Hiking Chinese Peak

We have been trying to do a tradition of doing a big hike the day after school gets out. Unfortunately, it was really rainy on Friday so we had the children do their electronics day instead. Saturday was nice though, so we did our hike then.

The hike we chose was Chinese Peak. We had done this hike before, but went an easier route that was only about 1.5 miles each way. The way we went this time was 5 miles each way. We started our hike at about 10 am. There was a short uphill part to begin with before we could get a good look at the rest of the hike. When we did get to the top of that little up hill, we looked at the trail and Rebecca and I decided we should probably only go about half way - the path just looked too step and too long for us to do in one day. But as we got going we decided we might as well push through to the end. There were two pretty big uphill climbs mid-way through the hike. For the first one we had to really push the children to get to the top. On that first one we ended up hiking for five minutes and then taking a five minute break. Then five more on and five more off. Then one more time five on and five off before we got to the top. I thought that was going to be the hardest part, but then we got a clear view of the second peak. It looked almost straight up and I didn't know how we were going to motivate the kids on that one. But somehow they got ahead of us and Rebecca and I were just talking and then we looked up and saw that they were at the top of it already. Once we made it to the top of that one is was just about 30 minutes more on the ridge of a moderate uphill climb.




This is on top of the first peek. You can see the second peak right behind us, and then the summit is in the upper right corner.


You can't really tell from these pictures but some of the paths were very steep.

At the top! Julia laid down on the trail like she was dead when we first got up.







On the way back down.



At the top we took a break for about 30 minutes and ate lunch. Then went back down. As we were going down those steep parts I was just really shocked at how steep they were and I couldn't believe that we had all done it. Overall, it was a really beautiful hike and except for a little complaining here and there (mainly by Julia who has decided she does not like hikes very much), the children did a great job. We did it all in about five hours and when we were done everyone was sore and worn out.

We are hoping to do a lot more hiking though throughout the summer.