Sunday, June 22, 2008

Day 4 - Ice Caves and other wonders


View our Day 4 pictures.

I was up with the sun - so grabbed some sunrise photos.

It was an unorthodox Sunday for us people who usually spend it in church. We started our day by heading north up Piedra Road with hiking feet at the ready (trying to beat the inevitable heat that's putting this region into Very High fire danger).

We stopped at the Piedra River - and found our favorite "picture rock" under water with the spring and early summer snow melt. The boys skipped and plopped a few rocks (practicing their shot put skills?).

We hit the Piedra River trailhead and went up, up, up on the Ice Cave Ridge hike. The Ice Caves in the name are really large fissures that fill with snow that gets packed into ice over the winter. The snow doesn't melt completely until mid-summer and we saw some dirty snowdrifts at the bottom of some of the fissures. Like every great hike - the reward was the beautiful view from the top of the ridge. And the special bonus that the trip back to the trailhead was all downhill.

And then Matt and Amy decided - hey - we're here - let's do the Piedra River hike which starts at the same trailhead. We've never done this one before - and some whitewater rafters were just getting ready to start down the river. So we followed this great trail along the river - sometimes high above and sometimes near it - a veritable rollercoaster of a trail. Through spectacular rockfalls (which have been there for quite some time - phew), desert-like meadows and towering cliffs - it was great. But our stomachs and empty water bottles were saying it was time to head back.

So we did - with a short stop to try our hand at geocaching - searching for the treasure container that is on our way back. We didn't find it - but our little GPS doesn't take coordinates (latitude and longitude) so even though we had the exact location - we couldn't find it. Sounds like a really fun neat game to play, though.

We hit the grocery store and picked up lunch. Then it was time for church! We read a sermon from Pastor Gabb at Atonement in Texas and joined in the Lord's Prayer.

After church - we treated the unintiated to the wonder that is the Choke Cherry Tree store. Some members of the party spent about 30 minutes sampling all their home-made delights.

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