4th of July Hiking

My brother and his family invited us to go hiking up to Independence Lake. I thought this would be a great hike. Get us ready even more for trek. So the morning of the 4th we headed out about 10 o'clock. When we got up to the trail to start hiking we had a little snack and headed out. The kids took off with the little boys in the lead and us adults at the back. We crossed fallen trees, water running down the middle of the trail, and snow. We, of course didn't want the kids wet because we knew it would be miserable having wet feet. We walked very carefully around every thing. As the trail became steeper we had to encourage a few of us along the way. Brady needed to be carried on someone's shoulders. It was getting tough, but I would say," Let's just make it to the next tree." When the trail was lost our fearless leaders left us women and children behind to find the trail. After about 15 minutes or so we once again took up the trail and we then made it to the lake. It was a beautiful sight. The mountain water rushing into the lake. Snow covered about half edges of the lake. The kids of course wanted to be as close to the water as they could which resulted in some wet feet. Oh, how we didn't want them wet. We refilled our water bottles with Blake's filter. We had a snack. Blake tried to go fishing and Shawn hiked to the second lake with two of the boys following him. We sat at the lake watching the littler boys throw rocks into the lake. After about an hour we decided everyone was getting hungry that we better head back down the trail. This time Blakely and the boys were in the lead. Brady either wanted to hold Jack and Garret's hand or be carried down the trail. The boys wanted to surf down the snow pack; which they did. About halfway down the sky began to rumble and the rain began to fall. It started pouring and hailing on top of us. Those streams that we carefully went over now we sloshed through them not really caring if we were wet or not. We made it back to the cars and quickly made sandwiches under the hatch of the van. We then hurried on our way down the mountain. It really was a good hike and I enjoyed spending time with Blake's family.