This is a story of a family hike that occurred a couple of weeks ago when I was visiting my family in Utah. My daughter, Mary Susan, has five children ages 10 down to 2.5.
Now Utah is an outdoorsy kind of place in between the snowstorms ending in April and beginning in October. People hike up and down high mountains and bike long distances in the desert environment below.
I might post on Facebook that David and I enjoyed a stroll by the river, while one of my Utah friends will post that she rode 50 miles on her bike in preparation for a 3,000-mile bike race.
So when Mary Susan told me that we were going on a family hike on a Saturday morning, I thought I would prepare them for how I might survive. After all, she gets up every morning at five to go to the gym and work out. A hike is no problem for her.
“I can walk about two-and-a-half miles on the Riverwalk,” I told her almost proudly.
“Don’t worry. It’s only a third of a mile, but we will wind up carrying kids,” she said.
She reported she chose this particular trail because there was supposedly a good ice cream stand at the end. See, the Southern wins out over the Utah sometimes.
On the way to the trail, the Wasatch Mountain Range rose on the horizon. I thought of my spiritual forebears, the Mormon pioneers who, fleeing rapacious and murderous mobs, crossed the plains and mountains, pushing handcarts with all their possessions. Starving, threadbare and exhausted, the survivors who made it to the foot of the mountain range, beyond which lay the then-barren Salt Lake Valley, faced crossing those mountains to inherit their future.
Could I live up to my spiritual ancestry with similar courage and stamina?
I get shin splints if I walk too enthusiastically, so it seemed daunting.
I don’t remember why, but we wound up going to a different trail with no ice cream stand at the end and faced a map of the trail that wound around for about a mile or maybe 200. As we perused our possibilities, mountain bikes whizzed by, topped by fit people, and very large horses trotted by, carrying confident riders. It turns out the trail was a hiking, biking, running and horseback riding trail all at once.
We headed out. I quickly dropped back because the little guy, Bennett, didn’t have any shoes other than sandals because who has worn shoes the summer of 2020? So he was constantly stopping in the middle of the trail to get the dirt and rocks out of his sandals.
Now the interesting thing about sharing a trail with very large horses is that they leave very large piles. These proved to be the most interesting aspect of the hike to the children. We had to discuss the size, the smell and the composition of the steamy piles.
“This smells worse than my armpits yesterday,” said 10-year-old Ali, who is at the age that the adults in the family point out it’s time to learn about the benefits of deodorant.
Armpits aside, she led the children on a little side hike into what passes for woods in Utah to see a dead rat. Or maybe it was a bird. A week earlier we might have been able to tell. Living beings on their way to total decomposition tend to look alike, which is what I tell people who think my sister and I look totally alike.
“Ready to head back?” Mary Susan asked the hot, complaining children after about 15 minutes.
We turned around and passed back by the biggest pile of all and another side trip to the dead whatever-it-was. May it rest in peace.
We stopped at the map and the dad, Tim, pointed out the 2 inches we had traversed on the trail map.
Ever the optimist, Mary Susan said, “We’ll get better at this.”
The children piled into the van, begging for air conditioning, water and the Skittles they knew their mother had brought. One group of pioneers were saved from starvation by a bison that got separated from the herd. Skittles are less messy.
When we got home about 20-ish minutes later, about an hour after we had left, 7-year-old Parker asked, “Can we have lunch?”
“It’s 10:25 in the morning,” his dad said.
I guess I could pull a handcart if I had to. I know a handcart song to sing. It was all good. As long as Ali remembers her deodorant, we can handle anything else on the trail.
Elzey is a freelance writer with the Register & Bee. She can be reached at susanelzey@yahoo.com or (434) 791-7991.
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August 17, 2020 at 05:07AM
https://godanriver.com/lifestyles/7xmom-don-t-forget-to-bring-skittles-and-a-big-scooper-on-a-utah-hike/article_b4cfb5ac-7690-528b-a246-08ff940c3d55.html
7XMOM: Don’t forget to bring Skittles and a big scooper on a Utah hike - GoDanRiver.com
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