Family Trekking in the Basin

I was fortunate to have my family come visit again in August this year.  They arrived late Saturday afternoon, we enjoyed time together that night and Sunday, and Monday, it was time to get out and explore.

 

Our destination: Johnson Lake.  There are two trails to Johnson Lake: the first is from the Baker Creek Trailhead, the second from the Shoshone Trailhead.  It's a shorter round-trip hike from the latter, so up Snake Creek Canyon we drove toward Shoshone, and we were off.

 

The trail, although shorter, covers the same elevation gain.  Translation: very steep!!  I kind of felt bad dragging them up such a steep trail.  Adam did fine, Dad enjoyed himself, and Mom, with the help of some borrowed trekking poles, was a trooper.  (She and I both have testimonies of trekking poles.)

 

At one of the rest stops...bumps on a log.

Getting closer to the lake, there was this tree, growing right out of a crack in the rock.  Crazy!

We got to the lake, had a lovely lunch, and took a ton of pictures before heading back down.  Sunday was rainy, Tuesday brought thunderstorms (that knocked out power in the middle of my cave tour, no less...it's dark down there!), but Monday, the sky was the clearest blue, the weather was perfect, and we were basically the only visitors on the trail.

Adam found a rock on the lake and posed for his future statue.

The road from the valley up to Snake Creek Canyon was lined with Rocky Mountain Bee plants.  It's sunset in the picture below, so hard to see these plants, but they are absolutely beautiful!

We had dinner at the Silver Jack. (Yup, Baker has three places to eat!)  Mom's even smiling after a very long day.

Adam still needs to work on his "I'm trying to appear less tired than I am" smile.

It was a great day and a great weekend.  It's always nice to spend time with family and I don't think we ever out-grow playing show-and-tell to our parents.