Climb Every Mountain

 The boys have been really helpful with strawberries

We got invited to a beach night with some other families in our ward and I got to play some beach volleyball

Henry loved the ice cream treats

Looks like Lyza found a bug

Kim and some of the ladies

These car tracks have been lots of fun for the kids

Kim took the absorbent material out of some diapers (clean) and let the kids play with it and water 

I wasn't around to see this first hand but I suspect they are dueling to resolve some dispute 

We set up our tent for the first time in advance of our camping trip

It was fairly easy considering how big it is

Mother-daughter bonding at Silverwood

And a giant game of chess

I think it tired Henry out

That same evening we rushed over to see the Reptile Man

He had lots of different reptiles to share with the kids

He was very entertaining and Lyza knew all the answers to his questions

Henry wasn't so sure about the reptiles

They got to hold a Burmese python

Play with a huge African tortoise

Hold a bearded dragon

Have an alligator on their heads

The python was 20' long

Here are some clips from the show

Henry didn't want to get up close and personal with the reptiles after the show so he got to play at the park instead

Henry has been loving the water this summer

On Saturday morning I got up early to hike Scotchman Peak, the hike Kim did two weeks earlier in the rain and clouds

We had very different experiences (warning, lots of pictures follow)

Here is a view part way up the mountain

Another view along the way

The lower portions of the hike looked like this. It only ever went up. It never leveled off and it never went down

Another view along the way and you can start to see Lake Pend Oreille

Eventually we started to get out of the trees and into more open ground

They it was mostly rock

When we got up to the false summit we saw the mountain goats in the distance and I was so excited and didn't want to miss the opportunity to photograph them that I stopped and changed to a telephoto lens in case we didn't see them again (we did ;)

There was no snow on the trail but there was snow on the other side of a ridge where there must be more shade

The peak in the back is Scotchman Peak

It was amazing seeing how effortlessly the goats moved around on the mountain

We also got to see some babies

This one posed for us

The mom and babies

Hungry babies

Looks like mom is losing her coat

The view from the false summit was spectacular

We got really close to this goat

After we had our fill of that spot (and got sick of the black flies biting us) we headed off to the summit

There was a rock structure at almost the top of the peak

There were more goats on the peak

They were so sure footed on those rocks

We made it!

The view from the top was worth the 3,700 feet elevation gain in 4 miles (even on a swelteringly hot day)

This goat was on some interesting ledges licking what looked like salt

We definitely earned our snacks on the top

I have wanted to do this hike ever since I heard of it (at least 5 years ago) and I am glad that I got to do it in ideal conditions

Just look at that view

If you recall, this is the view that Kim saw from the top

Here is another shot on the way down

We even saw a goat lower on the trail

It was soooo hot coming down! We left the house at 5 am and started hiking around 7 am. By the afternoon it was unbearably hot

Here is a video of the hike

That evening we were invited to a s'mores roast with another couple of families

They lived out of town and had chickens that the kids were very interested in

And a big dog

The kids also loved playing in the woods (and they all came home tick free!)

Take care