Hiking Club

When I realized that school was going to be virtual this year, I tried to really hard to look for silver linings to the whole situation.  And one of the ideas I came up with is to start a hiking club.  This came about largely after climbing Humpback Rock with my friends and realizing that there are TONS of cool hiking places around here that I know NOTHING about!  I'm hoping this will force me out of my comfort zone a bit so I can explore around Charlottesville even more.

There's no school on Fridays  Fridays are "asynchronous learning days," so we don't have much of a schedule to worry about, so it's perfect for going hiking, and we usually have lovely fall weather.  What could go wrong?

So last Tuesday while the kids were all zooming, I sat down in the basement with them and worked on my laptop and invited everyone I could think of to come hiking with us.  I posted it on the stake RS facebook page.  I texted neighbors and church members and friends.  I emailed the women in the Charlottesville 1st ward.  I even texted people I've never met, just in case they were interested!

And then when Friday rolled around, the weather was abysmal.  Rain all day.

But I really didn't want to fail on my first attempt because I was afraid that then I'd NEVER get up the courage to try again.  So I decided I would at least drive out, in the rain, to Ragged Mountain and see what it looked like.  Just going new places is sometimes hard for me to do, so this was better than nothing, right?  And then I'd have a better idea of what to expect next week and we could try again then!

I'd brought along four of my kids (Bentley had homework to do) and my neighborhood kids Sydney and Beth.  Everyone who'd been interested backed out once they saw the forecast (I didn't blame them-- if anything, I encouraged them to try again next week), but my friend Adam was still game.  We managed to meet up at the upper parking lot (much thanks to Brittney for that tip!) and...  the weather was fine!  A bit cloudy, but not raining, and the temperature was perfect.

So we figured we may as well start walking!  And then we just kept walking and walking until we were about halfway around the lake... and it started raining!  But at that point there wasn't much we could do except just keep walking!

Long story short we ended up hiking nearly 8 miles that day!  Without any snacks or preparation or anything!  And we had a really good time, too.  The kids were SUCH troopers, I was really very impressed with them.  Ryder and Kendra were mostly ahead with Adam telling him riddles, and I was mostly behind with Colton, Camille, Sydney, and Beth, who were all a bit slow, but gamely kept plodding on!  Adam and I did take turns giving Camille and Beth piggyback rides for the last mile or so.

But it was really fun and even with the rain, we didn't get that wet (yay for tons of trees to shelter us!).  The entire thing actually left me even more excited to make this club happen.  But next week I think I'll pick a shorter hike!

This tree was basically floating!  How cool is that???

Turtle bench

Throwing rocks into the lake

So pretty!

Why are bridges always so exciting?

I love this picture of Ryder jumping SO. MUCH.

Beth wanted to hold someone's hand at all times, which got a little tiring for me.  So here's Colton giving me a break!

This deer wandered by us a bunch of times-- we were all very excited!

Camille looks terrified here, but what was actually going on is that the deer had wandered past us again and she desperately wanted to hop out of the tree to see the deer better and was worried the deer was lost.  

Same bridge, slightly different angle (thanks, Adam!)

Right near the end, and I blinked.  Colton was trailing behind a bit, but we did NOT lose him!

What's sort of awful is that we had gone from the parking lot to the Eagle and Bridge (heading counter clockwise) when it began raining and I decided that we needed to push ahead.  Looking more closely at the map, I realize (NOW) that we were only about a third of the way in at that point and it would have been much shorter to just turn around and go back.  But then we would have missed the floating bridge (not pictured because it wasn't very pretty, even though everyone thought it looked cool and enjoyed walking on it!).  So, yeah, I kind of did this all wrong.  But who cares?  We had a great time!

Special thanks go to Adam for taking so many great pictures!  I did offer to take one that he was in, but he'd had a bit of a fiasco trying to cut his hair that morning (his clippers died halfway through) and absolutely refused to be in any pictures.  Maybe I'll get him next time!

I'm really proud, though, because it looks like Hiking Club is a GO.  Huzzah!