season's first kayak trip & hiking the Highline Trail

Two weekends ago, Jason, Zoralee, and I got away for a one night camping trip in Glacier Park. We finally left our house mid-day on Friday, and by the time we found a campsight and got ourselves situated, we were all three pooped. Activity One was a giant family nap. Hard core, aren't we? I started fearing that what people told us about "everything changing once you have children" just might have an element of truth to it. Aaaack. La la la la la [plugging ears].

When we woke up refreshed, we were ready to wet down the kayak in Lake McDonald. Jason strapped Zoralee onto his back in the ergo carrier, and we hauled the kayak through the campground to the lake. We had to stop about fifty times for me to switch hands. Hefty thing, that.

Zoralee was NOT a fan of her nifty, shiny, new infant life jacket.

In fact, we eventually abandoned it because it doesn't fit well at all. It squeezes her head really badly, so we need to find a different style. I wore my lifevest and had her in the ergo-carrier on my front. If that's illegal, then I'm just kidding. Jason did all the rowing and a little fishing. Zoralee wriggled around and eventually fell asleep. I watched the water and sky in motion against the stillness of the mountains. (I love beauty, Jason loves practicality, and Zoralee loved escaping from the life jacket trauma enough to sleep.)

a couple of Jason's shots:We all know that food is one of the best parts of camping. Somehow I totally failed this trip. I skimped on meal-quality food but brought dark chocolate in several forms, including but not limited to hot chocolate, chocolate cookies, truffles, and Snickers bars. Once we figured this out, we were already in our campsight and set up. I must've been smoking crack walking through the grocery store earlier that day. Well, appropriately enough, here we are drinking hot chocolate beside the campfire (and Zoralee getting her first taste).

shots of setting up for a timed photo absolutely crack me up

* * *

The next day was my re-introduction to the act of a whole day hike, after a year and a half of abstaining due to pregnancy and infant owning. It was 11.6 miles from Logan Pass (the top of the road system through the Park) to The Loop through frickin' fantastic country. You lose roughly 2,000 feet of elevation, so there's overall more downhill than up. There is a rustic chalet about 7.5 miles in, where we stopped for an hour long break. Otherwise, we stopped briefly to snack, to give Zoralee pottytunities or change her diaper, and to fix my broken shoelace. Not counting breaks, it took us about 5 hours. We saw mountain goats, bighorn sheep, deer, marmots, ground squirrels, bugs, bees, birds, and a bazillion wild flowers. It was gorgeous.

Zoralee looked and looked all around, and when she got bored of the beauty, fell asleep. She preferred to be on my back rather than on Jason, so part way through we switched it up; he carried his pack on his back and mine on his front so that I could just carry Z. I nursed her and gave her pottytunities along the trail whenever she got fussy. She got a lot of attention from other hikers in her white sun bonnet. In a lot of spots, the trail wasn't wide enough for traffic to walk both directions, so people would let us pass or vice versa, and when we'd passed each other, they'd see Zoralee and get really startled. "Oh my heavens! There's a little one back there!" That was fun. We should've acted surprised too and started swatting at her like she was a giant insect. Next time.

I feel pretty out of shape for endurance walking, but man, the scenery was out of this world. One of those paradoxical experiences where you're wondering why in tarnation you like to do this activity but then two minutes later are living that Rocky Mountain high old John Denver sang about and can't imagine being elsewhere. (Unless it's at a Mexican restaurant. Hiking always makes me crave Mexican.)

at the Chalet