Bikes, Hikes, and Falls

A friend mentioned that she takes her 4-year-old to the skate park frequently.  I hadn't thought of doing this with such youngsters, but it turns out the skate park is pretty empty before 10am (insert sleepy teenager joke here), there's a kid-friendly section, and I knew that it would be right up Owen's alley.  So, one morning we decided to check it out with some friends.  They all had a great time, and I was also surprised that Hadley enjoyed it so much, too.  No injuries either!

The kids had also received a free ride at Funland (our sad little seasonal amusement park) from the summer reading program at the library.  Funland is just down from the skate park, so we opted to do that when we were done with our bikes.  The kids loved it, but it made me a little depressed. :)

Hearing of a new, close place to hike, we played explorers that weekend at Wolverine Canyon, just a 40 minute drive south of our house.  It was exciting to go somewhere we hadn't been before, but we were following a friend's written directions and there were NO signs for trails, parking, etc.  We were in true wilderness and only saw a few other cars during our whole stay.

We may have had to do a u-turn or two to find the presumed trailhead to "40-horse cave" (again, no signs to confirm), but eventually we found a good place to park the car and some semblance of a trail to start on.

We had been warned that it was a steep trail up to the cave, and we found a trail that fit the bill.  Unfortunately, the trail sort of petered out halfway up, and we had no maps or signs to help decipher any direction other than up.

But during our snack break, we could see some caves across the way to head toward.  See that narrow doorway above H's head?

We made it to the cave!  It was even big enough to stand in and went all the way through the rock to the other side.  Pretty cool!  

The adults checked it out for safe passage while the kids rested, and we ultimately decided that it wasn't safe enough to get down the other side with two small children. We could see a first ledge, which would have required handing kids down, but no obvious next step after that, though we could see a very reasonable-looking trail approaching the cave from somewhere on that side.  Responsible adults said we had to go back the way we came.

I was holding H's hand to help her from sliding down the rocky slope back to the trail.  It was very slow going and arduous enough that I called for the backpack to wait up for her to hop in for the ride down.  As we were on our way to meet the backpack, she slipped and jerked me off-balance enough that I started down the mountain and couldn't stop! Luckily, I threw her hand down to stop her slide, but I stumbled/tumbled down about 20-30 feet before landing on my side in some brush.  Ouch!  It could have been so much worse, but I escaped with just scrapes and bruises thankfully!  Once we loaded her up in the backpack, we continued the trip down to the car and made it without any further incidents.

After a brief rest at the car, we opted to hike down the road to try to find the other, flatter trail on the far side of the cave for next time.  The scenery was variable and pretty along the way with imposing cliffs, picturesque trees, and a trickling stream.

I'm so glad we did not attempt to go through the cave with the kids!  We could see the backside of it from the road, but never found the trail to get there directly.  We assumed that the large dark spot was "40-horse cave", and our pass-through cave is the one just up and to the right of that.  It looked like we might have been stuck on that ledge!  So, we concluded that Wolverine Canyon might be worth another trip, but we'd have to come back with someone more familiar with the terrain than us!  Phew!