8.21.2009

little green valley

We picked Matthias up right after he completed the Bar Exam back in July. 24 hours later, we arrived in Ferron, UT, known to us as, The Little Green Valley. It is located in the middle of arid Utah, on top of the Lasal Mountains, a high mountain lake in a beautiful mountain valley.

The drive is always brutal, but after it never seems that bad. Our boys did a great job in the car on the way out.



Here's Beckham's rat from the 24 hr car ride. Awesome.


We had such a great time being with the Frischknecht side of Matthias' family. We heard many amazing stories about the Frischknecht line, and sang many a song that the Frischknechts have been singing for years, including: Spring Time in the Rockies, Little Green Valley, Come Kildren Come and the Lucky Ranger.

We fished, played mountain frisbee golf, burned wood, toasted mallows, made s'mores, and hiked.

The hike was a doozy. As you can see in the images below, the ridge we climbed does not look incredibly high, however, it is bigger and a bit more challenging than we imagined, an probably one of the steepest hikes I've ever been on. Matthias, myself, Grandma Joanie, Aunt Bobbie, and Uncle Kerm set out with Ty, Beckham, Luke, Lorren, Simone, and Lucas. There is a certain line on the mountain where the surface becomes very loose rock and the slope becomes quite steep, at about this point just Matthias and I continued on with the the 6 little kids--they were intent on getting to the top. The higher we got the more questionable our quest became as kids and rocks were slipping and sliding down the mountain. Matthias and I more or less carried/pushed up two kids each by their shirts. By the time we reached top, 4 kids were crying and I was shaking from fright. The trip up, however, turned out to be the easy part. Coming down became an effort of flying rock avoidance. As we scaled down the mountain we all knocked rocks loose--big and small. More than one kid was beaned by a rock knocked loose by someone coming down above. I think Grandma Joanie took the worst hit, she was way below and a softball-sized rock went tumbling/jumping down the mountain and ended up hitting her in the back/hip. Luckily she was OK, had it hit her in the head region things might have been scarier. Anyways, we ended up sitting all the kids down while Matthias took down two kids at a time, this in order to get everyone down without someone being seriously injured by falling rock.

We got everyone down and the kids were happy--to be off the mountain. They were also quite pleased with themselves for having scaled such a treacherous mountain. Those kids truly do have Frischknecht blood running through their veins: determination!

All in all we had a fabulous time at Ferron and look forward to going back, I'm sure we will go up the mountain again, however, the adult to child ratio will likely be higher :)

The starting point of our hike.


Perfect boulder for a 6 kid photo.


Matthias carrying up Beckham and pushing Luke


The view from the top - beautiful!


Happy Campers!

2 comments:

Que Onda Clines said...

Oh Anj! It looks like you guys had so much fun! I can't wait until we get to be there the same year you guys are there. What a great tradition and memory for the kids! You guys are such good parents!

Jedda said...

What beautiful memories of the outdoors and family! I love that last photo!

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