much longer it would be. The map actually said 4 miles, but all we can figure is that it is four miles as the crow flies? We couldn't figure it out. It was probably 8 miles before we got to our camp spot for the night. Right before we stopped, we had to cross a river. This was the first river that I actually had to switch out my shoes for. My feet were so sore, and so tired that I didn't even bother to put my hiking boots back on. I figured that hiking in my sandals would be just as comfortable as my boots, as long as I didn't have to hike more than a mile or two. Luckily, we found a spot just a couple hundred yards from the river. Seriously, flat ground never looked so good! For as tired as we all were, we got our tents up pretty dang quick. I am pretty sure we all thought the same thing, the faster we get everything ready for bed, the faster we can actually go to bed. We all ate our dinner like zombies, except for Levi who went to bed right away without eating anything. We tried to be social and happy, but we were all so tired. On the bright side, the food we ate tasted literally amazing! One of my best meals for sure! Dinner went by quick, we got ready for bed quick, the bear bags went up quick, and we all went straight to bed. The sun wasn't even down, still had a couple of hours probably. I would wager to say we were all asleep by 7:30. I know I didn't have any issues falling asleep. I was so tired my head hit the pillow and I was out.
     As crazy, and horrible as the experience was to have to hike, and get lost, and not have any sleep, I am pretty sure it is a story that we will all remember for a long time. And I think it will bring us closer together as a family for it. Just like our trials we face each day. Some of them are just down right dumb, and our fault, but still we can over come them and learn something from them. #tendermercies

Siesta time! I had a hard time falling asleep as you can tell. But man, Paul was asleep lickety split! 

Mom getting a real good snooze in. With Levi just behind her, and Nayeli resting just behind him.

Our breakfast break! This actually happend right before we took our naps. 

Another cute picture of Paul taking a nap. He just looks so serene! 

Nena and Kess taking a nap. Lena wasn't too too happy with Kess because she was encroaching on her space. For some reason Kess thought it was cool to share Lena's blanket even though she said no! But Lena eventually got too tired to fight off Kess and ended up sharing her blanket. 

The view from almost the top. You can see our little switchy back trail with no tree cover. If you look super close, you can also see my cute mom and dad on the trail. They look just like little dots, or baby trees or something. 

This shot was zoomed in on the trail specifically. I wanted to get mom and dad, and I also wanted to get a picture of what we came up. You could either take a short cut and go almost straight up the mountain, (cutting out two sets of switch backs), or you could follow the real trail, (more switch backs less steep). We chose the steeper trail. My mom and dad chose the less steep trail. 

This is how we were feeling while standing on the side of the mountain. Of course, Tallus is trying to give a "smolder" face like usual! Thankfully we did have a nice breeze most of our hike up, which helped a whole lot with us not getting too too hot. 

Yay! We made it to the top for lunch!! Some of us are happy to be sitting in the shade. Most of us are just happy to be awake and alive. 

Mom, dad, and Kess 

Stopping to eat some lunch and show how we were really feeling about the day.

A fun little waterfall where we pumped water. If the campsite really had been four miles from the top we wouldn't have had to get water here, but its a good thing we did because we were hiking for another couple hours before we got to where we wanted to sleep for the night. 

The end of day six, in our tent at 7pm at night, completely exhausted and ready for bed. One of the easiest times I have had falling asleep while it was still light outside. 

Needle Falls Hike Day 5 (fun at the falls)

         Day five was pretty great. We didn't hike at all! Well thats a lie, we did, but we didn't during the day, and when we did sort of hike during the day, we only had day packs on, not all of our gear and huge packs. We spent the day at the falls. Or what should have been the falls if there was enough water flowing through.

        Most of us tried to sleep in. We knew we had no where to be so we could get the extra sleep we needed. Paul, is not a sleeper in-er so He got up pretty close to when the sun started hitting our campsite. I rolled over and tried to get some more zzzz's but this stupid bird kept cawing. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard! Okay, maybe not, but it was so annoying. I tried pretty dang hard to sleep through it but I couldn't. So I got up maybe 15 to 20 minutes after Paul. I wish I would have waited it out another 10 minutes, because I am pretty sure that as soon as I was sitting down at the fire ready to heat water for breakfast, that dumb bird finally stopped squawking. 

