That green speck you see on the beach is Chris. He made a joke about climbing that hill behind him someday, when the kids are older. There are trails that lead to the top, but it would be crazy to try to do that with a 6- and almost 4-year-old, right?
Here's a closeup of the hill in question.
Um, turns out we're crazy like that. It wasn't the plan. We had a list of trails, and we picked out one that was labeled "easy" and set out in search of that. What we didn't realize is that the "easy" trail is along the top of that hill, and the only way to reach it is to take one of the "difficult, steep, climbing" trails. Seems like we would have changed our plan when we found that out. But at that point, we were already at the base of the hill, and everyone really, really wanted to try to climb it. So up we went!
Oh, first we found this fairly impressive boulder, which had to be climbed. Casey didn't go to the top, explaining to us that he's six now, so he knows what's safe and what's not safe, and that didn't look safe. Darby's not that wise yet, so we let him do it, apparently.
Up we go for real this time! There were rocky steps that zig-zagged back and forth the whole way.
Partway up now. I think Casey's mad we made him stop for a photo.
Still a long way to go. Darby and Casey kept racing ahead, and Chris and I had to hustle to keep up. It was pretty hard work.
Pretty nice view up here! We're not done yet, though.
I can't tell you how much this sort of thing scared me. I was mostly okay with the heights myself, but I was not as much okay with my boys being that high up ... and that close to the edge.
Thank you, Chris, for holding on to Casey right here. Yikes.
Finally, we reached the Devil's Doorway, which is the rock formation at the top of the trail. Now that I know we all survived, and I can say it was worth it!
All these rocks to climb around in ... really a dream come true for these guys.
This is Balanced Rock, another one of the rock formations this trail led us past. We missed it on the way up but found it on the way down.
Doesn't he look like he's about ready to slide right off a rocky cliff right now? I'm pretty sure it only looks that way in the photo. At least, I hope so, because otherwise it would seem really irresponsible of me to take this photo.
We made it! I think we'll be going back. There's a trail with "difficult creek crossings" that we didn't get to try yet.
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