Pine River

The Pine River, didn't look like much of a river this year,
but it still holds a special place in our hearts.

Thank you Dad/Grandpa for introducing us to the wonderful place!

gift from Grandpa

The adults were tired and ready for a rest. The kids? Not so much.

"Mom, I'm bored."

"Mom, what can we do now?"

Grandpa solved that problem. He helped Lander and Jake cut down willow sticks and turn them into bows. They captivated the boys for days!

Post Script: It is February 2014 and the boys still have their willow bows from Grandpa!

Pine River Favorites

Lander carried his willow bow nearly everywhere.

Grandpa made willow bows for the boys to "hunt" with.

Spiderman warms himself with hot chocolate and

Jake and Lander explore an old cabin site that Dixie uses in her novel.

Nothing beats a little campfire Rook

 Lane, Grant, Stephanie, Dixie

I wish we could claim this, but alas, we cannot. Maybe one of the brothers? 

Now, that is a possibility!

Grandpa has mastered the art of camping. This includes a covered campfire that keeps us nice and dry.

The campfire and kitchen area 

Dixie and Lander riding Drake

 Getting ready to saddle up

 View south of camp towards Willow Flats

Our tent. We decided to put it underneath the canopy of several ancient pine trees. 

It was nice and shady. 

Jake on Drake and Lander on Amigo.

Riding the Pine River Trail
(notice Dixie's red hat in the distance. We were one horse short, 
so she opted to hike a bit so that the boys could each ride solo.)

Jake, Josh and Lander explore the old cabin site

"The Waterfall"

One of the rights of initiations for those who choose to travel up the Pine River is a refreshing dip in the glacial runoff waterfall near Flag Mountain. Those desiring initiation must walk directly under the waterfall from one side to the next and back again.

Imagine the coldest water you have ever felt. 

Um, scratch that. Imagine being pelted by hundreds of ice cubes. That's about how warm the water feels.

Lander, after his quick run-through. The silly boy did it several times!

 Jake makes his attempt, and succeeds by sheer determination.
And maybe a bit of heckling from his brother.

 Josh cut his foot during his hasty retreat from the icy shower.

Dixie was the only one who did not need to be initiated because she had done the initiation when she was a teenager, but she did need a bath. The water is simply too cold to take a normal bath, just quick scrub until the cold-induced headache would force a reprieve. Then repeat. 

Nice farmer tan/burn

The boys enjoyed playing in the water while mom bathed. 

 Proof that our family survived not only the hike, but the frigid water
and our hair smelled nice too. Win-win!

The "Death Hike"

5 miles of death-defying hiking with your kids? Why not?

The plan was to take the boys to "The Waterfall", the place of mountain initiations for years, and initate them. It started out innocently enough, with a placid walk through mountain meadows

Lander hikes through meadow 

but quickly turned into the "hope-our-life insurance-is-up-to-date" hike.

Dixie, Jake, Lander, Stephanie and Grant start to make the climb.

Notice Lander's legs? It's a lot steeper than it looks, and this is just the beginning.

Dixie is praying for her family's safety by this point. See her little red hat below? She's really only about 15 feet from Jake. 

Jake poses for a picture

Oh, whoops, looks like we went up the wrong draw. Down the cliffs we go. See that dead tree? We used it to scale down the mountainside. If you look closely, you can see Grant's blue shirt at the bottom. He was there to help us jump down the last portion.

I thought I was going to die.

And kill off my entire family in one fail swoop.

It was close. Thank you guardian angels for working overtime!

If insanely steep mountainsides weren't bad enough, we had to hop across this boulder field. The boys thought it was fun until we found some bear poo and the realized that bears might be living in the crevices. 

Lander and Jake, before learning about the bears. 

I'm not sure why they were surprised. We had been seeing animal dung all. over. the. place. 

Fortunately, the bears didn't get us. Neither did the cliffs of insanity, and eventually we made it to our destination. 

Lander and "The Waterfall"

death of a fishing pole, or two...or three

The day started out promising, if not a little hot and unseasonably dry. We gathered what remained of our gear and trekked upstream to teach the boys some of the finer things of life, with Granpda leading the way.

Hiking through the (parched) back meadow at Flag Mountain camp site

Grandpa F, Josh, Lander, Jake

The walk included climbing over, around and even under deadfall trees and other debris.

Nature could try to stop us, but we wouldn't let it get in our way.

Josh and Lander hike across a fallen aspen tree

We even stopped for a few silly photo ops. We couldn't help ourselves. 

It's hard to be unhappy in God's country.

But, then we trudged on. Enjoying the scenery and marveling at all of the bear scat, moose droppings, and elk droppings. There must have been a serious wildlife party going on in that meadow because the poop was ev-ery-where. As a result, we didn't let Josh get much farther away from us than this:

 Finally, we made it. 

Jake and Dixie stopped for a little self portrait while we still liked each other.

Let the fishing begin! 

Grandpa F shows us how fishing is supposed to be done

 Lander catches on quickly after a few lessons from Grandpa. 

Jake? Not so much. It probably has a lot to do with the "I know what to do" problem seen in a lot of pre-teenagers. Coincidentally, this is the last "happy" picture we had.

