Going Losting VII

And, going camping, and going hiking... with the craziness of summer, and the general lack of vacations in our future, we've decided to take as many Friday night camping trips/Going Losting trips as we can this summer, in an effort to make our weekends more relaxing. So, this is the first of hopefully many posts like this. I apologize for the 40 million pictures. I couldn't chose...

For this camping trip we headed up to Lake Chelan. The road that travels around the south end of the lake ends at a place called 25 mile creek. Handily enough, there is a state camping park there. We decided to start out at the state site, and then explore the area in an effort to find camping spots that are not part of a park, which we much prefer, as camping in a park with a bunch of strangers completely detracts from the get-away-from-it-all event that camping is supposed to be. Before we had kids we always just headed up into the woods, found a flat spot, pitched a tent, and camped. But, since we haven't explored up there too much, we didn't want to do that until we were a little more familiar with the area.

The girls were SO excited for this camping trip. While going camping with children is more stressful in some ways, it is also much more exciting... their glee is completely infectious, and I think we were all cheerfully nuts&bananas as we headed off on this trip... Kiki was so excited to be heading out into "the nature."

Setting up camp... I believe that the term "peanut gallery" may have been coined due to a father who started his campfire with the sage observation and wise advice of his two small children who have never before built a campfire. Of course, we don't use matches, no sir. I believe Frank has watched just a bit too much Man vs. Wild!! I have no idea what this thing is called, but he did not use matches the entire time, which is pretty cool.

Woo hoo! Fire!

The park had a cute little swimming area that was closed in by the boat docks. It was great for the girls to wade in... it was a bit too cold for them to go swimming, although if we'd planned our time out a little better, I think the cold wouldn't have bothered them in the least, and we could have managed it.

The sunset on Lake Chelan...

Next to 25 Mile Creek...

Gorgeous Campfire shot, by Frank...

Breakfast by the campfire...

Breakfast burritos, one of my favorite things. Especially cooked in antique cast iron, over an open fire. YUM!

But we don't want to leave!! We should camp 5 more nights!!

One of my favorite things about being a mom?! Precious, dirty little summertime feet. There's just nothing quite as beautiful as those dirty, happy little toes. I think my girls feet are dirty from May-October.

Hiding from the smoke...

Clear, clear Lake Chelan water...

A gorgeous (almost) summer morning on the water... hoping for a boat one of these days, what a lovely way to spend a hot HOT summer day!

I forgot to bring a hairbrush... they were glad. :-) We could see the fish swimming around in the water, that was pretty neat.

After we broke camp, we headed up towards Shady Pass. I need to get a good topographical map image to put on my blog... haven't found one that I like so far. But, basically, The Columbia River runs south, and there are tributary rivers that run into it from the Cascades, all the way down the west side. Each of these Rivers runs down a Canyon. So, in short, as you head up the Columbia river from where we live, you have The Wenatchee River, The Entiat River, The Chelan River (dry, due to the Lake Chelan Dam--used to connect Lake Chelan to the Columbia), The Methow River, and then rounding the top, The Okanagan River. This site sort of gives you an idea of what we're exploring... So, in order to explore these canyons, for the most part you have to take the highway along the side of the Columbia, unless, you want to off-road, and pass over the mountain ranges between each canyon. That is what we decided to try to do, between the Entiat River and Lake Chelan.

Here is a breathtaking view of Lake Chelan, as we headed UP, UP, UP into the hills... Shady Pass is one of the highest points in the state, and the views are breathtaking.

So are the wildflowers. I was threatening to dig our emergency shovel out of one of the pelican cases in the back of the Land Rover to transplant them to my garden. Then a bee roughly the size of a hummingbird flew in our car, (we had the windows open to smell the pine trees) and flew around Debris. Bless her heart, she let out a small shriek, and then held perfectly still while I got everything off my lap in a panic to open her door and let the bee out. After that I realized the flowers were covered in these amazingly huge bees, and decided I could live without them. :-)

Oh, the views...

There was a huge forest fire in (I think) 2004, and it is quite the eerie sight. Beautiful. We didn't see another vehicle the whole time were were up here. We startled a deer, but other than that it was just us and the bees.

A glimpse of Lake Chelan several thousand feet below through the burned forest...

Gratuitous Rovey shot ;-)

I called the forest service before we went to see if Shady Pass was even open. It wasn't. We decided to try anyway, but we ended up not being able to get over. Rovey would need a few minor adjustments before we attempt to traverse mucky snow in a full blown melt, and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to go by ourselves, anyway. They said the pass never opens before July 1, and even then it is sketchy at best for a few weeks. But, we almost made it... we could see the top where we were. So, we headed back down, and took the long way around up to the other side, in the Entiat Canyon.

Where we found Silver Falls. Silver Falls is yet another must-see in the State of Washington. It is a Waterfall that tumbles approx. 560 feet down the side of the Entiat Mountain Range, and it has very nice hiking trails (1.3 miles, I think!) along it... it was just beautiful. There were three (that I saw) bridges that actually crossed over the falls at different points, as well.

Kiki and Debris are awesome hikers. They did very well. Frank had the camera, so these gorgeous pictures are courtesy of him...

My fav! I think I might have to frame this one!

Awww! So sweet!

The top of the waterfall...that tree growing in the middle just amazes me!

My girls and me... :-)

On the way back down the mountain Debris tried to claim that her legs were broken, and she needed to be carried. Thankfully, Frank took charge, and promoted her to "Captain of the Family" and charged her with leading us down the hill and back to the car. She took this task very seriously, and bravely led the charge back down the hill. I'm so glad he did that, because I would have just carried her, and ended up being exhausted and irritable and angry by the time we got back to Rovey. Thank the Lord for Daddy! So, it was a lovely hike, and very enjoyable for us all!

We finished up the day with a little more exploration of the Entiat Valley, which included the impressive Entiat falls. It doesn't look like much of a drop, but as it was the whole raging river tumbling over this falls, it was quite the powerful roar. We also saw another deer, and a Big Horn sheep on our way home, which was a lot of fun. If you're still here, thanks for sticking with me through this LOOooooong post! Have a great week!