Farmington Canyon

We talked about trying to do this hike with the kids this fall or just Laura and Julia and I.  Our time was running out and the only day off I had this week was Monday. Laura is a good sport and last minute...while we were walking our 5 miles in the morning we decided we should go that day after school. So we all rode together and picked up boys at 3 and headed to the trailhead. We had some poppy seed muffins for a snack and started on our way. It was a little rough going at first for the smallest of the small ones. Lottie was pretty tired and she was awfully whiny at the beginning and I wasn't sure we were going to make it. 

She was having an absolute meltdown here and Laura got her this leaf and said to put it in her hair. That made her pretty happy and for the MOST part, she was great the rest of the way. Everyone did awesome. We were gone a long time. 3.5 hours. Anyway...my parents and I did it in the spring but didn't make it too far because we had to hike up the road. And I remember it being pretty but not crazy...it was spring and things were still looking pretty dead. But it was PHENOMENAL this time. I was also worried the leaves weren't going to be that cool but it was perfection. The weather was awesome. The leaves were so so pretty. 

It was kind of slow going at first. Lots of breaks and needing water and rests but then I think everyone got into their groove. 

We made it to the bigger river crossing and took a good little rest there with some candy and playing by the water. Found a little snake, took some pics and all the necessary things. 

The kids were highly motivated by finding the broken down cars...so we continued on. Look at how incredible that is!

Everyone was filthy. It didn't take long to have everyone's faces looking like Greta's. They were really having a fun time climbing up on everything. 

We made it to the first car!!! They thought it was soooo awesome. 

Number two. 

Once we got a little higher up it got even prettier. More dense forest with pine trees and such as well. I was dying. I think it was extra awesome because I wasn't expecting it to be so pretty. Haha. Just from the last time I remembered it being pretty exposed and open and barren ish. 

Third car. This one was pretty cool too and the little stream ran around it and it was in all these pine trees too and so we hung out a bit here and they all thought it was awesome. 

Then we headed up the trail a little more and got to the rope part down to the waterfall. I really wanted to see it but it was a STEEP long trek down. Much bigger than I had seen in the pictures. The boys really wanted to go too so I was going to go down with them. They actually both did it all themselves. Greta was crying saying she wanted to go down and so I tried to help her. It was kind of a disaster. She was freaking out scared and I was a little nervous too that I was going to lose my footing or grip on her. We were almost all the way down when she slipped a little and kind of rope burned her arm. But this was the view at the bottom. Holy. Probably my fav pic of the whole thing. But hard to say. We got some good ones I thought.

I tried to cheer her up by point out how pretty it was and doing a selfie but she wasn't quite ready for it. Haha.

SOOOO cool!!! Totally worth going down and I felt bad for ditching Laura with Lottie and Lucy for a bit but I REALLY wanted to go down and see it. It did not disappoint. 

The boys were hooting and hollering and throwing rocks at the waterfall loving it too. I made them turn around and look at me for a picture. Greta was still kind of sad so I told them to put their arms around each other cause they all just did something really hard. This is what happened. Haha. So cute. We joke that it will be fun when Crew and Greta get married and we have so many cute pics of them together from when they were little. Weird to think of thinking of them right being little. Because they seem far too big. That's beside the point. The boys did awesome pulling themselves back up except Crew kind of slipped around and hit his back against a really sharp rock. That part sucked. And I had Greta on my back strangling my neck and we did good except one particular lunge up a big step I stabbed her arm into a branch. Oops. We all survived ;) 

Then we started the trek back. We went pretty quick down and didn't take a lot of stops. I was worried they were going to struggle trying to get back all the way and it was getting pretty late. There was some carrying of Lottie and Greta but everyone did really good. I think Lucy hiked the whole thing except for maybe 3 minutes by herself. Pretty impressive.  It was sooo pretty going down too, with the way the sun was starting to set. 

They all had to go check out the cave at the very beginning/end of the trail. And that was that. It was about 7pm when we got back so that made for a little chaos getting home. Showering the filthiness of the kids and getting them dinner and ready for bed and trying to get all the debris out of Bogey and bathe and brush and dry him, etc. I was EXHAUSTED by the time I finally got into bed. I had probably walked 6.5 at least miles that morning with Laura (I get a little more cause the walk to preschool and back) and then that long hike and carrying kids, etc. But I am SOOO glad we went. I probably have typed that ten times. But it was just so soul filling and fun and happy and the kids did so awesome and loved it and keep asking if we can go see the broken down cars again. Happy happy day.