Backpacking w/ the boys in Santa Cruz Mtns. 2018

Time for a spur of the moment backpacking adventure with the boys:

Clean

The women folk accompanied us on our first mile to wish us farewell as we marched off into the wilderness.

Pretty soon it was just us and the trees...

Seth spotted a good plot to set up for the night, so they went ahead and started site prep and construction.

I gave them the option of rain fly or no.  At first they thought it was pretty obvious that they should have protection against the elements, but when I explained to them the pros and cons, they decided to try without...

We then retired to the "kitchen" as the boys designated the space within their grand plan.  Mountain House Chicken Teriyaki was a big hit for this age group!

During an after dinner walk we discovered a truly huge tree.  This thing was one of the biggest trees I've ever seen in these hills.  The boys named it "Big Aspidistra", or big A for short.  We then continued to name every worthy tree on down the alphabet: Big B, Big C, etc.  In fact, on this trip we came across so many large trees that we made it all the way through Z.

They slept better than I did.

Nice foggy vibe in the morning.

Down by slate creek someone had gone through the trouble of creating some wonderful trail art.  The boys and I had a great time discovering several of these gems in our exploration of the creek.

Trail art.  I gave it more thought since then and have decided that this is just a great idea to keep kids entertained in the forest.

Everyone's favorite slug.

Baby newt?  Who knows...  But Seth names him "little black spot", I think this might have been the highlight of the trip for Seth when he discovered this little guy under a rock...

Little snake.  We came across one that looked just like this one a half hour later, and the boys were convinced it was the same snake.

Blake likes Jerky.

And climbing.

And waterholes.

And rocks.

And waterfalls.

Video of waterhole.

Video of little snake.

Not clean.