Long hike to Long Lake

One of the highlights from our trip out west was our 3 day/2 night backpacking trip up in the Wallowa mountains. We drove down to La Grande OR, spent a day with Caleb's family, and then got up bright and early to hit the trail. We went with CAleb's brother and sister-in-law, Titus and Elizabeth. Between the 4 of us, we left 3 kids under 3 with the grandparents. It was our first time leaving Hannah for so long, but you will be happy to know that we all survived (even Caleb's parents :-D). It was a 10.5 mile hike with ~3,000 foot climb. The scenery was beautiful, and we had plenty of water...the only down side was it took us 12 hours to hike in, and 8 hours to hike out. I think next time we will let someone besides Titus pick our destination. :-D Here are some pics (there are lots! feel free to skim):

Here we are at the beginning of the trail (enthusiastic and energetic)

We hiked along a river and had to cross it several times. I counted at least 5 times that required either taking off our shoes, or some amazing balancing & jumping skills

Here’s Els & I in the amazing valley that we hit right after lunch on our first day. It was so gorgeous!

Here are some action shots:

Here I am next to one of the many waterfalls we crossed

Several times our trail became the river or was just filled with water.

Here we are at the apex of our hike looking down on swamp lake. We would have stopped at this lake if the mosquitoes hadn’t been so bad.

There were several places where our trail was covered with snow. Here’s Els crossing one of them.

Here’s the one dangerous snow crossing we had. You don’t want to lose you footing here!

Here we are hiking down to Swamp Lake

Yay, we made it to swamp lake!

Although these pictures don’t show it very well, the first night we were there, the place was covered with mosquitoes! Caleb holds the record, killing 11 mosquitoes in one swat. Here’s Caleb’s back

Day 2 was our chill day. Caleb and Titus built a raft.

As you can see, it really is a one person raft.

Caleb also did some fishing.

And then we hiked to the end of the lake to see the waterfall (pictures of waterfalls are never as cool as they are in person...but that still doesn't stop me from taking pictures)

Here’s a picture of me with my super tasty smore (it has a layer of peanut butter on it!)

This is Long Lake in the morning. Beautiful, huh!

Here we are on the trail out.

Here we are at the top on our way out.

More of our hike out

We had amazing views the whole time!

Here’s a picture of Caleb on the donkey bridge. You’ll have to ask him about the time he went up to long lake with horses and donkeys. We heard several stories and were thankful that none of us are as stubborn as a donkey. :-D

All in all, it was a great trip. We had tons of fun with Titus and Els, and even though we missed Hannah, we were glad the kiddos weren’t around. It is also nice to know that we can still handle a couple day backpacking trip and come out still moving and not too sore.