Night and Day

Something that I failed to mention in my previous post about our camping trip was the final hike that we went on a few days after we took Belle home.  The reason that I have waited to post about it, is because I was hesitant to let you in on a secret of mine.   

Let me explain.

A few years ago, Brett and I went on a bike ride.  If you have been a long time reader, or possibly sifted through the archives, you probably know where I am going with this one.... If not, take a quick pause and read this.

Remember now? Yeah, that.

Okay, now that you are acquainted (or reacquainted, rather) with our first encounter with the trail I am going to tell you about, we can continue.

Turns out, when I posted about the trail the first time, I was being a little dramatic.  What?  I can admit when I'm being ridiculous if I want to...... It's true though.  I had a serious case of over exaggeration, mostly because I was bitter about the situation. 

About half way through our camping trip, we made the mutual decision that we needed to make another attempt at conquering the aforementioned trail.  It would be a lot different this time, because I would not be stuck pushing my bike the whole way, and we were going to pack more water.  The trail was not going to win. 

This time around the trail was pleasant.  It was tough in some spots, but seriously so much more enjoyable!  We had great conversation the whole way, mostly reminiscing about the first time, and the views were amazing. I don't think that we even stopped when we were up there before to enjoy any of it.  There were no injuries involved, and no crying on my part. That right there has to say something! This time we also wised up and took the GPS with us to map out the trail and see how far it actually was. 

Would you like to take a guess at how many miles it really was?

We were told that it would be ten miles, ended up thinking that it was more like twelve miles, and we now know that it was just under six miles.  SIX! That's it. Here is the GPS image of the trail:

The only part that sucked at all was the last ten or so minutes.  We were in an open area, with no tree cover, walking uphill.  The majority of the trail had some gorgeous tree cover, and there was wildlife running around all over the place.  We even took a second to stop for a picture in the same spot as last time:

I would definitely do it again, as long as there is not a mountain bike involved, and next time we will probably take Belle with us. She would have loved it.