Mt. Cheam Is Conquered By The Crew

What a fine day we picked to plan an epic hike trip up to the peak of Mt. Cheam.  Something I have only done once and over twenty-five years ago.  Sheesh.  When I say twenty-five years ago, that makes me sound old.  I'm actually just aging out of my young adult years.  At least that's what I'm telling myself:)

Anyways, we loaded up three pickups with a couple dogs, a bunch of kids ranging from 2-10, some young ladies,  a couple moms and a dad.  Then it was off we went high up into the mountains.  The 4x4 trip itself was fantastic but slow going with all the washouts every minute or so.  But, we finally made it to the start of our 9.5 km round trip adventure.

It was a day of perfection.  The sky was clear.  The conversations were rich and inspiring.  The energy of all the kids was exciting.  All the things that make a challenging climb like this one doable.

I was amazed at how great all ten of our kids did on this trek.  They climbed to the peak of this amazing mountain with no complaint which truly made me so proud of this crew.  I do have to say that by the end of the trek, I sure was running out of steam.  Carrying Ava to the top of this mountain proved as challenging as I thought it would be.  But, we made it.  And I took some time to scan the valley below and meditated on how blessed I am to have a healthy family to do this with and a great network of friends who are up for adventuring with me.

Our journey down the mountain was lightning speed faster than our climb up.  By the bottom, Ava fell asleep in the carrier.  Totally crazy considering how much bouncing around we were doing.  

As we made it to the very bottom, we met up with a dude on a mountain bike.  Of course I was curious, so I stopped him to chat a little about what his plans were.  I could hardly believe my ears  when he told me he was biking up to the peak.  Not only that, but he had biked all the way up from Bridal Falls, through Ryder Lake.  Who does that???!!  I was wildly impressed.

Interestingly, at church Sunday, this guy asks me, "Hey".  "Were you just on Mt. Cheam the other day?"  I looked at him and it clicked.  He was that guy!  The funny thing is that he was also inspired by us, the crew who climbed Mt. Cheam with a "whole crew" of kids.