Fairies and Bridges

Our original plan was to hike Hanging Lake the first day in Colorado and explore the Fairy Caves the second day.  But after our adventures in Moab I knew there was no way on God's green earth that I was going to get the kids to do another hike without a day of rest, so we flipped the days.  And that worked out beautifully.  We stayed in the Hotel Glenwood Springs in a "family suite" that we only learned about by calling and asking if there was any way that they could accommodate our family of six.  I was doing a happy dance when they offered us that room, and it turned out to be just right for us.  

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The hotel shares a parking lot with the gondola lift that takes you up the mountain to the Fairy Caves.  We hopped right on as soon as we got there.

There were two caves to tour at the top of the mountain.  Our first tour guide did a great job of getting the kids excited about the possibility of seeing a fairy in the cave and explained that the drops of water you might get were actually "fairy kisses".  Each of the kids was lucky enough to receive a fairy kiss in the cave.

Jason and I came here once before we had kids.  This restaurant with a scenic view used to be much fancier than it is now, but we still had a great time eating ridiculously overpriced hot dogs and chicken strips and enjoying the mountain air.

  The amazing mountain view didn't change one bit!

 This was probably the kids favorite part of the whole day-

 Just look at those happy faces.

We encouraged the kids into going on the second cave tour in exchange for a trip on a few of the rides.  Adam also had a great time crawling through a maze box that was supposed to simulate a more extreme cave tour.  It made me want to hyperventilate just looking at it.

We probably should have just skipped the second tour- Emma had a very age-appropriate meltdown and Noah decided he was done riding in the Snugli right when the tour guide took us into the deepest, darkest belly of the cave.  I ended up standing in the dark nursing Noah and whispering into Emma's ear all about the magical box full of candy that was waiting for us at the hotel (a vending machine) that I would let her pick anything she wanted out of if she would just for the love of all that is holy be quiet and not ruin the cave tour for the other 20 people that were locked in the bottom of the cave with us.  Thank goodness it worked.

Then we headed back down to the mountain to play in the pool.  The hotel had a great pool with a lion's mouth water slide and an open tube water slide.

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We had so much fun playing on the slides.  Noah was the only one who didn't get to go down the blue slide, but the rest of us loved it!  We piled in together and made a train on the way down.  Jason took the kids first thing the next morning to swim and play again before we checked out.

Well rested and recovered from our adventures in Moab, we headed up to Hanging Lake.  Jason and I went there before we had kids, and I blogged about it here.  I remembered it being a somewhat strenuous hike, but multiplying that by four kids on the fourth day of our Rocky Mountain trip, and it was definitely the hardest day of our trip.

We started off with a picnic lunch in the shade at the base of the trail.  I'm pretty sure Noah is the cutest little apple muncher ever.  

Then we started up the trail at a leisurely pace.  We checked out flowers, bugs, and the stream that would be our guide up to the lake.  

About 10 minutes into the hike my cargo fell asleep, right on schedule.  

And we started to climb.  The trail was pretty busy and we had to stop often to let faster groups past us.  And it was steep.  And rocky.  We did a lot of climbing up the rocks and pulling each other up.  We crossed over seven bridges that criss-crossed the stream that the trail followed along.

The ascent was challenging.  It was very different from the hike to Delicate Arch.  While that hike changed in scenery several times, this hike was a never-ending switchback journey up the side of a mountain.  It just got steeper and rockier as we went up.  We rewarded ourselves with lots of water and snacks, but there was one point in the hike when I had unbuckled Noah from the Snugli and was just certain that I couldn't buckle him up again to keep moving.  It was hot.  We were tired.  

The kids were absolute troopers, and while they did express their fatigue, they never said they wanted to give up.  They never truly complained or cursed their parents names (which was really nice, because I'm pretty sure I was cursing my own name at some point).  As we got to about the halfway point we passed a young family on their way back down.   We tried to gain excitement from their trip ("They did it and so can we!") but they told us they had given up and turned around before they reached the top.  Not very encouraging, and oh my, were we all getting tired and dirty.  

But it's hard to teach children that they can do hard things.  Really, really push them, and not just in an around-the-house-how-well-can-you-clean-your-room kind of way.  To put a seemingly impossible task in front of them and watch them accomplish it and feel the absolute satisfaction that comes with success.  And ten years from now, when our kids are teenagers that are still looking for that sense of accomplishment, a trip up the side of a mountain probably isn't going to give them the same sense of satisfaction as it does now while they are little.  So we pushed on, confident that we could all achieve our goal together.  To keep everyone motivated during the hike, we came up with names for each of us- 

Leah the Leader

Adam the Adventurous

 

Emma the Energetic

Noah the Napper

Daddy the Daring 

Mommy the Magnificent Milk Maker.  

 About two hours into the hike, Emma decided she had had enough, so she checked out for a bit.  

The final ascent up to the lake scales right alongside the edge of the mountain.  There are crude stairs cut out of the stone and a thin wire fence to keep you on the right side of the trail.  Jason got to climb the stairs with no hands.  And step by step, we made it to the top!  We made it!  

We conquered a truly hard task together as a family.  We were safe and ready to rest in the shade of the trees, to soak in the beauty of God's creations in the mountains, and to give thanks for our healthy, strong bodies that carried us up to this beautiful place.  

The water in the lake was clear and beautiful.  The waterfalls were full.  The kids had a great time chasing the chipmunks that came searching for crumbs and gathering beautiful rocks for their collections.  Adam, the true mountain goat of the family, just kept climbing right up the rocky side of the mountain.  We stayed at the top for a long time, just enjoying the fact that we had made it all the way up.  And remembering how different life was seven years ago when we last did this hike.  And gathering up the strength to get down the mountain again.  

Of course, the trip down went much quicker.  We crossed the seven bridges in no time, and found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain in half the time it took us to go up (an hour and a half down versus three hours up).

Near the end of the hike I kept having to stop to get Adam to stop playing in the dirt, or at least that's what I thought he was doing.

But then he explained to me that he was gathering up the bits of gold he kept finding on the trail.  "So we can have enough money to have another baby."

We don't talk too often about having another baby around here, and we've certainly never told the kids that money would be a reason for us to not have another one.  But Adam is my child who most hopes that another little brother or sister will join our family some day, and suddenly those little flecks of "gold" became just as precious to me as they were to him.

So we took our time gathering them up and eventually made our way back to where we had started.  When we hit the bottom of the trail we all piled into the bathrooms to clean up before marching back to Marshmallow.  Our family vacation was officially over and it was time to get to Grandma's house!