Happy Anniversary to Us!

For our 12th wedding anniversary Craig and I decided to do some hiking, just the two of us.  With a combined effort from the grandparents, we were able to drop the kids off Friday morning June 26th and drive up to McCall.  Our first stop was Rapid Creek Trailhead off of Paddy Flat Rd. We followed Rapid Creek trail until we got to the back of Boulder Lake at which point we headed to Anderson Lake.  The trail was pretty muddy and had a lot of puddles because snow was still melting.  We headed up some pretty steep switch backs which got us to the peak, but then we had to descend to Anderson Lake.  Up until this point the hike had been fairly straight forward.  Our issue here was that the descent to the lake was completely covered in snow, so we had no trail and no snow shows. Luckily there was a group that had just come out of the lake and so we could follow their foot prints to help us head in the right direction. We did our best to hike/ski down, but I ended up on my rear end more than I would like to admit and it didn't help that I was in shorts.  We eventually made it down to the lake  but then had to make our way back up the through the snow and no joke this thing was steep.  Our feet were quite wet by this point and we were really glad to not have the kids with us, that would have been miserable.  We eventually made our way back to the truck.  We put in 11 miles and were HUNGRY, so we headed to the cabin to change our clothes cuz we were stinky and then went to grab dinner.  Our first choice was My Father's Place, I was desperately wanting a hamburger and milkshake, but the line was SOOO long and we just couldn't wait, so we headed to trusty Pueblo Lindo.  After dinner we grabbed a bag of ice from the store and headed back to the cabin to soak our feet in an ice bath and then I iced my left leg and foam rolled, so that I'd be able to move the next day.  Man, getting old stinks.

Saturday morning we woke up early to start on our next hike.  We drove up to Boulder Reservoir and hiked to Boulder Lake and then went around to the backside of the lake where we then headed up to Summit Lake.  We walked up the mountainside through a beautiful meadow and then eventually descended into the lake which again was covered in snow, but luckily was a much easier descent, only 100 feet or so.  On our way back to Boulder Lake we had a beautiful view of the valley.  Again the trails were very muddy and wet and we had to cross over quite a few streams.  As we were getting close to the truck I slipped and instead of catching myself (I didn't want to hurt my shoulder) I just sat right down into a muddy puddle.  It was quite the sight.  Luckily I had shorts in the truck and could change before we started our drive back down, because there is no way Craig would have let me in his truck with a muddy tush. After almost 9 miles of hiking we then tried to grab My Father's Place on our way back, but again it way too busy, which is crazy because it was like 3:00 in the afternoon.  So then we grabbed some sandwiches from Stax which is also yummy and I grabbed an ice cream cone from the Payette Dinner, because Ice Cream Alley was packed.  I felt like the ice cream was well deserved after 20 miles of hiking.  We then grabbed our stuff from the cabin and headed back to Boise to grab our kiddos.  It was a quick trip but was a lot of fun.  We love exploring the great outdoors and Idaho truly is full of beautiful places to see.  We love taking our kids hiking with us but it was nice to be able to hike at full speed and not have to listen to whining along the way or bribe anyone with suckers.  I know this wouldn't be the anniversary adventure for everyone, but for us it was perfect.  We are already planning on hiking Mt. Borah next year.