Boy's Only campout

The Whetten, Angle, Jensen, Johnson Men will be going on a camp out! We will go in March when kids are on spring break. ( I hope it's early like the 13,14)... more to come! Matt is deciding the location, I'm pushing the dates and Joe is in charge of promotions!

2010 Plans!

Ok, It's January 2010. It's time to plan the mandatory 3 camping trips for this year. Here is the "FOR SURE" trip: The Whetten/Hatch family reunion in SoUt this summer. We are really excited for this. It is in June. The big deal here is that its in a place I've never been. The other real good thing is it's a huge group of folks. It's Stacy's Dad's family. This includes his older brothers (half-bro's different Mom), that we don't socialize with as much. I'm excited to get to know them better. A lot of them have older kids so it's good for my kids who usually have no one to hang out with because their cousins are much younger. I don't know for sure who's all coming but there is a lot so having stuff to do won't be an issue. Next is the Bill Whetten family campout. I'm not sure that the above trip is replacing it this year or not, but I think that we are still doing it. This year we are going to the rim area of Arizona but I'm hoping that it's below the rim (this will help us avoid the freezing cold wind). It should be later in the summer too. Last year we went in early June and everyone was cold. So let's hope we go back to our Late July time frame. The last trip that is tradition is the Ben (me) Johnson family trip over the Memorial day weekend. We had a blast (to me) last year at west clear creek. We incorporated a hike in it as well. I enjoyed the time and the sleeping. I think I averaged 2 or 3 naps a day for 3 days. We ate like kings and the kids played and enjoyed each other! We had a great hike that was hard but worth it. I hope we can find a few places to choose from this year too. The plan here is to switch places each year. 2008 we went to Knoll Lake and that was fun too. We'd like to someday go to the black river in Eastern Arizona however it is just too far with so many of us for just two nights. So any ideas let me know.

We also would like to get another campout in this summer. If you are planning one and have a good idea or would like to plan one let me or Stacy know and we'll probably be interested.

Fishing Skills

We went camping in the Arizona Rim country and fished some in Black Canyon Lake. Not too much luck but some. We enjoyed our time there. We didn't hike much except for about two hours when Donny's Dog ran off. Reminder that Shotgun shooting and dogs don't mix. We had fun walking through the forest yelling for his dog though ;)

Here are a couple of pictures of Skylar and Marly showing off the two little fish that we caught. It was fun fishing and teaching Marly, Drew and Skylar a little about it. I promised them more success and more fun in Colorado. We are almost ready to go.

Hike description

So I found the national forest site to be helpful. If you are interested in finding out about the specifics of the Hike then follow this link . Otherwise just depend on Dad. It sounds like I remember except for now I'd expect to see a lot more people. I think that the most we saw when I was a kid were a couple of day fisherman and a single guy here and there. But from what I've been reading there are a lot of folks there now-a-days. It also said that it would rain most days we are there with lightning, hale and even snow possible. We went camping recently and our tents held the rain out without a problem. So if a cheapy target tent can do it I guess we'll be ok, but I wouldn't expect to be sleeping "under the stars" 100% of the time. 33 days yee hah!

West Clear Creek

We went to the Coconino National Forest for the weekend and hiked donwn the canyon to West Clear Creek. It was fantastic. It was a very dificult hike, we got rained on, forgot some of the planned food (only deserts) and STILL had a wonderful time. The kids even enjoyed it (even Vance if you can believe it).

We got their on Saturday afternoon about 2 and set up camp. It rained off and on all evening. We made a nice dinner of Beef Stew that was very enjoyable. Even though fires were allowed we didn't have one that night because there was no dry wood. :( Sad... We went to bed pretty early (without our strawberry short cake since we brought the sponge cake but forgot the strawberrys). By 8:30 we were all tucked away, Ben, Stacy, Anny, Katy, Tawny and Vance in the camper, Marly in her own tent and Drew and Sky sharing another tent. It was still raining, and raining. I was praying that the kids were dry and warm. They were...

On Sunday we woke up EARLY (about 5). Katy, Anny and I were up that early while everyone went back to sleep. We went for a walk, played and finally couldn't stand it anymore and started making breakfast at about 7 and woke everyone up about 8. Bacon, hashbrowns, eggs and tampico on the menu, all were happy. Naps, reading, wiffle ball, "bendarooz" and more naps were enjoyed by everyone. After lunch of bean & cheese burritos Stacy, Katy, Anny and went for a drive and found some dry wood (more like "bought from the store on the highway"). We then made it back for more naps, reading and loafing in the 70 degree sunny weather. Kids played games and I just enjoyed their happily playing sounds. Vance won for the most sleeping. For dinner on Sunday night we cooked chicken and potatoes in Grandma Simmons' Dutch oven and boiled some corn. It was great. We all ate till we were stuffed and still had left overs. We had planned on Peach Cobler in the Dutch oven for desert but the peaches were with the strawberries at home. Vance & Stacy emprovised and used our remaining apples to make a great Apple cobler instead. Very nice... Vance can make a good cobler. He kept reminding us that camping is easy and we should listen to him more since he's "THE eagle scout" We had a "family home evening" style lesson then headed to bed. We enjoyed the fire and the cool air for a while but were all asleep by 10:00 PM.

Monday we woke up a bit later at about 7 and had baked french toast (a camping tradition at this point and the real justification for having a camper with an oven). We all enjoyed this breakfast. We then cleaned up camp and got ready for our hike. We packed our lunch and had the camp 100% cleaned up and headed out. We locked up the camper and left it there. We drove the 5 miles to the trail head and hiked the steep grade down into the canyon. After about 100 steps down hill you come to a pont where it gets even more steep and you use your hands as much as your feet. We had two kids, who will remain unnamed, that thought we were crazy to try this and almost refused (tears of fear were shown). But we all gathered our courage and "jumped". We made it down to the bottom of the canyon and found out why they call it "clear creek" it is very nice. Running pretty high and slow where we were. The sheer cliff like walls all around us were neat to see and the weather couldn't have been better. Kids played and explored. We ate lunch and walked up stream a ways. I belive everyone got wet and Skylar even went all in. After being down in the canyon for over an hour we headed back up. This part of the hike was TOUGH on me. I'm still sore. The older kids made it out about 40 minutes quicker then I did. But even with Dad dragging the team back, we still all finished.

It was an enjoyable time, I know that we don't have any pictures and that is sad. Stacy's Camera is gone (Stolen?), Vance didn't bring his and Marly's is broken (camera, purse and an open water bottle don't mix). So sorry about the lack of pictures. We have 3 more campouts/hikes to do before we get to the Emerald Lake one, so I will figure out the camera issue sooner than later I hope.

New "PREP" camping trip

We are going to WEST CLEAR CREEK on Memorial Day weekend. So if you want to come go for a steep but short Hike then come on! We are taking the camper and will stay along the way but will hike in and out of the west clear creek wilderness on Monday and head home late Monday evening. We are heading up Saturday May 22nd (Camping on Sunday I know) I promise I only do it twice a year and will bring my scriptures and Make my kids endure a "dad" sunday school style lesson. Here are a couple of picture of where we are heading. I stole these pictures off of the web so I have no idea who the people in the pictures are.

Some pictures to inspire

Here is a picture or two of where we are going... should inspire us all to get ready to go... Isn't this what heaven will look like!