Secret Lake - July 4

We got up early on the 4th of July to head up to Salt Lake to go to Secret Lake.  Dad & Mom came with us also which was really fun to have their company.  When reading up on this hike, it said "easy" on almost every website we searched.  Apparently the person who wrote them is an avid hiker because it definitely wasn't "easy" for us non experienced hikers:). 

We apparently should have gotten up earlier as the parking lot up next to the hiking trail was all full.  Instead we had to park in a parking area down a ways and wait for a shuttle to take us up.  The wait was about 1 hour to just get shuttled up.  Once we finally made it to the trail head, we started on our "easy" 2.4 miles round trip hike.  Dad and Mom had to stop and rest a lot more than us, so we went ahead and then stopped to wait.  Bradley had fun staying behind with Grandpa & Grandma.  I have to admit that it was a pretty stressful hike for me also.  I couldn't imagine what a "hard" hike would mean.  After hiking for what seemed forever, we finally made it to the top.  There is a beautiful lake on the top of this mountain.  We brought up fishing poles and Tanner brought his net.  The kids had so much fun looking for salamanders and some fished.  Byron was really nice to carry up in his backpack our lunch along with a chair for Dad. 

We stayed up at the top for a couple of hours enjoying the beautiful area and relaxing.  On one of the sides of the mountain where the sun never hits, there is a huge area with snow that has been there for a very long time.  Some of us hiked over to that area and enjoyed playing in the snow.   Some of the kids found sticks and practiced skiing down the hill.  It was very entertaining to watch from the bottom.

With Tanner's net he was able to catch some salamanders.  He caught 3 and moved them over to a small puddle of water so we could watch them.  They are very interesting reptiles.  

Heading back down was a lot faster process, but kind of scary also with the downhill part.  We loved being able to go and see such a beautiful place together.  I think Dad will rethink going on a hike with us again:).  He can say that he survived it, though and we even have pictures to prove it:).  After getting back down to our van, we went and had an ice-cream in the souvenir shop.  Then we headed back to our home.  The first thing that dad did upon arriving home was lay on the couch and take a nap - we tired him out. 

 Parker - blue, Carter - yellow

 Parker looking for salamanders and Tanner catching them below.

 Crazy boy - playing with his food again :)

 Group picture minus Parker our photographer.