       After breakfast we all slowly got ready for the day, then headed down to the falls. We didn't play in the water along the way, just mostly went straight to the edge of the cliff where the falls should have been. From there we back tracked just a few yards to the cliffs. There are some great cliffs for jumping in. They really were even better when there was lots more water in there. But there was enough water that we could jump off and have a bit of fun. So we did. It wasn't just as easy as jumping off though. We had to have two people on a lower level of the rocks to pull you back up. The water level was too low for you to get a good grip on anything. I did not jump first. I was too chicken. Not really, I just needed to see how cold it was going to be by watching other peoples reactions to it. It was cold. Brytt screamed, and whelped quite a bit. I should have filmed it but I didn't' know how the recording worked on my camera. I jumped maybe 5th or 7th or something. I went before Paul, if that counts for anything! The fall was great! Exhilarating! The water was cold! Not as cold as the water I cliff jumped into that still had ice floating in it. But it was pretty chilly. I just told myself breathe and swim, breathe and swim. 

         Once the cliff jumping thing got old we moved a little further up the river and washed our hair, and played in the water and around the rocks for a bit. I quickly washed my hair and took my bath, then Paul, Lena, Dad and I played hand and foot. We always try to get a game in when we can. We always play on the same teams, and are super competitive about winning. We got half way through our game, and everyone was ready to go. So we packed up and hiked back through the water a ways. When we found a fun place to play, we would stop and mess around for a little bit. Then keep going, and hike a little more, then stop and play a little more, until we eventually got back to our little spring of water where we filled up our water bladders, then headed back to camp. 

      Along the way we did see a few fish, a water snake, and some tadpoles. Deven and Kyler got into a pretty lengthy discussion about tadpoles and how Deven thought they might be a new species of something, and Kyler thought they were just regular old tadpoles. I kind of followed the conversation but not in depth. From what I remember about it, and what I attempted to look up after the hike, they were just regular tadpoles. 

       Once we were all back at camp, Uncle Tim and dad posed a question to us all. They said, hey, tomorrow we have to hike up, up, and up over a saddle. We will be above tree line, we won't have any shade, and it will be pretty rough in the hot hot sun. They said it will be a full moon tonight, and we are all rested from playing and relaxing most of the day, so what if we do a night hike, get over the saddle, then sleep into the later morning and go from there. Everyone put in their two cents about the idea, and we all ended up agreeing and deciding that this would be a good plan. We had dinner and planned to be packed up and ready to go by 8 that night. 

      We must have been in a really big hurry or really excited because we were totally ready to go just after 7. We hit the trail and left. We revisited our horribly lovely switch backs, then had a lot of flat and down hill from there. Deven kept the back of the pack happy and entertained-ish by playing the game "I'm going on a camping trip" with various themes, like restaurants, and Thanksgiving dinners and so on. I am pretty sure they played that game for lots of hours. The entire time we hiked actually. It was annoying, but also smart, because they were loud enough to keep wild animals away from us. It also kept the younger kids from getting too sleepy on the trail. Once we had hiked for about 4 miles we hit an outfitters post. We pumped water, and chatted with some cowboys who said something about not missing the split off. 

