This Summer Mr. Stannix planned an epic four day backpacking trip for our crew and my parents. We started at Sunshine Village and ended at Mount Shark. It was just shy of 50km start to finish! We had originally planned on only bringing the three older kids as it is a pretty grueling hike, but Finley worked hard and convinced us to let him come along too!
Each of the kids carried their own sleeping bag, sleeping mat, clothes, and food. The older three split their tent three ways. Their packs ended up being between 15-20lbs and they carried them mostly without complaint! We often tell our kids "you can do hard things" and this is one of the many ways we like to instill this motto into them. It's not very often you begin a hike so high up! We took a gondola AND a chair lift before we got to the trail head.
The views were incredible and the hard was so worth it! I have so many pictures (too many) to share, but I'm hoping to give a good account of where we walked and what we saw. The first day took us from the gondola at Sunshine Village, through Citadel pass, and a final (very difficult) descent to our campsite at Porcupine. This has become a very popular hike, and campsites need to be reserved ahead of time to limit foot traffic each year. We had to complete certain distances each day in order to camp, and Mr. Stannix did a great job of mapping it all out!
We all started out nice and close, but soon became staggered on the trail with different paces being kept. It was nice to visit with whoever we ended up hiking with at the time. Most of the kids kept pace in the lead with their Dad, I fell somewhere in the middle (and then behind when Fin's feet got tired) and my parents kept a steady pace behind.
These flowers were so whimsical looking to me and reminded me of something from Dr. Seuss.
This was our first big climb of the day, and the view at the top did not disappoint! Over the next few days we would climb through mountains and valleys to make it to Assinboine (the pointy mountain in the distance on the top right).
It was decided that we had to make it to the lake for lunch, so off we went down the trail again!
This was my view most of the time...
The lunch view didn't disappoint either though! We were all exhausted. Mom and I took off our hiking boots and dipped our toes in the lake for a bit while the children collapsed on the ground and dug out some snacks.
This sign told us that our campsite at Porcupine was just a little over 4km. It sounded really easy to accomplish until we got going down the trail a ways.
The trail turned into a fairly steep descent, that seemed like it would never end. A few of the kids hung back with me in the middle and my parents took their time coming down. A couple of kilometers in I had one boy trucking on in front of me, faithfully stating that the end would be "just after this next switch back" or "just up here for sure!" and another boy behind me sobbing and telling me this was "the worst day ever!" I gritted my teeth and kept walking, and the boy in the back had no choice but to keep walking with us.
When we finally made it to the stream and the ground flattened out, our feet (and knees) were so relieved! We met Daddy and Hyrum on the trail. They had dropped their packs at camp and were on their way back (bless their hearts) to see if anyone needed a hand. They kept heading back on the trail until they met up with my parents and Mr. Stannix carried my Mom's pack down for her.
These two were so happy to finally have a day of hiking behind them!
And this was my view after I dropped my pack and found a bench to sprawl out on.
The kids helped me get started setting up camp while we waited on the rest of the crew to join us.
And after we had all rested our feet, Daddy cooked us up a nice warm meal and then we crawled into our sleeping bags to get rested up for day two.
