Hikes

I don't know how many posts about hikes I need to put in these books.  But I love the pictures so I guess I'm putting all of them.  Some of these are worth remembering at least.  

Amphitheater Lake along with Surprise Lake and Delta Lake is a hike my friends all did without me in 22 because I was going to Africa and Dylan broke his hand and I was too overwhelmed and I bailed last minute.  They loved it and I was super jealous that I didn't get to do it.  So we made it happen this year!  Last time they stopped at Delta Lake first, because it is the first one you come to.  But they said that was hard so the plan was to do Surprise and Amphitheater first and then Delta on the way back down.  It was 11.5 miles or so.  Delta Lake is not a long hike but it is quite intense in the last half mile or so and it wears you out.  So after doing that, it's nice to just have downhill left.  This is a great hike I would definitely do again.

Surprise:

Amphitheater:

Delta:

This next hike was Little Elk Creek.  The intention was to drop a car and hike up Little Elk and down Palisades.  I've done this one before with some other friends and I loved it and I've been trying to get these girls to do it with me ever since and for whatever reason they drag their feet.  But it is kind of long and we were training for the Grand Canyon so it was time.  We were all prepared for a looong hike and we got like 2.5 miles up and came across a moose mom and baby.  There was nobody else on this trail.  It is not the most popular.  Once you get to Palisades there are plenty of people, but not on this side.  The momma moose was staring us down and not budging.  They wandered off into the trees after awhile but our trail went right by them.  We considered going wide for awhile, Julie and I were determined to find a way.  But Sherri was not moving.  She was not going anywhere near it.  Jen didn't feel great about it either.  So after a long time of sitting there waiting, we finally called it and turned around.  I was SO BUMMED!!  We drove back home and I went for a run, lol.

My mom was in town for her annual girls trip to St George, but she came early so we could hike Delta Lake.  We had planned to hike Delta the year before when we did Cascade Canyon but the weather was crappy and it was early in June and we bailed.  She has wanted to do Delta for so long, so we planned it while she was here.  It's a tough one!  Considering it's only like 7 miles, it feels hard.  It's worth it though!  This day there was a bear hanging out at the lake and everyone we passed was all worked up about it.  The bear didn't actually care about the people.  He was pretty cute.  By the time we got up there he had ventured up off to the side of the lake but a girl there shared a video she had gotten of him up close.  My mom still had her national parks pass from our trip to Utah in May that we purchased for her because it's cheap for over 65 year olds.