This is the first Winter trip I've been on since Grandpa Wright was here, and it is definitely the first winter cabin trip the Bambock and Wright Families (aka Bambrights) have ever gone on. I get every other Friday off (supposedly), but the only times I really seem to get them off is when we go out of town, and usually that is to the cabin.
We got the kids out of school around noon and headed over to the Bambock's. We all hoped in the Bambock's mini-van, which was exceptionaly clean, and started toward the end of the road. We got there with a good bit of light left and when we stepped out of the cabin-mobile we were pleasantly surprised with a warm breeze for the hike.
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| Backpacks on and ready to go! |
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| Hikers at the End of the Road |
The hike in had a good bit of snow, but lots of slush, ice and water too. There were 3 places where we had to help the kids over some really icy spots that dropped off into the river. To quote James, "Nolan you pretty much saved my life." I didn't think it was all that but he was slipping and sliding! At the end of the big hill between the 1st and 2nd fords, where it is really steep, we wished we'd had a hatchet but all we had was my hiking stick which is now named Ice Breaker and chipped a path through the ice so we didn't slide into the river. Below are a couple trail shots on the hike in.
On the hike in we were stopped and i was stopped under a tree limb and Lexa pointed up and said, "Look dad" pointing right above my head. I looked up and found a dead raccoon right above me! I'll admit, I was a little freaked out when I looked up! Some how he got named named Rocky the Raccoon. Rest in peace Rocky.
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| Lexa's pointing to the raccoon just above me |
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| Close up of Rocky the Raccoon |
The snow and ice slowed us up and it took about 2:45 to get to the cabin, and we hiked the last bit in in the dark. It started to cool down when the sun went down, but when we got into the cabin, the thermometer read 32 degrees! It was literally freezing in the cabin! The 2 five gallon water jugs that you use in the winter were frozen solid. The first thing we did was start a fire and closed the bear door. Sean's fire skills paid off and it was nearly 80 degrees in the living room by the time we went to bed. Sean took a funny picture of the kids watching a video on our DVD player at the top of the stairs. The movie was on the top step and the three kids rear-ends were sticking out toward the living room. They were watching the movie "Up", but at least they weren't complaining about the cold!
We had a great dinner of spaghetti with Italian sausage. I think we've got the food thing figured out! Everyone was falling asleep by 9:00pm so we all headed to bed. In fact that's where Sean got his cabin name this trip. he was Sleep Sean. I (Nolan) was Ice Breaker, after the name of my hiking stick. James was Jolly James, Jacob was "Jake-Up" (because he liked the movie Up), and Lexa was Hannah Montana the Pop Ster (later she changed it to say Pop Star).
When morning came it had dropped down to 50 degrees in the living room and closer to 40 in the kitchen. We started a fire and then had a breakfast of pancakes, bacon and eggs. After that we opened the bear door for a round of polar ping-pong. We played Wrights vs Bambocks and also kids vs parents. It was a modified set of rules where it was basically always in play. Kept things exciting!
That morning we were outside for a few minutes and Lexa told me her feet were cold and wet. She'd told me her boots were water proof so I hadn't thought anything of it. It ends up they were not water proof at all and her boots were completely soaked. All I can say is that you get what you pay for when you with the Walmart Special on boots. We put them over the fire to try and dry them out before our sledding trip. We would have done a Mt. Blalock hike, but here boots weren't up for it.
I packed in a little red saucer sled that I used when i was growing up, and we headed to the meadow. It's not very steep but once we got a good course packed down we had some great runs. Just about everyone made it to the bottom of the hill except Sean who seemed to crash every time he got on the sled... After a few runs we even built a jump! Here are some of the pics, but Sean took a lot more. I took a bunch of videos too, which I'll add at some point.
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| Jake-Up and Jolly James |
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| Lexa and James |
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| Lexa flying down the hill |
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CORRECTION: Jacob going down the hill "pure-penguin" style.