A few moments later, in this very spot,  Jake snapped his fishing pole in half in a wild attempt at casting. The tip and most of the pole floated downstream, never to be seen again.

Pine River - 2

Jamisons - 0

It wouldn't have been so bad, but he then repeated the performance a second time just minutes later.

Pine River - 3

Jamisons - 0

Mom was mad. Jake was crying. The fish swam merrily by. And with that we called it a day. Fishing suddenly became a bit too expensive for our tastes.

Fishing with Grandpa

Lander and Grandpa were fishing buddies. 

It was a system that worked well. Grandpa taught Lander the tricks of fishing and then Lander would obey. Amazing what happens when a boy obeys! Lander caught 6 fish the first evening alone!

Thank you, Grandpa for the wonderful memories and lessons!

Josh vs The Rock

Josh and The Rock go way back. Like 17 years waaaay back. It was the place that he caught his largest trout on the Pine River despite snapping his fishing pole in two in the process when we were poor college students. It didn't matter, he came home with the trout and busted fishing rod in hand.

So it was with a bit of nostalgia that we headed to his old fishing hole to teach the boys a bit about fishing the Pine. 

Josh and Lander standing on top of The Rock. 

Don't be fooled by the tricks of the camera. It is a BIG drop to the river below.

 Jake takes a turn at casting

And then Josh tries again. 

Shall we say epic SNAG?

Lander is clearly unhappy with the proceedings. Josh isn't super-dooper excited either.

But Josh doesn't want to lose the lure, so he sheds his shoes and climbs into the frigid water, straight from the glacial peaks above. Burr!

The tip of the pole was a loss, mostly.

Pine River - 1

Jamisons - 0

Good thing we brought other fishing poles!

Jake displaying his catch of the day

Fishing the Pine River

First agenda of the first day at camp?

Fishing!

The river was as low as we have ever seen it, so it made for treacherous and difficult fishing, but we were up to the task.

I just love this picture of Lander fishing on the Pine River. 

Or so we thought. Dixie and Lander pose for a quick photo just seconds before she decided to take a swim. In her clothes. With her gun.

The clothes got wet.

An ankle was sprained.

And the Glock fell out of the holster into the river.

But the fishing pole was safe.

Whew!~

Jake had fun hopping from rock to rock, but didn't have the best luck. We were pleased with his efforts. It was fairly technical fishing!

He did catch one fish that he insisted on eating for dinner.

Jake guts his catch

Jake falls in love

Relax.

It was with a horse. Well, two horses actually.

Meet Drake and Amigo. The "BEST horses in the world!" according to Jake and Lander, after we got a few kinks worked out. The biggest kink being that Amigo didn't like to be tied up. And when we say didn't like, that is probably an understatement.

We unloaded the horses from the trailers at the trailhead and tied them to the trailer for saddling. Amigo had other ideas in mind. He kicked. He flailed. He rolled around. He snorted. He jumped. He even busted open his lip. 

Blood was everywhere. 

Amigo was shaking.

Jake and Dixie were shaking because we knew that he was our mount.

Really?

Can't we just change horses?

Apparently the answer was no.

Lander with Drake and Amigo, soothing a terrified horse and building a young man's confidence. We realized that Amigo did not know how to be hard-tied, but was really a good-natured little beast. 

"Easy boy. Easy boy. It will be okay." That includes you too, Amigo.

Jake wanted to earn his Horsemanship Merit Badge for Scouts. This meant that he had to learn how to handle a horse. Grandpa and Mom taught him how to catch the horse, saddle it and then how to safely ride through the meadow. The boys caught both Drake and Amigo every day to practice their new-found skills.

It wasn't hard. They truly are the nicest horses (as long as we didn't attempt to tie Amigo) and would come when called. The boys fell in absolute love with Amigo.

"Amigo is the BEST horse in the world!"

Thank you, Grandpa, for finding such sweet horses for the boys to learn on. Thank you, Amigo and Drake, for being the wonderful creatures that you are. You were an answer to a (worried) mom's prayers!

Lander on Drake. Jake on Amigo. 

 Lander and Jake practice their riding skills

Weminuche Wilderness & the Pine River

It was family vacation time and Grandpa F graciously agreed to take us on a horseback trip up the Pine River. We have named it "The Trip of a Lifetime" for our kids because we don't know if we will ever have this opportunity again.

This is one of our favorite pictures. 

Grandpa riding his horse on the trail along the area known as "Willow Flats". 

Pine River & Memories

Lane, Cedric, Kelsey, Grant (with Stephanie hiding behind), Dixie, Chad (with Heather hiding behind)

This picture was taken at the Pine River Trail head near Vallecito Reservoir in Colorado. It is a place that brings instant nostalgia to me. So many memories and experiences that I decided to write them down, mostly for me, so that I will remember them as I get older.

Dixie's memories of the Pine River & Williams Creek trails

--The day that Nate Farnsworth and I slept together (oh dear, that sounds bad...but it wasn't, I promise) in the back seat of Bill Gorm's old yellow car while Bill snored away in the front. We had driven to the trail head late at night and were saddling up at first light. 

