It was going to be a family hike, but Lucas wasn’t up for it (maxed out, hurt foot, blah blah). Mirah, Luna, & Karl left Luke & Mom at home.

Stop 1: Battle Creek. We hiked up a gravel access road for like half a mile and there was nothing picturesque in sight. We turned around to head to another canyon instead.

Back at the trail head, there was a nice pavilion at a Kiwanis Park. We caught our breath and gave Luna some water.

 

Stop 2: Grove Creek. We hiked up about half a mile and things were looking pretty much the same. No water, no plants, no nothing. We decided to head up to where the canyon seemed to get narrower before we turned around.

As we got close to that point, we heard some water. We found the water! There’s a pretty good stream up there but it gets diverted into an underground pipe about a mile up from the mouth of the canyon.

The first bit of water:

We walked up the steam for about a quarter mile even though there’s no established trail.

 

Mirah took off her shoes and waded through the stream which cascades down through several little pools.

Luna got comfortable running through the water.

 

 

We turned around when we got to a section of the canyon/stream where there was no way to pass without Karl getting feet wet. With the right shoes it would be fun to trek up further.

We took Luna off the leash and fired up the RC car to walk/run/chase Luna back down to the trail head and Mirah wandered around while Karl tried to find something to pick up for dinner on the way home.

Mirah found a cool pile of bones behind some bushes.

Karl moved the skeleton to a more prominent location.

Luna was in chew heaven.