** * Our Life with 13 Kids * **: Moonshine Canyon

Today we went hiking in Moonshine Canyon. It is a slot canyon, and this was my first time ever hiking in something like this!

Esti and Sophi climbing over a boulder in the canyon. It was fun to do some real bouldering on real rocks.

So this morning we woke up, had a pancake breakfast, little kids went up on the sandstone and old kids practiced their Goliath skills ~

Another shot of Corey teaching Peter (in red behind him) how to sling rocks.

Craig didn't end up coming on the outing today. He was out in Grand Junction after a 3am trip to the ER last night/this morning cause of his swollen thumb that was killing him. So he was gone with their jeep. Jill knew the canyon and we set out with her as our guide. The Morgan's didn't come today, but we didn't need to shuttle anyone cause we'd come back to the car at the same place where we left it, so we all headed out in Corey's pilot. 13 people in the car, and a dog.

Leaving the campsite of Dos Ojos, Corey's car is full and ready for some light off roading.

We drove south on the San Rafael road again. Parked Corey's car here. and began a mile long walk in the sun down to the trail head. If we had a jeep, we could have parked here at the trailhead. (Thankfully at the end of our hike today, that is where Craig picked us up.) "Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked..."

There actually wasn't much complaining at the start here, except for Katharine. This was her first adventure and this road to no where felt very long to her (cute little frown!)

She was happy when Corey picked her up.

I handed out 3 stalks of celery to everyone before they could have pringles. Mel: "The only way to get me to eat celery plain, is to drive me into the desert and tell me there's nothing else to eat." Walking down the wash.

Then we got to a climbing place where we had to climb down into the canyon. We didn't need to rappel here, just climb. We stopped in some shade for a water and chips break and Katharine didn't like everyone grabbing the Pringles. I gave them to her to carry cause they were light weight, but she felt that meant sole ownership.

Yeah, life's tough. This was where we decided that this little girl was probably not up for a few hours of hiking...

Corey volunteered to stay behind with K again. Peter and Daniel also opted to stay.

As we started down the canyon, Jill wasn't sure if Owen was tall enough and had a long enough reach to make it down some of the spots. She went ahead with him and Natalie to test a hard spot. They were both able to do it, but then Owen decided he didn't want to do this all day, so he went back with Corey. We weren't very far from Corey yet, so I went back and forth a few times between Corey and the slot canyon crew, with messages on the plan (that Craig would be coming out and picking us up, and where we would be coming back to after going through the canyon). Abi decided to stay back to help Corey (and cause she wasn't too keen on hiking again) and then Jill, Esti, Mel, Lily, Sophi, Natalie and I were off for a girls' hike!

There were lots of places where a rock would be caught, and we'd climb over it and let us ourselves down by pressing on both sides of the canyon, as demonstrated by Natalie here.

Mel trying a different strategy.

It was really fun and cool!

So pretty and cool to be climbing down this! And then you'd get stretches of sand

Say cheese Mel!

Group pic of the Moonshine girls after we were out of the slot canyon ~ Me, Esti (behind my bangs) Mel, Mel, Natalie, Lily, Sophi and Jill.

Then we had a hike similar to yesterday's and had a nice walk in the shade with beautiful canyon walls towering over us. We found a good spot to stop for lunch and Sophi and Natalie provided some entertainment.

They found a stage where they were able to give us a show, performing some of their ballroom dances (Spice Girls Wannabe)

They are funny. The rest of us didn't have any tricks except for Esti, who is a gymnast and did some walking handstands. Climbed out of the canyon here. Not too steep or scary, it was good.

Group pic again -

We did it!

And then it was the real hike part - a full sun survival trek across dirt and brush to try and get back to the car. We could see it very very very far off in the distance. Mel captured a few pictures of this part, which was the worst/most tedious and discouraging part of the hike.

We'd walk and walk but the car didn't look any closer. There wasn't a trail, we were just trusting the route via Jill's phone app. Natalie showing a very "I'm so done with this" face after we finally met back up with Corey and AODPK.

I found this instagram reel later and thought it aptly described their end of the hike experience. "Having a mom that loves to hike means your vacations are less vacationy and more survival documentary." I bet the time passed faster for us though than for Corey and Abi. They had just been chilling in the shade with toddlers for 2+ hours. Peter made a bow and arrow, and looks like they did some cave man drawings, haha.

Well, good job team, we survived and now we can go back to camp. Let's head out!

Everyone made it back to the car, except Corey, Mel, Lily, Peter, Katharine and me. I'm not sure who led us astray, but soon we noticed that there were not many foot prints in the sand of the trail we were on. And it kept going and going and we felt like we should be there by now... I climbed on top of a little ridge and knew that we had gotten off the trail somewhere. We were a little lost, hiking up and down over the hills trying to see the car. Lily went ahead and said she saw the car, so we followed her direction. Then I remembered my strava was on. I pulled up my phone and was able to see where we had come from earlier in the day, so we just had to keep walking in that direction until we got back to that path.

Katharine is done with all this!

"Are we there yet?" Hahah she's so cute. Our mis-direction made our hike about 30 minutes longer, but we finally made it. Craig's car had the AC on for us. We enjoyed sitting for a moment but I was mostly grateful to take off my pack and be able to stand up straight. We walked without it back to Corey's car. The girls drove in Craig's car back to Corey's car. His jeep coming down this hill was nuts! Like as he went over those huge ridges in the road, his front left tire and back right tire would both be on the ridge and the other two were both in the air!!! I was freaking out watching it, I can't imagine driving it! STRESS STRESS, but Jill said he loves it.

Back at camp, we survived. Jill had hotdogs for dinner.

I hadn't taken Katharine to the bathroom during the whole time here. With her being sick yesterday I don't think she'd gone #2 at all since before we drove down, but finally used the groover on Wednesday night. She didn't like the bugs though.