Mary Crookston

Friday April 18th and Saturday April 19th, Jon, Jaden, Tim, Rachel and I had our great adventure in Haunted Canyon. We didn't get to the trailhead, finish packing and started hiking until 5:30 pm.

Here Jon and Tim are trying to strap Tim's pack all up.

All Set we start out! But first we have to set up the camera to self timer and get a picture

of all the crew, Rachel pose a picture by the trail sign. Jaden has no clue what he is in for, notice that Jaden i

s wearing a camel pack at the trailhead, but now holding Tim's hand he doesn't have it. Here you can see the trail is rocky and bushy, heading uphill and getting dark, this however, was the nice part of it. It was right ab0ut this time that Jaden started telling us, "In time, we'll be there in time." Followed closely by, "We'll be there real quick."

Of course I made sure that we took some time to take some pictures, and as tired as Jaden was he was quick to bounce back and smiled a big smile in the "bootiful" flowers.

After we hiked UP the first part it was really getting dark. We started down the canyon only to find the worse part of the trail, the bushes grew into the trail and you had to hold up your arms as protection for your face. Needless to say we got a lot of scratches. The bushes also presented another problem; we were looking for any open place to camp and with bushes everywhere we had to keep moving. Lucky for us the moon was out in all of it's shinning glory and we could see without busting out the flashlights. After we went on like this for awhile, Tim sta

rted off in full speed to find a spot. The rest of us trailed behind slowly. Taking turns holding Jaden's hand, which really means pulling him along as he was completely hanging on. I took my turn and finally thought that it would actually be less of drag if I were to just carry him. So I was but with the rocky trails after a little while I slipped and fell. Right about this time Tim came back, he had dropped his pack at the bottom, where he had found a great site to camp, and came back to help us. His timing couldn't have been better as he now could pick up the stunned and sleepy Jaden and carry him. I got up with help from the boys and we continued, this time on sore knees for me. In just a few minutes we were to the bottom, had a fire started, and I got the first look at my knees and it wasn't pretty, but not really that bad, and once it was cleaned up and bandaged it was fine.

One thing we did plan well for this hike was the dinner. We packed foil dinners the night before, froze them solid and didn't put them in our packs until we were at the trailhead. Let me tell you, these would have been good

on any day, but on this night, after hiking for so long they were the best meal ever!

In the morning we got a better look at our campsite.

Good morning to Jaden and Jon!

We got ready and took down camp, Jaden helped put out the fire, his favorite part of the night before, and we were ready to go. Jon and Rachel decided to hike straight out, Tim and I went a little further down to see Tony's cabin. We weren't sure of the distance but it wasn't far and we also found a cute little stream that would have been great to camp by.

After visiting the strange little cabbin in the middle of nowhere we head back up out of the canyon. Amazingly there was a cloud coverage, the made the hike so much more enjoyable. It was hard work going up, but once to the top we found the rest of our party. We stopped for a while for snacks and drinks then started off again, Jaden loved drinking out of the camel packs, and then wanted to try on his dad's pack, you can see that even with Tim's help, he couldn't even stand up.