Where's Walla: Mammoth Retreat

Day Six

On the way home from our trip I was talking to Jon about the blog post for this trip and how I was gonna do it. His advice was to just break it into days and pick about five pictures that capture each day. Well I definitely missed that mark and of all the days, Day 6 was my hardest to narrow down. This was the last day of our trip and our 8 year anniversary. This was by far my favorite day of the trip and hands down one of the best days of my life.

Clark Canyon

We started the day at Clark Canyon. Clark Canyon is a climbing area in Mammoth with innumerable big bouldery sport routes that Jon and I spent a lot of time at pre-kids. The approach is about 20-30 minutes on relatively flat terrain so we thought it would be a good first place to take the kids. To this day I can not believe how well the kids did and how much they seemed to enjoy the whole experience.

Eden getting rock-tubed on the way in.

Climbing monkeys

Swing!

We harnessed Eden in to swing but then she said she wanted to go high and feel the "ladder holds" that Daddy was raving about. We were not expecting her to go very high, but she just kept asking to go higher and higher till she was virtually at the top. If someone would have told me that she would want to do this I never would have believed them. My Eden is full of surprises.

Tuolumne

I feel so fortunate that we were able to sneak in one last afternoon here. Unfortunately, the smoke from the Rim Fire made its way into the park pretty thickly that day so we did not stay as long as we intended but it was an incredible afternoon nonetheless.

This log was heavy. Eden is strong.

I love this little raft/surfboard tree trunk they were playing on - entertainment for hours.

Zion was so proud of himself throwing this giant rock around.

You can kind of get a better idea of how bad the smoke was in the picture of Jon paddling.

One of my favorite things about these kids is just what great helpers they are. Beyond the fact that they really are actually helping, I love that they help because they truly want to - to be involved and really be part of the team.

There were some really beautiful grasshoppers in these grasses and these two took catching them very seriously.

Initially Eden wasn't super motivated to head up this climb. I think she was still mentally recovering from her morning exploits. She kindly told me that I should just climb it. I can't help thinking that if I were anything like Jon I would have happily put my harness on and tied into the rope and sung a song right up the thing. Instead being me, and being incredibly selfish I feebly explained to her that this climb was too easy for me and I did not want to climb it. Shockingly this was just what she needed to hear and at that point decided she would do it after all. She was having trouble with her shoes mid-way so she decided to ditch them and climb it barefoot which I think actually helped her toward the top where the rock gets pretty slick.

I lowered off this climb with Eden, so we stopped to take this pic about half way.

I could not narrow Zion's climbing pictures down to less than this. I was just so blown away by his sheer determination and fearlessness at such a young age. Toward the mid-top portion of the climb the rock texture becomes like glass. It is really smooth and glossy and there is not a good way to get friction on it. This portion made Zion super frustrated. He started yelling and grunting - Jon asked him several times if he would like to be lowered to which he screamed back NO!! Then continued to grunt and complain his way slowly past the hard section. I also asked several times if he wanted me to come help him but he yelled NO! as if even this suggestion was the greatest offense. So he continued to grunt and yell his way up the rock. Once he made it to the top you could feel the joy of his triumph, and I knew it was all more than worth it to him.

Still working hard trying to pull over the last little hump

Now he knows he made it (:

Full on STOKE

Claiming it for Dad

Claiming it for me. (:

It's also nice to be on the ground again.

Catching grashoppers - doing kid things.

Junction Campground Area

This is Jon and I's favorite campground. For whatever reason we have never stayed here with the kids. We used to spend a lot of time fishing its streams (or I should say Jon did while I read a book and trailed behind him). A lot of Jon's friends who fly fish make a habit of going sans their fam. Whether they just go out for the day from camp or make a whole trip of it. I am so grateful to Jon that he lets us tag along. The kids LOVE the fishing more than anything else we do. And I know it's a pain for Jon to have us there but the freedom and the joy we all gleam from it is incomparable to anything else.