Note the absence of the red sled. He was just going down the track
on his coat and snow pants. |
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| James on the sled |
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| Nolan on the red sled |
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| Sean on the sled going down the meadow |
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| The sled is now on top of Sean |
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| The boys giving Lexa a push |
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| Lexa almost made it to the gate! |
Misty (the Bambock's dog) had a rough time on this trip. She was coughing and throwing up, etc. And on top of it while we were sledding she was off exploring and rolled around in something that smelled like something that can only be described as dead skunk. Yuck! Sean took her back to the cabin to try to wash it off.
After a couple hours on the sledding hill, Lexa's feet were freezing again so we headed in for some lunch of Hot Soup and sandwiches. The hot soup is Shin Ramen, which I learned to love on my mission to South Korea.
Cabin lore has it that one of the many things swallowed by Mrs. Murphy was the cue ball. According to our local cabin historian, Richard, it has been lost for at least 10 years! One thing we can say the cue ball is positively not in Mrs. Murphy. Don't worry, we didn't send anyone down looking for it... When the kids were rounding up ping-pong balls for the Polar Ping-Pong tournament, Lexa found the cue ball under one of the beds! Pool was a HUGE hit, we played a number of games, and the kids played a bunch more! Plus the upstairs is nice and warm.
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| What a difference a little old cue ball can make! |
After an afternoon of pool we had a blink tournament. Blink is a simple, fast paced card game that can be balanced for all levels of players. We had a couple tournaments. It was quite complex, I'll just say Lexa won the first one and then either James or Jacob won the second. All I know is that it Jacob, James and I were in the "Final Final" game, and that I lost.
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| Intense game of blink |
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| I think Lexa just won! |
After the games, Sean and I started the corn chowder with ham and onions for dinner. For those who don't know yellow split pea soup is called "corn chowder" at the cabin... For some reason the kids eat way more that way! One thing we did learn about corn chowder is that you must not let it boil down too far or it can develop a nice burned flavor. As long as no one scraped the bottom, it wasn't a big deal. But it sure was a fun pot to clean.
We had the temperature to around 76 before we went to bed that night, but the upstairs was warm, the kitchen was just as warm as the living room and the bed rooms were pretty warm too.
That evening it started to snow lightly, and luckily it didn't really snow that much.
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| View from the upstairs balcony, there is snow falling, I promise. |
In the morning we realized we packed enough food up for at least another day, so instead of the usual fare, we had potatoes and onions, bacon, ham and a few eggs for breakfast. It kept snowing all morning on and off, and we kept a close eye on it. We were ready to head out by 10:30am, but it wasn't snowing too much so we hung around a couple hours longer.
Sean wrote in the cabin journal and then Lexa wanted to too. It was really cute. I helped her with some of the spelling, but most of it she did on her own. You should check it out next time you are up there!
Before I go on, I just want to say that there aren't many things more peaceful than having a conversation with Mrs. Murphy while watching the falling snow!
We hit the trail a little after noon. There was 1"-2" new snow, and it was a bit colder, probably upper 20's when we started the hike out. Sean had a GPS and set up a way point at the cabin so we could get an accurate distance of our hike. We also packed a lunch to have down at the 5th ford.
Here are the official recorded distances:
Cabin -> "Half-Way Point": 1.83 Miles
Cabin -> "Old End of the road": 2.49 Miles
Cabin -> Current BLM Gate: 3.42 Miles
I was hoping it was a little longer hike. That would have made me feel better about how long it takes us to do it... It's probably good it's not any longer!
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| Sean looking ponderously at the GPS for our hike home |
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| Lexa on the snowy trail |
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| GPS in hand, and the snowy landscape behind Sean |
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| The mountains have a lot of water in them, and there were icicles everywhere! |
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| Lunch break at the 5th ford |
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| Lexa on the snowy trail |
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| Lexa loved to sit or lie down to rest on breaks! |
The snow was beautiful and it made for a much easier hike. The ice was pretty well covered up and there was a lot less water/slush. It was a great trip and we look forward to our next one!
