Counsins' Campout 2

And now for the concluding episode of our campout.

After another great breakfast by Charlie and Kent (bacon, pancakes and hashbrowns), we decided to hike the Alpine Lakes Trail, which is close to the top of Mount Wheeler. The trail is over 10,000 ft. and is 2.7 miles long, which is a pretty good hike for the littler ones.

This is the trailhead sign. There are multiple hikes from this trailhead, but we did the Alpine Lakes loop that goes to Lakes Stella and Teresa.

The hike only had a elevation gain of 600 ft over the 2.7 miles and wasn't too steep.

This is a picture of the beginning of the trail where they had put down some erosion control for the first hundred feet or so. It quickly became a dirt path.

This is a picture of our arrival at Lake Stella. Notice the snow fields on the opposite side of the lake. The older Parry and Jaffa cousins hiked to the snow fields and Blaine slid down one. Other hikers from the San Francisco bay area caught a picture of Blaine's slide and promised to email us a copy when they returned home.

Jill is closest to the camera in this picture. She was a real trooper without Paul and with her four children. In the background, you can see the snow field that Blaine slid down.

Charlie caught a picture of Ian when I was carrying him. She instructed me to get my head out of the way so that she could get a picture of Ian. On the last stretch, Ian fell asleep and leaned precariously almost horizontal making it challenging for Jill to hike while holding Kemry's insisting hand.

At Lake Stella, the grandkids tried unsuccessfully to build a raft without rope.

Nevertheless, Dallin decided to turn a log into a boat. He had a great time although he was soaked up to above his waist. To his credit, he didn't capsize.

Of course, they also had fun throwing rocks in the lake. Even Jedd and Blaine got into a contest to see who could get the other the wettest from rocks thrown into the lake by the other.

Here is Luke's technique.

At a rest stop along the hike. You can see (from left to right) JoLynn, a little bit of Natascha, Robyn, Kevin in red, Emmy and Julianne by Uncle Jeff who is sitting down and Zach.

Here is a picture of Lake Teresa. The kids played in the stream while we rested.

Charlie got this great picture of Blaine jumping successfully over the stream.

Dallin showed Haley how to take three sticks of candy and twist them into a new creation. I'm not sure how well this tasted as I later found a couple on the trail half eaten.

Later, we rested at camp. Zach and Robyn cooked a great dinner consisting of Dutch Oven chicken enchiladas.

The next day, we packed up and returned home. Yes, we had returned to the same place, located the location of Katelynn's fall into the cave and found out if her legend continued. (You'll have to ask one of the adventurers to find out if the legend continues.)

Haley asked Charlie if they could return next year and she replied that we only do this every 15 years. Haley then came to me and told me that I would be 73 years old when we returned again. Yea, right!