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.