      By now it was dark outside. But our eyes were adjusted enough that we didn't really use our headlamps. Our spirits were pretty high, nobody was really tired, and all in all we felt pretty great, so we continued to hike up. We hit a set of switch backs and slowly worked our way up. We came up with a signal to warn others when there was an obstacle in the path. We would yell rock, or it gets steep, dig in, or root, step up. The front of the line would call it and it would pass down to the back of the pack. We had Paul in the front of the line with Levi next, then me. After me came Kess, my mom, Leanna, and then I don't remember after that. I remember that we kept the people with the slower pace in the middle and the faster paced people near the back so that we could all stay together and not get to separated in the dark. We hit a ton of splits in the trail that turned out to be little forks in the trail made by horses that end come coming back together just a few yards up the path. In day light this wouldn't be such a huge issue because you would be able to see that the two paths eventually come together. At night, however, it was a different story. The first few times it happened, it was a big ole ordeal. We had to stop the train, and send the two front boys ahead to check out the area and decide what they thought was the best course of action before we could resume our journey.
          At some point we came to a pretty obvious split in the path, not just a fork that would join up again, this was a legitimate fork that one path would take us where we needed to go, the other would take us who knows where. We stopped to think about it for a minute. We looked around for a sign on the trees that would tell us the direction we wanted to go, but found none. I am not sure if Dad actually pulled the map out, or if he went by memory, but we ended up going left at the fork, and continued on up the path. We hit more switch backs, and lots of steep steep stuff, and lots of rocks, and lots of roots, and kept work our way up and up until we ended up on a very thin single track trail right up against the side of the mountain that slowly fizzled out into nothing. Seriously, one minute the trail was there, five steps later, there wasn't a trail at all. We stopped the train again, and sent the big boys to look around. Both came back with very confused looks and let us know that they couldn't find a trail. We sent the boys at the caboose for a look see also to see if they could find a potential switch back that we missed. A few minutes later they cam back saying they had found a switchback that we needed to take. So we all turned the train around and headed out. Paul and Levi Scurried to the front and left me all alone at the back. In the dark. I kind of had a freak out moment that I was going to be picked off by a werewolf or something, and asked if someone courageous man would come take the back back so I didn't have to be the caboose. Deven came to my rescue and pulled up the rear for a bit. We continued on our new path for a ways then ended up losing the trail yet again. The trail just disappeared again. Once again, we looked around and found a missed switchback and continued our journey. This happened a few more times until we realized we were now going completely in the wrong direction of what we wanted. We were going up like we needed to, but it was up and away from where we really wanted to be. By this point its 2:30 AM, we are now exhausted, thirsty, tired, sore, and really have no clue where we are at. We decided to say a prayer and go from there. After the prayer we came up with several ideas, to bush whack it to the top of the mountain to get a vantage point and head the right direction from there, bush whack across the hillside in the direction we needed to go and hope that we got lucky enough to find the trail, keep going the way we were going with hopes that they meet up, or back track until we found where we went wrong. Because of the tiredness and stress of the situation no one could make up their mind everyone had conflicting ideas, so some bright soul just said lets sleep. Lets sleep until the sun comes up, orient ourselves, then go from there. So we did.
         We threw our sleeping bags on the ground hill side, steep hill side, and tried to get comfortable. For the most part we tried to keep everyone close together so that we could 1. Keep warm, and 2. seem like a big group of something to fend of scary creatures in the night. We didn't take time to put our bear bags up, we didn't do anything but try and get comfortable. I was so cold that Paul pulled out our rain fly and threw it over us like a little tarp thing to keep some heat in. It was great, but it also made everything so stuff. I had to sleep with my head outside of the tent anyway, but I do feel like it kept the warmth in for my toes and the rest of me. Some people fell asleep so fast. I seriously don't know how they did it. It took me forever to let myself relax enough to fall asleep. Then not long after that I had to get up and pee. My mom sleeping next to me had to do the same thing so when she got up I jumped up and followed her to the bushes. A few hours later the sun started to come up over the mountains. Really, only 2 maybe 3 hours tops and we were up again. We all woke up and looked around at where we ended up and were surprised any of us got sleep. Half of us were sleeping on rocks, most of us slid down the hill at least 1 if not 3 feet. And the hill we were on was much steeper than we remembered when we put our sleeping bags down. Slowly we all started getting up and out of bed so we could decide what we wanted to do. (Rest of the story continued on day 6)

The slot canyon. Just beyond the back of the picture is where the "eye of the needle" is to Needle Falls. But there really isn't much water down there.

The infamous cliff jumping spot. Look how pretty and clear that water is!

