The Stout Family: Pack Trip to Twin Sisters Lake

The Bolles family pack trips have now officially been passed onto the next generation. We hiked up to Twin Sisters Lake, a favorite place we've gone many, many times for as long as I can remember. The road was washed out to get to the trailhead, so the hike was extended by an extra 2 miles of walking on the road. Alison and I had the kids with us and Andrew and Jason led the horses and went on up ahead. It was pretty slow-going at first and we wondered if were ever going to make it, but the kids picked up speed once we were off the road and hiking on the trail, even though it was a steeper climb. The boys made it to camp, unloaded the horses and came back down the trail to pick up any kids who were having a hard time. Jason was very surprised when he met us because we were nearly there.

We all made it to camp and the kids had big plans to go swimming, which ended up with them just sticking their feet in and realizing the water was a bit too cold, although Alison surprised us all when she dove in. We set up camp, ate dinner, played frisbee and then headed to bed once the sun started to go down because it got pretty cold up there and we couldn't have a fire because there was a burn ban.

The next day we went on a hike to Blakenship meadow and lakes with the 4 youngest on horses and the rest of us walking. We got back to camp to eat lunch, break camp and headed down the mountain back to the car. We met quite a few people coming down the trail, who all looked a bit surprised with all the kids and just 2 moms, especially since we didn't have any packs on. Someone said, "You must be coming down from a day hike." I said, "No, luckily we have 2 horses coming behind us who are willing to carry all our stuff." Speaking of "stuff"....Alison gave us a good laugh because space is very limited in the packs and we were told to bring only the essentials. I took this very literally and brought barely anything, not even a change of underwear for Jordan, which became a problem when he wet his pants in the night. Well, somehow, Alison made it up there with 3 umbrellas. Jason said he'll have to go through her stuff a little more carefully next time. Needless to say, she never had to use them and it gave us all a good laugh. The walk back was even more slow-going, but I found that if I kept Jordan talking about his favorite toys, which are Ninjago at the moment, that he picked up speed and it kept his mind off of how tired he was. Overall, it was a very fun trip and it didn't surprise me that when Jordan had to write about a favorite thing he did over the summer, he wrote about the pack trip....there's just nothing like being with family in the mountains.