The hike of a lifetime......

:Warning picture overload:

The hardest part of this hike was the fact that Gilbert and I had to leave Andrew for the first time overnight. I was so glad that I got to leave him with my Sister-in-law Melinda who I knew would take better care of him than I do, but it was still so hard to be away from that little man. On our way there we stopped to get gas and we saw a little playground. I had to go down the slide at least once because I knew if Andrew was with us he would have. He LOVES slides. So this one was for Andrew.

We stayed in a campground in Zion's National Park and then Wednesday morning Aaron's Grandpa drove us up to the beginning of the hike.
This is Aaron's grandparents the Taggarts. His Grandma went on the hike with us and WOW I was impressed. She is quite the woman!
We hiked for about 2 and 1/2 miles in country that reminded me a lot of Birdseye. It was really pretty, but nothing compared to what was coming. We kept crossing little patches of water and we saw this. It just looked like a piece of grass or something, but Gilbert pulled one out and they are ALIVE. They move just like a snake. It was a little creepy to me, but what can you do.
When we started hiking through the canyon it was beautiful. There were huge rock cliffs, and mountains on both sides of us. We thought this rock looked like an elevator.
We stopped for a quick lunch before we had to repel down a waterfall. Aaron and his Grandma has done the hike before and they said it changes every time they do it from all the run off and leaves more obstacles or take obstacles away. This time there were WAY more obstacles than they were used to.

Usually the water is a blue, but it had just rained two days before the hike and so everything had been freshly turned up. Look at that gross brown water we got to repel down to.
We saw these tracks and wondered what animal it was. Dogs aren't allowed on the hike. And they are known to have Mountain Lions in the area. I'm glad all we saw were tracks.
It was so awesome how narrow parts of the hike got. This reminded me of a long hallway.
Gilbert saw this bug and got so excited. He can tell you the name of it, I don't have a clue what it is. He said they are really rare to see one. He thought it was all worth it right then. I know I am married to a bug nerd, but I love it. :)
The rock formations were so crazy.
Gilbert almost stepped on this, and I teased him that someone must have been eating some fruit snacks. He thought it was a blue cheeto and then he touched it and it curled up. It was the brightest blue caterpillar I have ever seen.
This was some debris that had washed up and got stuck on this rock. I wish I could be there to witness a flash flood when they happen without getting hurt. I bet it would be so amazing what happens.
Some of the canyons got so close together at the top that they looked like caves.
We got to hike through this river of water as our path. So BEAUTIFUL!!!
Then every now and then it would open up and be this beautiful lush green opening. I was so amazed at how green everything was.
This was another waterfall we had to repel down. I had never repelled before this so it was so awesome for a first time.
Above me is a HUGE rock that had fallen and got stuck just wedged in the air. It was so big it was so awesome! Brooke and I are walking to the top of a waterfall. You can see how big the rock is in comparison to us.
The waterfall is right behind me but you can't really even tell how cool it is where we are standing.
Here I am gearing up to repel down the waterfall. It was so much fun!
Isn't that rock amazing?
Here is 75 year old Grandma repelling down. I was so amazed with everything she did. She also slalom skis, went on Trek with her Ward this summer, and she can do headstands. Wow, what a woman. She is definitely stronger than me.
Aaron always went down the cliffs first and then helped us girls while Gilbert was always the last one and lowered us down with the rope.


Right behind us is a rock that Gilbert slid all the way down. I didn't think it was that far until I tried doing it, and it was a lot farther down than I thought. I was the one with the idea of going that way and Brooke, Aaron, and Grandma went a much easier way around the rock. Thanks Babe for going along with me even though I make life a little crazier. :)
We went through a pool of water that had tons of little tadpoles in it. We only saw one frog on the hike though.
This is a spot Aaron wasn't expecting to be so hard to go down, but it had the deepest water at the bottom and a pretty good waterfall. Aaron went down first, then Grandma, then I went down so we could relay the backpacks down. We did a really good job at keeping the backpacks dry the whole time. This was the trickiest spot to keep them dry. The water was coming down pretty hard, and at the bottom you can see how deep in Aaron is.


Of course Aaron made me swim across but the other girls he gave a nice piggy back ride. ;) Thanks Aaron. Jk He really did help a lot, and I was so impressed with how well he took care of his wife.

Brooke almost stepped right on this snake.

In the back of this picture if you look really hard you can see a tree stump. We all climbed down it and then swam over until we could touch. Well I did at least. When I got to the bottom of the tree stump Aaron just said, "That's the end of the tree so you are just going to have to jump now." I did and then went in all the way to my collar before Aaron grabbed my arm. Then said, "I didn't know it was that deep." Of course for the other ladies he carried across. In the rest of the pictures you can see how wet I got.
Look how awesome our pathway was. What an awesome hike!
Thank goodness for the walking sticks. The water was so dirty that we couldn't see anything in the water. The sticks helped us keep our balance way better while walking over all the rocks.
Gilbert loved the huge wet cliffs. They were so pretty.
Right here is where we were sliding down the edge of this cliff on our bums and Aaron was at the bottom to catch us. Brooke and Grandma slid down really slow and then when I went for some reason I slipped and went way too fast. Thank you Aaron for catching me at the bottom.
Aaron was of course the first to go down and he went down right under the waterfall with us (mostly Gilbert) holding the rope he was tied to and slowly lowering him down. This was another surprise spot they haven't had trouble at before.
This is where Orderville Canyon (that we just came out of) and The Narrows meet.
We got to hike through the narrows in this river. It was probably the roughest part of the hike because we were tired. It was so hard to see the rocks so every step we made we had to be really careful not to fall. By this point I thought I was going to die. My knees hurt so bad. I am so glad Gilbert helped me through. He let me completely lean on him the last part of the hike. Every time I put any weight on my knee I thought I was going to die, so Gilbert let me put all my weight on him so I didn't hurt my knee so bad. You're the best Babe!
I was so glad Gilbert packed a jacket for me. Towards the end of the hike I got really cold and the jacket helped a lot to keep the wind off.
Every now and then we could follow a little path out of the water and through all this green. It didn't last long and we would have to go through the water again. If you look close you can see Grandma up ahead. She is the little white dot. She was always way up ahead of us keeping the pace faster. I think we slowed her down a lot. :)
This spot in the river was so funny. Gilbert was the first to cross and right in front of where Grandma is now is a ledge under the water. You drop right in to your neck. Gilbert was just walking along when he went right in. Thanks Gilbert for going first and saving me from dropping in. :) Grandma is trying to find a way around it so Brooke went to help pull her over it.
I can't believe how green it was. It reminded me a lot of Lake Powell until I would see all the green.
Behind Gilbert is a waterfall. It was getting dark, because it was around 9:30 pm. We had seriously hiked the entire day. Thanks Gilbert for helping me make it.
This is towards the very end. :)
I loved how the three of them would get through the water. So cute. When we finally made it through the water we just had a little over a mile on a pathway. That last mile felt so good to be on solid ground. It took us 12 hrs to do the hike. Thank you Aaron and Brook for inviting Gilbert and I on the hike with you. We had so much fun and will never forget it. It seriously was a hike of a lifetime! :)