Supposed to be a cute little water fall, now its barely a trickle. 

Lena posing so cutely on a rock

Brytt was our first jumper. I totally wish I would have filmed him. He screamed like a baby the whole time! It was hilarious. 

Tallus, again, trying to look so cool

Nayeli posing with her husband Deven as they wash their laundry.

Tallus making his way to the spot where you climb out.

Dad and Lena showing me their brave faces before they jump.

Paul and the little-uns just chillin

Lena was so brave! She jumped in!

She did so well! Dad and Kyler are below to help get peeps out of the frigid water.

Thumbs up. He says he is ready to jump

And there he goes!!! Such a brave daddy!

Me getting helped up by all the awesome manly men. 

Yay, I survived!!

Washy washy my hair! The water was cold, but it was so refreshing!! And clean hair never felt so good!

Hair washed and feelin clean!! 

Dad decided to take a nap while he waited for all of us to finish washing and doing laundry. 

Just a fun little view of the rocks and water pools. Imagine how awesome this would look with 3 times as much water in there! 

It was a little mini water slide! Not as good as Kanarraville Falls in Utah, but still pretty fun. 

One of the little pools we stopped to play at on the way back. Kyler is planking, and Paul is holding a trekking pole that he broke when he slipped on a rock. Sadly, it was my trekking pole, but on the bright side, the pole broke his fall a whole lot more than if he hadn't had it. 

Lena, Lincy and me just being goobers.

This was an even better waterslide! It was wider, longer and more slippery. 

I told Paul to snap a picture proving that I slid down into the cold water. 

Our day five picture. We took it at the end of the day right before we started our crazy night hike. 

You can't really see it well in this picture, but if you look at the back of the picture where it looks like brown is oozing out of the cliff, that is what Needle Falls looked like this year. The water comes out of a little hole in the rock and falls down below. But there wasn't any flowage this year. Just drippy drips. Kind of sad. Below I have a picture of Needle Falls 5 years ago so you can see what it should look like. 

Needle falls 2010 in all its glory. The water falls to a super awesome pool below with great cliff jumping. This year there wasn't even a pool at the bottom so we only got to jump off the cliffs in the slot canyon. Paul really was uber bummed when I showed him the differences in the pictures. That just means that we will have to come back some day. 

A picture of the dry river bed to compare it to what it looked 5 years ago. 

So this is us playing in the river in 2010 verses the above picture which was this year. Pretty sure this picture is in almost the exact same spot as the above just from different angles 

 This was what we looked like when we woke up at 5:30 with the sun. See the incline of the hill? not crazy steep, but not flat by any means. 

Here is a view from the other side of the group. It was so cold that I really didn't want to get out of my sleeping bag. Notice the rocks to the left of me? I rolled onto those a couple times during the night. Not very comfy I will admit! 

As much as it sucked to have hiked all those extra miles the view with the sun coming up over the tops of the mountains was really quite pretty. 

