Hiking

Last weekend, the family bustled into the car off on an adventure. We were looking for 40 horse cave. An attempt to capture a memory from Craig's past.

The cave is up in the Narrows, up a steep mountain covered in shale.

After decades, the memory of where the cave was had grown dim.

I told him that whether we found the cave or not, we would have an adventure.

Josh turned into a billy goat and blazed his own trail.

I pushed down my panic and tried to keep track of the 11 year old that kept vanishing up different ravines.

I hiked across the shale covered mountain, around big rocks that Craig was sure was hiding the cave that held 40 horses long ago.

How in the wide world did horses get up this I wondered. How was this any kind of an effective hiding place. It took way too long to access it and it would leave a clear trail.

I had panicy visions of our family falling to our deaths and no one finding us until spring. (That was clearly on the verge of hysteria that needed to be tapped firmly down.)

The shale was more than ankle deep. In fact the shale breached my shoe and slid inside. Boaz had shale in his shoes also.

I told Craig that this was my one and only time trying to find that cave. (Later my good friend told me that if I could read the Old Testament, I couldn't let a simple hike beat me. I'm not sure how that made any sense, but I did agree to go again.)

Needless to say, we did not find the cave. But I did make it up to the sheer cliff. I did not fall to my death. I did make it up and then back down again.

Yesterday we tried again. This time we took along Craig's brother Brad. He didn't move away, he has fished every hole in these hills. And he did know where the cave was.

Yea!

He warned me that there was a lot of shale on this hike. NOT! Not even close. My shoes did not sink in up to my ankles. I did not slide down each step to my starting place or lower. I did not have to take huge steps to make it a normal distance up the mountain. I fact, I could see dirt under the loose shale. There was vegetation to stabilize the path. There WAS a path.

The path was littered with spice containers for BBQs. Teenagers had hauled kegs up this path.

It was a big cave, filled with spray painted names and other trivia.

Josh was back to his mountain goat ways.

This time I remembered my camera. But I haven't loaded them to the computer. I'll post a few later.

But we found the cave.

A memory was recovered and memories were made in with the next generation.

Success!