Backpacking with the Cows

The last time we were at my parent's house, we were going through their storage room, looking for...something. I don't remember what we were doing. But I noticed my parents old backpacking backpacks sitting near the door. Joe and I had been talking about backpacking for awhile but don't have any backpacks. So when I saw those, I asked my Mom if we could borrow them for a little bit so we could finally fulfill our dream. That was when my Mom told me that they were actually planning on getting rid of them, so we could just have them! I was so excited! And thus begins our journey to planning our backpacking trip! 

We took our engagement pictures up Logan Canyon at a place called Tony's Grove. It was beautiful and I found out there was another lake you could backpack to from that area. I was so stoked because I knew it would be gorgeous! Here is a little reminder of what our engagements looked like from Tony's Grove.

Gorgeous right? And this was in October, after most of the leaves had changed and fallen. 

We decided to plan our weekend for September 21-23. This was because that Sunday was the Brigham City Temple Dedication which we could go to at 3pm. Normally, we have church at 9am on Sundays so we couldn't take our camping trip through Sunday. I went grocery shopping and got everything that I thought we would need...and more. Friday came and we set off for our destination around 5:30. It takes about 40 minutes to drive up to Tony's Grove so we didn't start hiking until about 6:30. It was beautiful! There were so many colors and just being out in nature by ourselves reminded me how loving our Heavenly Father is in creating this beautiful earth for us. The other thing I noticed was the wildlife. And by wildlife, I mean cows. There were cows everywhere! I kept freaking out thinking they were going to attack us but all they ever did was stare and then walk away, sometimes run away. The hike was about 4 miles. The first 3.5 miles were a gradual uphill and the last half mile was a steep downhill. By the time we got to the downhill, it was starting to get dark. And by the time we got to the campgrounds, it was pitch black. Thankfully, we have an LED lantern that came in handy! We set up camp and made ourselves some dinner. Cup of Noodles is an excellent backpacking dinner, by the way. All you need to do is heat up water and add it in and you have a warm cup of soup. Delish.

The next day was spent walking around the lake, venturing around the area, eating, feeding chipmunks, and cleaning off shoes from cowpies that were stepped in. (That only happened to Joe...poor guy.) All in all, the only mishap we had was bringing our air mattress. First off, it weighs quite a bit...too much for a backpacking venture. Second off, we have an electric pump for it which means it needs to be charged in order to work. So naturally, we forgot to charge it. It filled up our mattress about 1/3 of the way. Thankfully, that was really the only thing that went wrong on the trip!

Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast, packed up and headed out. Thank goodness for the overcast morning because that half mile of steep uphill was killer. And if it wouldn't have been overcast, it would've been much worse. But once we made it up, the gradual downhill was excellent. The weather was perfect, the scenery was gorgeous (have I used that word enough yet?) and it was overall an amazing trip. Without further ado, here is the picture version of the story. (The much more exciting version, probably.)

 The drive up!

Preparing for the hike in 

Our destination: White Pine Lake

 Yes, we actually carried those things all the way! Proof.

Our new little camp stove and camping pots and pans! 

 That chipmunk is eating part of my
granola bar that I just fed to him!

 White Pine Lake

 A random seashell found by the lake!

 The cowpie Joe stepped in...poor guy.

Cleaning up the mess 

A random stream we found when we 

decided to go off the trail...sshh!! 

 We followed the stream for awhile until...

 it became this mini waterfall!

 Cool, right?

 Getting our water all filtered out

 The trail to our campsite

 The cows that we shared our whole weekend with...

 Packing up!

 Garden of Eden anyone?

 We came across this little fellow along the way

 These pictures don't even do it justice! 

And we're back! Our last view as we hiked in and left.