Needle Falls Hike Day 4

          Today we were all so very excited because my dad told us that we only had to hike about 6 miles. That only lasted for 30 minutes. Aunt Leanna quickly told us that she was pretty sure it was going to be at least 10. Boo! The good news though was that our trek today would basically be all flat or down hill. That was a little bit of good news for us. Thankfully the weather was finally warm. No more rain clouds. But that also meant that it was hot and sunny. The sunny wasn't too bad because of tree cover. But we did have a pretty good stretch of trail through a burn area again.
           The day was pretty uneventful. We had to cross a river twice. Both times I managed to cross by stepping on rocks. Paul did the same thing, but slipped both times and got his feet wet both times. I just giggled to myself. Its good that he is humbled some times ;) I really think that the river crossings were the most eventful part of our hike today. Well. Okay, so we are just about finished, and my dad says just hike until you see this, and this, and this. We keep going, and then we would stop and say, "now?" He would say, "Nope, keep going." So we would keep going, and continually ask him now? Finally we hit some switch backs, and we no we have gone to far. Dad goes ahead to check it out, and comes back and says, "Yeah, we went to far." Then we had to back track. The front of the pack was pretty much just whatever about it. But the older and younger of the group were pretty frustrated that we had to hike up switch backs, then back down them, only to have to hike up them again in a few days. But, it is what it is. So we got back down the switch backs and followed a game trail to the edge of the river. The one that I had told Paul about over and over; how beautiful it was, and how it was like a little mini oasis in the mountains. Come to find out the river is bone dry. Seriously! Not a drop of water in sight! I just about cried. The biggest reason Paul came on the hike was because I talked up the waterfall so much. It really was like a scaled down version of Havasu Pai only in Montana.
         At this point we were all a little frustrated, and worried. We had planned on there being water, because that is what we planned to drink and cook with. We hiked down into the riverbed and followed it for a while. Some of the boys went up the other side of the river to look for potential camp spots, while other boys went down river to look for water. Thankfully we found some. It was a little bit of a walk to get there. Certainly not right in our back door or anything. But we did have water. And awesomely enough, we had a pretty sweet camp spot too. We set up camp, and then most of us set out to get water, and wash our clothes and hair.
      Just down the dry river bed a few 100 feet a spring comes down the side of the mountain and joins up to send water down the river. The water coming directly out of the spring was SO cold! Literally like ice water. But there was a little pool up river where some water pooled together that was slightly warmer temperature. We washed our clothes in it. and the crazy ones washed hair and bathed in it. Because it was late, and getting cold, I chose not to was my hair. We planned to go swimming the next day, so I figured when I had plenty of time to dry my hair I would wash it. I didn't want to freeze all night because my hair was still wet. The boys were so fun to watch as they slowly inched into the water. I wish I would have recorded it so that I could have a video Paul, Brytt and my dad. They were all so funny to watch. A few of our party continued to hike down stream to see what was even there. We planned to swim, but we didn't know if there was enough water to make it worth while. They came back with positive news saying that there was water, and it would certainly be fun to play in when it was warmer and the sun was up.
        Dinner and games followed the laundry party. Then everyone went to bed we were so tired.

The start of day four. No cannibalism  has happened, no broken bones, no serious injuries. Its been a good almost four days. :)

Hiking across the dried up river bed to our campsite. Just through the trees above there was a really nice flat spot with a previously used fire pit and even some logs for seating. And it was shaded quite nicely by the surrounding trees. 

Mommy feeling pretty upset that 1. the river bed is bone dry, and B. that dad made her hike up a bunch of switch backs then all the way back down. 

Me kind of bummed that all the water is gone.

A picture of what the river looks like... or looked like. Try to imagine it full of really pretty clear green water. Lots of little pools rocks to jump off of. It was great back in its day.

Washing our cloths for the first time in 4 days. 

Tallus was brave enough to try the water out first. 

Nena washy-washing her hair. 

After a while Tallus decided it was too cold to just sit around in the water. 

Our glorious clothes line. Paul and I made sure to put our clothes up high as we could so if a deer wanted to eat them, he would be discouraged and go for the lower clothes first. Our plan worked out great until the next day when mom moved things around so lower down clothes could get more sun and more wind! 

Kalena showing us how we eat pudding. Sometimes we are too lazy to put the food in our bowl, because then we will have to wash them. So we just eat it out of the bag or pouch. There is no such thing as germs when you are in the middle of no where.

And, again, Tallus eating potatoes right out of the pot. Too lazy to use his bowl. At least he used a spoon though and not his finger!

Dad up in the tree. I guess there were too many branches in this tree for it to be a super great bear bag, so dad climbed up the tree and busted a bunch of the lower branches so our food could hang in the tree with no problems. 

Dad and Deven working together to put up all the bear bags. 

Deven is such a sweet guy, and decided to bring his wife on a wonderful backpacking trip for their anniversary. Now for some people, this would be totally romantic. This was Nayeli's first hike, so I don't know how "romantic" it was. But Deven surprised her with a hammock. They only set it up a few of the days. But boy was it comfy to sit in.

We just loves each other so much! Its a good thing I have a cool sister.