 --I learned that my dad can cook. What?!? That was a shocker. And not only could he cook, but he cooked a lot, and if I wanted to go fishing (and I did) I had to eat an enormous stack of pancakes. I polished them off every morning!!

--The mountains have their own hazing rights. My right of initiation included a walk beneath an ice cold glacial waterfall. It was so cold that I ran behind it on my way back instead of walking through it. So, they made me do it again. Brrr! That was cold. 

--I learned that ears burn and blister very easily at high altitudes and why it is important to protect them with sunscreen. That was an ouch of an experience.

--I learned history as I read carvings in trees, some so old that the white aspen bark curled in on itself and we could barely make out the late 1800 and early 1900 dates. It seems like some were even older with Spanish names, but I would have to ask my dad to be sure. 

--Fools gold isn't just a chunk of metal that you can buy in silly tourist traps. Iron pyrite is beautiful, especially when little flakes of it pepper the ground and sparkle in the creeks. 

--Never, never (and can I add NEVER) walk behind someone when your fishing pole has a Panther Martin skewered to the end. And if you for some reason must, please, for heaven's sake, don't walk with the pole tip down. It really hurts when you have to fish out a barbed hook from between someone's shoulder blades. So, sorry Rob!!

--K9...that's the secret to every woman's camping dreams, at least when camping at Flag Mountain.

--Flag Mountain, Pope's Nose, Flint Creek, Granite Lake, Porcupine Creek, Willow Flats.....names that make my insides go all soft and gooey.

--Being alone in camp and meeting a scraggly haired, leather fringed, Bowie knife carrying mountain man = really freaky. Luckily, he was really nice and only looking for his missing horses. We had seen them run pell-mell down the trail a few hours earlier and I eagerly pointed him in that direction.

--The back country is dangerous. People and animals can get hurt. My dad did. I still remember hearing a loud thud, and then my very southern Aunt Marci drawling, "Don't let Dixie see Lane! He's hurt!" I ran to my tent and started crying until I heard him at the campfire. When I dried my tears, I came out of the tent to see how bad he was hurt. I remember laughing. He smiled, but I think that didn't feel very good with his busted nose and split open lip. Later, I went to see what had happened. He had decided to race a friend on a straight and smooth stretch of trail on their way back from Flint Lake when his horse, Madeline (a very sure footed mountain horse), tripped. My dad went flying, landing face first on a log. The fish he carried home were ground to bits. The pommel had scrapes down it where Madeline had literally flipped head over heals. My dad reminded me on his way to the hospital the next morning (which included a 12 mile horseback ride) to never take risks in the mountains, because even the best horse or most experienced person can still get hurt. We were very lucky that day.

--I learned to be prepared and some basic mountain rules:

1. Keep dry. Hypothermia is a killer, and it can and does snow every month of the year. 

2. A first aid kit is a lifesaver. Just be sure to have a pocket knife, matches, & pain meds inside.

3. Carry snacks. Nothing is worse than being cold and hungry.

4. Tarp over everything in camp, and life will be well.

5. Always trust your horse, they remember the way home even when you don't.

--Never underestimate a well said "S-H-I....." (you can use your imagination to fill in the rest), especially while sliding down a precarious mountainside. 

--Bathing in the mountains is it's own thrill. It's basically skinny dipping in almost frozen water. At some point, you don't care who might be riding by on a trail, just so long as you get done!

--There is nothing cooler than being a 15 year old girl, riding her horse and nonchalantly pulling a pack while passing a troop of hiking Venture Scouts...or pulling a huge horse trailer filled with horses for the matter.

--It's amazing how (wonderfully) isolated one can be after riding just 12 miles into the wilderness, and how bright the stars are in the night sky.

--Did you know that white flowers GLOW on moonlit nights? I learned that once when riding into camp in the dark. Did you also know that if you have a peripherally blind horse (at least that is what we suspect), those same glowing flowers are life threatening & you had better be holding tight. The same holds true for unusually large rocks (lucky for us the Pine River is in the Rocky Mountains), deer off in the distance and many other should-be-harmless things that turn a simple trail ride into an adventure. After 5 days of crow hopping, side stepping & shying away every quarter mile or so down the trail, my nerves had had it. One last bucking bronc scene and I decided that I could walk the last 1/4 mile to the trail head. That you Whitney for the memorable ride. 

The more I think back, the more wonderful memories I recall. It makes me think of something Jake said once after our trip to Mount Rushmore. He said something to this effect, "When you said that we were going to Mount Rushmore, I thought that we were just going to see mountains with piles of rocks. But, that was the trip of a lifetime."

That pretty much sums up my feelings for all of the pack trips with my dad.

Geocaching at Vallecito

Geocaching adventures in Colorado

Cedric reading a microcache find

Josh, Jake, Brianna

Devin, Cedric, Lander

 Jake, Devin, Brianna, Lander

 Grant, finding a microcache

 hiking to another cache in the burned out section 

Kelsey, Jake, Devin, Brianna, Lander, Grant

 Devin, Brianna, Lander, Jake

 Josh & Chad helping kids look for cache

 Brianna finds the cache