Mom of Twins: Hiking

We took advantage of the nice weather to take the boys on a hike today and this one was kind of tough for 2 little boys. We went to Devil's Head Lookout Tire, which is about 3 miles round trip, but the first half is straight up 1500 feet. The boys did great. We had to entice them with the promise of their own personal bag of Skittles once we made it to the top. With some minor whining and complaining, they both hiked the whole way up there and back by themselves. There were several stops and lots of snacks but we're really proud of how well they did. At one point, Ryan said, in his typical joking manner, "Somebody is tired. Me!"

Heading up the top.

One of our little breaks to let Ryan climb on the rocks.

Our only glitch in the hike was the thunderstorm that hit when we were almost to the top. It was beautiful and sunny with only a couple of small clouds in the sky when we started. But half way up it began to get cloudy and we were hit by one of the fast moving mountain thunderstorms. Fortunately, we were able to find a little cave quickly and we waited it out for about 20 minutes (while the boys had another snack) before we headed back out and realized we were about 2 minutes to the top.

The top of the mountain has a fire lookout tower (150 stairs up from the ground) manned by the same guy who has been there for the last 26 summers. He is probably about 70 years old and he lives in a little cabin right below the tower. He has to hike up his own groceries once a week along the same trail that we hiked up. He then spends his days looking from his 100 mile view vantage point for forest fires.

The rain made the view not as clear from this picture - but Pikes Peak is in the background. The picture at the top is from our trip down (with clear skies again).