Bike the Trail of the Hiawatha, YW High Adventure

When I was a young women I always swore that when I grew up and became a leader in the Young Women's Organization we would do lots of adventurous things like the boys always got to do, but we never did. So I have been trying to accomplish this goal! This summer we organized a YW high adventure. On the first day we hiked Mineral Ridge up above Lake Cour D' Alene. It was gorgeous and the girls played the rhyming game the whole way up to take their minds off the uphill burn.  We spend the afternoon swimming in the lake, and then camped in the Beauty Creek Campground.

The next day we headed up to the Trail of the Hiawatha. This in one of the most scenic bike trails in the US. It was an old rail line through the Bitterroot Mountains, that was abandoned and converted into a bike trail. It is complete with long dark tunnels, high trellis bridges through rugged mountain landscape. This ride is pretty famous in the Inland Northwest, so we have heard about it since moving here, I was so pumped to get to go and take the YW on a trip they may never have gotten to do. It was such an adventure!

Mt Kit Carson

Sometimes it is necessary to have your Young Women Presidency meetings out on the trail, it really beats sitting around talking church business.

Nicole, Cassidy, and I hiked up Mt Kit Carson. It is the second highest peak in Mt Spokane State Park. It was glorious and perfect, and of course we were inspired by 90 year old Don up at the top.

Fort George Wright Cemetery to Bowl & Pitcher, Riverside State Park

I started coaching track at Cheney High School, and I am loving it. I basically just bring Tate to practice and meets so she runs around has a great time. This last Saturday our team traveled to a invitational up in Colville, where the weather was supposed to be cold, wet, snowy, windy, and terrible. I didn't want to have Tate in that kind of weather all day. She is pretty easy to dress warm and tolerate the cold for a few hours, but I was worried about her being cold if she was outside all day long. So I opted to stay home from that track meet, which was good, I found out later they had 3 or 4 thunderstorm delays and didn't get home to Cheney until 1am.

Anyways, the point is, the weather in Cheney that day was glorious! So we joined up the the INH group and hiked a nice seven miles along the Spokane River. We started at the Fort George Wright Cemetery and followed a nice trail all the way to the Bowl and Pitcher area in Riverside state park. There is in incredible suspension bridge there and the river was roaring though that narrow part of the river with the Spring run off. The whole way Tate kept saying, "Water, Pretty" or "water, swimming" She wanted to jump in the river so badly! I hope she lasts a few more months till it is warm enough to swim outside.

At the very beginning of the hike we passed through a tiny little meadow, as we walked through it Tate kept yelling, "Night-Night Bunny! Night-Night-Bunny". It was cute but we didn't think much of it. Then, 3 hours later, on the way back when we passed through that same meadow Tate suddenly started yelling loudly, "Wake-up Bunny! Wake-up Bunny!". It was way to cute that she had remembered putting the imaginary bunny to sleep in that same spot hours earlier. 

Don lead the hike, he is an 88 year old man who can out-hike and out-paddle the best of them. What an inspiration for lifelong longevity! He says the secret to his success was that he never stopped moving, don't let more than two days go by without doing something active.