The failed but mostly beautiful hike...Deerfield Trail and Slate Creek

Two weekends after D2S we went for a hike. Sometimes you just got to get out of town right? Well, that's how I feel. We didn't know where to go but I finally landed on trying a new hike that our friends Katie and Jeff had posted about. Katie had texted me directions but something went wrong in the transmission because we never found the correct place, which was supposed to be Canyon City Trail near Jenny Gulch, Pactola, and Rapid Creek. I still really want to find this trail but we had a fail that day. We totally ended up doing the Deerfield Trail which we've done twice in the past (1 and 2).

Katie's directions took us off 385 at Silver City Road, same as what we did for Deerfield trail before. But she had us turn right on Jenny Gulch Road, which we did, about halfway down, instead of going all the way to Silver City. Then we were supposed to turn left on Kelly Gulch Road...except Kelly Gulch never ever appeared. We didn't see it on the way out either. I couldn't find it on any map when we got home! We went all the way down Jenny Gulch until it turned into a Jeep trail and we rubbed the bottom of our van running boards and muffler on rocks, etc. When we came to the end of the road there was a parking lot and a trail. We decided to get out and explore the trail since we had already considered turning around and decided to press on.

There was a small creek so bonus! Notice Evie's blanket? That's what she gets for ignoring our instructions to grab her jacket and ignoring her common sense. 🙊

After perhaps a half mile on this drab little trail, we came out to a larger, more well used trail that looked mightily familiar. 

Terry said we could come back after Thanksgiving for this Christmas tree. And Noah likes to try to photo bomb every picture I take. 😑

That was definitely Rapid Creek and I was 99% sure that this was Deerfield Trail. I was right of course. Ha ha. This was just further up from Silver City than we had ever gone. So now there's a chunk in the middle that we'll have to do sometime. 

Very pretty indeed though all the leaves had fallen by this time. 

We came to this lovely bridge and I made them all stand there. 

"Stand there now!" 😂

Bridges are fun.

I loved the color of the water. It was deeper here. 

Here's the one video I took.

Continuing on up the creek. The trail switched to the southern side of the hill where the sun couldn't reach at this time of year and there was a lot of mud from the snow melting in the shade. 

We met some folks coming down the trail and they gave us a heads up about another creek, Slate Creek, which joined Rapid Creek and the trail turned there. They're on the first bridge over Slate Creek. We followed it up to the left. 

Heading off into the canyon that the creek runs through. 

There were many, many of these bridges so that was fun. 

What wasn't as fun was the winter dreariness. All the leaves were gone and there wasn't a lot of sunlight because the canyon was kind of close. This hike would definitely be a lot better in summer time. Then you could trudge up through the creek if you wanted to cool off. 

Then if your dingo Ezra fell in the mud and couldn't figure out how to wash off, it wouldn't be a big deal. 😂

Evie on a rock. 

Noah on a rock. 

Terry on a rock.😛

The trail finally started going uphill and we thought maybe we would get somewhere that looked different. But no. It just came back down to the creek and everything looked the same. We turned around here. We'd gone about two or two and a half miles at this point. 

There was the most mud going up and then back down that hill so Luna was a mud ball. 

She got cleaned off in the creek though. She definitely got a bath as soon as we got home. So did the kids! 😆

Another one of the bridges on the way down this time. 

Back to that beautiful blue green water and bridge. 

It wasn't prettiest there.

I had Noah take our picture...hence the weird expressions. Terry looks like he is considering violence and I am not smiling. Oh Noah.

Trudge trudge trudge back. We were tired and hungry and the sun was going down. Stupid time change. I hates it!

WE HATES IT FOREVER! 😂😆😭

And that's it! It was a fun hike and still wonderful to get outside under the sun, but I wish we could've found the correct hike. We ended up doing about four and half or close to five miles. That's petty good for an Ezra. 

Iron Creek Trail

After our crazy first full week of school during the third full week of August, we were all more than ready for a break. I had been pretty stressed out that week and Terry took pity on me. He mercy-hiked me. I need that. Something about leaving the house and getting under the sun really resets my system. I love being out in God's creation. 

We drove towards the southern hills and hiked Iron Creek #15. It'd been on my list for a while and when a friend hiked it this summer and posted pictures, it quickly went to the front of the queue. 

The main draw for me was the creek. Our kids love playing in water. You could see the first creek crossing from the very beginning of the trail. 

Bam! The kids were already loving it even though there had been a ton of complaining when the announcement about the hike was made.

I opted to keep my feet dry so as to keep rocks out and so took the slender plank bridges. This photo was from atop the first one. 

Look at how beautiful! Now that it's fall it would be even more impressive with those aspens which are currently a perfectly yellow golden color. 

It was such a pretty little creek.

More walking. 

Second creek crossing.

We spent a lot of time just chilling at the crossings.

Luna does not love the water. It's kind of a bummer but at least she likes to play fetch, unlike Snap dog.

Evie, on the other hand, loves the water.

A quick time lapsed video.

This was the third creek crossing. Noah's face cracks me up.

Terry patiently waiting while the kids played endlessly.  

And on we went but this was looking behind us. The clouds were low that day but we could still see the pretty rock walls around us. 

Noah and Evie were always leading us. 

We finally let Luna off the leash and she had such fun. She's actually pretty obedient. 

Tossing rocks into the creek down the bank.

Luna waiting patiently for Terry and Ezra to catch up.

Our fourth creek crossing.

Luna was forced to get wet but quickly found her way to a dry creek side rock. 

The littles followed Terry up the creek a little ways.

And going again.

Our fifth crossing.

Ezra spent a lot of time wading up the creek towards a little waterfall that I was sat next to and throwing rocks into it. 

Samuel near the waterfall (it's above his head). 

I heard bumblebees are an endangered species or something but I see them everywhere. Well, this one might not be quite the right kind, but I do see them every day on my zinnias.  

Our sixth crossing had this pretty rock wall beyond it. 

After about two miles total (?) we came to this genuine large bridge. 

Looking south.

Looking north. 

From the other side.  

I thought the granite wall of rock was just cool, especially with the creek going by it.  

So this was our seventh creek crossing. But actually, I thought I remembered we crossed eight times. I don't know anymore. 

I love this photo of us. Noah took it and the rest of the kids had been told to get off to the right out of the frame. At this moment Evie was just realizing she had disobeyed and was in the picture. Ha!

We hung out there for a while but it was starting to sprinkle so we had to high tail it out of there. It was a good thing we dawdled on the way up because we had no time on the way down. 

There are those pretty rocks again, this time on our way back down.

Here's Terry and Ezra crossing a bridge and avoiding the water. And that's one of my last pictures. From there Terry and Evie tried to find a geocache but the service was too poor. 

Then our van made that same weird noise as when we were coming back from Minnesota in July. Terry finally took the van into the shop and they discovered the problem was an AC condenser relay. Apparently the AC was running all the time and never turning off, thus basically wearing out the system. What we took to be smoke was actually freon coming out. So far the van has ran fine after that part was replaced. Thankful it wasn't a bigger deal!