Summer Rocks! Part II

This is the second 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!

I posted about our Summer Rocks! Part I hike to the Palmer Lake Reservoirs here.

Here we go - Summer Rocks! Part II - Four Mile Canyon

Four Mile Canyon is about a 90 minute drive from our house. It’s a beautiful little hike, but very short for our standards. But, it is one of Dude’s favorite hikes, and he wanted to introduce it to his buddies, I and G. So off we went on our second group adventure of the summer!

This rock formation is at the very beginning of the trail. The kids were so excited when they got here because to them, it was only a sign of more wonderful rock climbing opportunities to come Oh - and just FYI - there is a geocache here (not on this exact formation) for all of you cachers out there. We found it by accident.

After we pried the kids off the rocks with promises of many more climbing opportunities, Dude and Princess lead us on our hike into the canyon. The kids found some awesome alternate trails to hike on! MS and I took this picture from the actual trail while the kids blazed their own trail across the creek. Not really - lots of people had been down there before them, but in their brains, they were the first and it was WAY cool - the bigger the rocks, the more fun there is to be had!

Those rocks above are the low point of the canyon - we had to hike up and over a pretty big hill of rocks to get here . . . to the pool. Isn’t it beautiful?! Duma and BoBo had great fun in the water The kids took their shoes and socks off and waded around a little bit, but it gets deep unpredictably, so they didn’t spend much time in there. On the weekends, this place is packed with kids and semi-adults who have too much time and beer with them . . . they will jump off the huge cliffs into this pool despite the warnings of injury and death that are posted everywhere. We, however, were lucky and it was Tuesday, so we were pretty much all alone, except for a couple young girls sunbathing.

We finished the hike to the end of the trail in record time, where we relaxed and found the perfect humonstrous boulders to have lunch on. I can’t imagine a more perfect spot for a couple boys to enjoy lunch!

Even though it was a short hike, the kids made it last quite a while with all of their climbing and stopping and looking and playing and roaming - which is why we hike. They love it, we love it, we all get to see wonderful things!

Be sure to check back tomorrow for a review of what had to be the most exciting and beautiful off all of our hikes, without a doubt!