Night Hike

Tonight for Family Home Evening we took the boys on a night hike up South Mountain. It was dark when we got to the trail head at 6:20pm. We all had our flashlights to help see on the trail. It was just a sliver of a moon, so it was pretty dark. ((Can you tell that I'm focusing on how dark it was...do you get the impression I don't care much for roaming around in the desert in the dark??)))

The boys liked the night adventure. When you have teenagers, you have to do dangerous and risky things to keep their attention sometimes. Mitchell wanted to hike all the way to top of the mountain where the radio towers were. After we hiked for an hour on the rugged trail, the radio towers were still another hour away, so we started to head back. We will have to go back soon and start our hike a little earlier in the day so we can make it up to the flashing red light towers.

This is the rugged trail. We saw a few creepy spiders on the trail. One might have been a brown recluse!

This picture was taken at the beginning of the hike. I'm not big on doing risky things like hiking in the dark where snakes, javalinas and coyotes might be lurking as they prowl for their night time meal. So this picture just proves I wasn't a chicken for one evening!

Grant was a great hiker. He had a headlamp on his head for most of the hike that worked great until he turned around and looked at you. Then you were blinded. He has improved tremendously as a hiker since the last time I took him hiking. He has really become a good Boy Scout; very tough.

Mitchell had a little trouble with maturity on the hike. He kept flashing his flashlight and laser into our eyes and thinking it was hilarious. Needless to say, he got it taken away from him. His response to that was to run off down the trail in the dark and hide. Can you see him hiding behind the rock in this picture? He is near the top and you can see two little dots that are reflecting off of him. Later on, he did get the flashlight back and managed to not shine it in our eyes. He can be taught!!! Yipee!

It was a fun Family Home Evening. When we got home, we ate pumpkin cookies just like the ones Sarah had posted on her blog. Very yummy. We even got Grant to try one and he ate the whole thing.