If you’ve been visiting here for a while, you know that this is the first summer I’ve ever had off with the kids. I was only working Thursdays and Fridays this summer, so we decided to keep them home out of summer camp. Turns out a friend of mine had Tuesdays off as well, so we got together on the Tuesdays we could and took the kids - ages 5, 6, 7, and 8 - hiking so we could spend time together and explore the beautiful Colorado country we live in. When we weren’t hiking with friends, we were off camping as a family and enjoying our beautiful state.
This is the first in a series of posts called Summer Rocks! that chronicle our adventures in hiking this summer. Why Summer Rocks!? Because my kids were so lucky this summer to get outside and see so many beautiful things, and it seemed that everywhere we hiked, there were huge rocks for the kids to climb on and beautiful sites to see.
I posted about our family hikes up at Golden Gate Canyon State Park here and here. Go check them out!
Here we go - Summer Rocks! Part I . . . Palmer Lake Reservoir.
We headed out on the trailhead in absolutely beautiful weather! It’s a fairly short hike without too much elevation gain that takes you up to the reservoirs above Palmer Lake. The kids always have so much fun climbing on the rocks and kicking dirt around and just having fun together. When we come to fun things like ginormous boulders on the side of the trail, the 3 boys always have to try to move it or climb it or do SOMETHING with it. They gave it a good college try, but it did not budge. They couldn’t beLIEVE it!
We continued our hike on up the trail a little further. Dude was happy when we finally got far enough up the trail that you couldn’t see phone lines - the boy LOVES nature and wants to be out in the middle of nowhere when we’re hiking - no cars, not many people, no signs of civilization. All the kids were happy as clams when we came across this boulder field. The hopped right in and started climbing away!
Yes there were a lot of huge holes they could have fallen into, but they’re all good hikers, even Princess in her skirt 
They were all careful and had fun, and nobody fell in. See how huge those boulders are? My goodness! What a blast for the kids!
We continued on up the trail until we came to the second reservoir, where we decided to stop for some lunch. Looks like a good spot to me, how about you?
Doesn’t get much better than sitting on a rock near some water out in the middle of nowhere eating a PB&J 
Since they couldn’t play in the water, the kids were ready to head on to the next adventure! So off we went, hiking further and further around the trail. They found some wonderful hills to climb and explore while me and MS got to hang out and chat. After a little while, we saw some clouds coming - a typical occurrence every afternoon here on the Front Range. So we told the kids to come down so we could finish the hike around the reservoir and high-tail it out of there before the lightning started (again, an every day occurrence here during the summer).
According to the trail guides and reviews we’d read online, you could hike all the way around the 2nd reservoir and end up back on the regular trail. While this was definitely true, it was NOT easy! OMG! We ended up scrambling on some huge boulders, climbing down into the canyon created by the dam, and using an old dead log to climb back out of the canyon on the other side, where we had to cross the water on one of those tiny rickety wrought iron bridges. We did all this with 4 young kids and a 45 pound dog while it steadily got darker and more stormy looking. I didn’t take any pictures of the canyon we had to hike down into and back out of because we were in too much of a hurry to beat the storm, but we did see a couple cool things on the way.
This beaver dam was amazing! Seriously, those animals are efficient!
We also go to hike through some natural tunnels made of boulders, which is always way cool for the kids.
We made it to the bottom safe and sound, and just as we got into the car, the first rain drops started to fall. We headed to the Rock House for ice cream after our most excellent first hiking adventure of the summer. Check back tomorrow for a review of our second Summer Rocks! hiking adventure.