We were still really bummed about not being able to do the hike we had most been looking forward to, but decided to give the recommendation a try. And so we found ourselves at the trail head of Horton Peak instead (after having gotten lost trying to find it - this really was not our morning). Fortunately, our luck turned around at this point and we had an absolutely gorgeous hike up and back down Horton Peak (about 6.5 miles round trip). It had snowed the night before at the higher elevations, so we got to walk through forests of snow much to Micah's delight who kept exclaiming "it's winter!" and "I want to touch it!", followed by "it's cold!" The 360 views from the top were spectacular and had we gotten an earlier start we could have easily ride walked over to another summit. We settled for just the one summit, however, since we knew it would get colder as the afternoon wore on, and headed down the mountain after a break and a little investigation of the old watch tower that sits at the top. Micah was all energy and walked about half of the way down before he got a little too tired and silly and needed to be carried for the remainder of the hike. Ezra was apparently very upset to hear we were leaving the summit, as you can see above, lol.
Sunday's hike started out much smoother; we actually made it to the trail head with no problems for starters. We decided to switch our hiking partners up for the day and Ezra rode with Matt and Micah with me which was a fun switch for our last day. Our plan for the day was to hike the much more popular Alpine and Sawtooth Lakes trail. It was a very different hike from all the previous days because there were actually people, and a lot of them at that, hiking all day on the trail with us. We actually talked to quite a few people and groups (even a group who's daughter lives in Indy!) and they all just loved the boys (though they couldn't believe we were hauling them on an 8ish mile round trip hike!).
Alpine Lake was a very small detour off the main trail, so we skipped it on the way up (though you hike on the cliffs above and look down on it on your way up to Sawtooth Lake) and just headed for Sawtooth Lake to start with. It sits high up in a mountain pass surround by the jagged Sawtooth Mountains and was another gorgeous hike. Micah's only demand was that "Dada throw a big rock in the lake while I throw little ones in", so we made that happen when we got to Sawtooth Lake along with our traditional snack break. The trail continued up into the mountains and we saw many backpackers headed up for longer hikes, but we headed back and hit up Alpine Lake on the way down where Micah enjoyed climbing on the rocks before we headed the rest of the way down to the car.
We laugh about it, but before this hike we were beginning to wonder if there were any children in the area, because we never saw any (granted we really didn't see anyone on our hikes and town was very small). We did see another baby on this hike though! Apparently there just aren't very many crazy people who like to haul small children into the middle of the mountains for fun... ah well. We were thrilled to have had such a fun time, but it was time to say goodbye.