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Ain’t No Mountain High Enough…

Connie, Dougie No Comments

Happy Father’s Day! What a fantastic day we had!! We both got up early and decided to go for a hike. Not just any hike though, we were going to climb a mountain. We had tried a day earlier but after a few wrong turns, we decided we would shelve the trip and try again today.

The hike started off pretty steep. We were both a bit concerned but, fortunately, it would level occasionally to give us a little break. We both were carrying kids at the beginning but after the first big climb, Dougie decided he wanted to walk. Scott was thrilled though having a toddler climb a mountain did slow us down a lot.

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Dougie took one of my walking sticks and he really enjoyed the hike.

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One of the unfortunate things about this hike was that there were only a few opportunities for a great view until we were well up the train. Here was the first fantastic view we saw.

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Dougie was in and out of the backpack carrier as we went up. He did surprisingly well in it.

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Dougie did most of this very long very steep section of switchbacks on his own. We couldn’t believe what a trooper he was!

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Dougie and Scott as they broke through the tree line

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Kim and Connie stop to find a geocache en route

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Dougie was taking a lot of breaks by this point. He’d go 10-15 feet and then just sit down.

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Almost there…

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Making a final assault on the summit

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More resting

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LOOK, snow!

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Scott and Dougie finishing the climb to the summit

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Success!

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Scott and the kids at the summit cairn

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Moments before this, Connie tried to eat a rock. Scott thought it was funny she was trying to eat the mountain and tried to get a picture.

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Kim goes off to find the summit cache.

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The hike down seemed almost worse than the hike up. Partially because we were already tired, partially because it was a very different muscle group being used and partially because there is no option to turn back at that point – you must go down.

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It was a very different Father’s Day and won’t likely be a tradition but we were thrilled to do it and are excited to climb our next mountain!

Prairie Mountain