At almost three weeks postpartum, I was feeling pretty good and was wanting to get out for some fresh air and even a little exercise! I asked Brent to find us a little hike...somewhere we've never been before (a challenge!).
Cape Horn:
The Washington side of the Colombia River Gorge...beautiful!
Breastfeeding + hiking = double calorie torcher
most of the trails we have been on in the Gorge are pretty easy, quick jaunts to a waterfall or an overlook. NOT so much with this hike. It is a pretty long, pretty steep, pretty rocky switchback hike...but with GREAT views. NOT what I was expecting for us to do at 3 weeks postpartum. I didn't bring water or diapers or anything!
It ended up being about a three mile hike, which normally would be a great family hike for us...
if we were prepared. But also there was no signage on diverting trails, and so it wouldn't be too difficult to get lost. From what Brent read online, it was supposed to be a loop to an overlook, a waterfall, and then back to our car. We kept hiking and never found the connecting trail back to our car. We could have kept hiking for while and ended up down the busy highway from our car, but we decided to forgo the loop, and just head back to our car the way we came...even though it ended up being longer. At least we knew where we were going and when we were going to get there! Ah! Only stressful for a moment there until we decided to go back the way we came. But overall, a beauty of a hike.
we found the waterfall...almost no water this time of year.
Toby in front of Cape Horn overlook (the actually geological feature)...
I took a few pictures of the kids with my dslr camera...more practice!
Cape Horn
Uh oh! What's going on here? Deep thought? Boredom? Impending adolescence??
I'm a little worried. :)
the toddler is a very determined hiker...but hiking up a talus field is just too much for him.
...so he will ride on Brent's shoulders instead!
another serious shot of our big laddie
and our medium laddie
I really wanted to get a picture of Ollie's big round eyes, long lashes, beautiful lips and baby curls (before they were cut off).
Like I said we had a very lovely time on the hike, despite the moment or two of worry and stress...but the funniest part of this story happened the very next day.
Brent subscribes to this Portland hikers online forum, and the next day there was a review of this hike on the forum...which was obviously done by someone who passed us on the hike because they wrote about US!! Haha! Here's what they had to say:
"But I mentioned this is a new trail, right? Ouch! The rocks are pretty loose. Poles tend to be useless, as they plunge into the cracks with each plant. And some genius even designed one segment with seven or eight switchbacks down one of these slopes. I saw a family coming off that, two kids walking, each parent carrying another, one parent seemingly ready to scream at the other for "getting them into this mess!" "
Here's the link if you want to read it yourself! Which, by the way, I wasn't made at Brent for "getting us into this mess", but I think that either Brent or I may have been worried at that moment that we were not going to find the right trail back to our car. It was shortly thereafter we decided to go back the way we came. Still funny though!
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