Battle Creek Falls, Wasatch Front

Rachelle and Cody are here to visit! My amazing sister and her adorable son rolled into town last night on a quick weekend trip to Utah. Cody got to meet his little wiggles cousin and sleep in our magic cave basement. We have loved seeing them. Today we hiked up to Battle Creek Falls.  A short, family friendly hike in Pleasant Grove.  Erik and I have never hiked it, it always seemed too easy and short to be worth it.  But it was the perfect hike for 2.5 year old Cody.  He basically ran the whole way.

Auntie Lyndee and Cody rolling on the trail

Tate is now facing front in her carrier.  She hated facing in, she likes to see the action

View of the falls at the top

Rocky and CodeMan

My wonderful hubby and 2.5 month old little one

Nice little morning trip into the hills! Also, good start to the special day. Erik and I celebrate our five year anniversary today.

Bells Canyon, Wasatch Front

We have some big peaks planned for the end of the summer.  So we are trying to get into the mountains every chance we can get to try and get our hiking legs back after having the baby. Last weekend we tried a new trail up in Salt Lake near the entrance of Little Cottonwood canyon called Bells Canyon.  Bells canyon is a long, deep, beautiful canyon with cascading falls, lush vegetation, and a rocky cirque. The trail was steep, but the effort was well worth the scenery.

We were finally able to hike with our friends Brittan and Ben and Lyndee was there as well.  It worked out really well.  We hiked in about 1 mile to the first reservoir and we stopped so I could feed Tate while the men fished.  Then we continued up the trail to the lower falls.  It was a stair case of rock which never seemed to end. We tried to find the upper falls but ended up needing to stop to feed the little wigs again.  By the time she was done eating there were thunderstorms rolling in so we decided to get down from the mountain. We stopped again at the reservoir to fish but it started pounding rain and we didn't have anything to keep baby warm so we booked it back to the car. 

It has been so fun having Lyndee (aka Auntie Nunks, a nickname from Erik) here this summer.  She has been a huge help with Tate and she has been my new lifting partner.  I wish she would stay in Utah forever!

We kept with tradition and stopped for pizza at The Pie on our way home.  That is one reason why we love hiking the peaks in Salt Lake. If anyone in interested in doing this hike there is more info here.

Big Baldy, Wasatch Front

Friday we headed out on our first peak summit with Tate.  While we have had fun doing lots of little hikes we have yet to really jump back into hiking and do any significant peaks.  This was our first big one.  Big Baldy is a nice summit on the front side of Mt. Timpanogogs. It is the big green peak to the right of the G mountain.  While it looks like a little peak it is actually pretty significant at 8780 ft elevation.  The hike requires over 3,000 feet of vertical climbing.

 Tate knows that hydration is the key to success.

We realized that we are actually pretty out of shape on this hike.  I have been prego, and Erik's life had been crazy with track season since January.  It was hot, we didn't start till 11 and it was STEEP! It took 2.5 hours to the top, including a stop to feed Tate.  This same hake last year would have been cake.  We actually both kinda wanted to turn back a few times, but I had been up this trail earlier this year with my cousin Kiara and I knew that if I didn't summit this peak today I never would, so we gutted it out.  I am so glad we did. We got a second wind once the trail opened up on the saddle on the back side and we had some rewarding views.  It was amazing at the top

On the way down we stopped again to feed the little wiggles. We have the feeding while hiking system down.  We have a nice lightweight butterfly chair we can set up anywhere. I am practically Mother Earth out there! It was only a little awkward when a group of people on horseback went by! On the way down some nice clouds set in and it was nice and cool with sprinkles.  So refreshing on a hot day.  Great hike, it felt really good to do something very physically hard and challenging. I haven't really pushed myself since Tate was born and this felt like a big accomplishment.