Backpacking the Wellsvilles

The week before school was to start Katie and I were talking, reminiscing about our summer when, to our disappointment, we discovered that neither of us had gone camping that summer. I had only been hiking two or three times that summer, which is very out of the ordinary. We were both really bummed out because we didn't have any time left to do it. School was starting and life was already crazy.
Now if you know me you know that I love the outdoors. I spend every extra minute I can being outside and enjoying the beautiful world we are blessed to have! And that is one thing that Katie and I have in common! Ever since I have been friends with her she has always talked about the Wellsville Mountains. That is one place that I haven't been hiking and I've always wanted to.
Well we killed two birds with one stone last weekend! Katie and I planned an overnight backpacking trip in the Wellsvilles! Right before we were going to invite people to come with use we realized that we had planned our trip on General Conference weekend! So we canceled the trip. After thinking about our decision for about a day we decided to follow through with our plans! We just had to make sure we were down the mountain and back at our houses by 10am when it starts :) So we invited everyone we knew. About 10 people liked the idea and decided to come with us! We were stoked. But by Thursday afternoon we were down to me, Katie, and Suzanna. We talked about it, and started doubting ourselves so we canceled the trip again. Both of us were upset but we thought that there was no way that we could be down in time for conference and we both agreed that we could use the free time next friday instead of using it for hiking.
That friday morning I woke up, upset that the trip wasn't happening when Katie sent me a text :) she wanted to do it! YES the trip was back on :) We planned to leave at 2:30 after our classes on Friday and to our excitement Suzanna and Kara were joining us!
Since I have never been hiking in the Wellsvilles Katie was our fearless guide! She chose the Maple Bench trail for us to hike up to the summit on.

Suzanna, Kara, me, and Katie at the trail head

It was so pretty up there. All the leaves were changing colors and it smelled like Autumn :) it took so many picture but these are my favorite!

we ended up hiking right threw the middle of this!

Darn dead tree is right in the way ;)

We had a beautiful view of the valley the entire way up!

This is picture was taken when we were almost at the summit! We have such a pretty little valley. On the second picture down I zoomed in and you can see the Logan Temple :)

The trail was beautiful. But it was a bit "jungle like" in places. We did a lot of bushwhacking and I came out of it with a couple bruises on my leg and Katie's was all cut up but that was half of the fun!

that's the trail? yep it is :)

our fearless leader

Pictures from the top! Yep we just concurred the steepest mountain range in the world :)

 

I love the girls I went with :) all three of them are amazing. I was a little nervous for the trip because I was the "connecting" friend for all of them. They all kinda knew each other but have never really hung out. I didn't know if they would get along. But ten minutes into the hike I realized how stupid I was to be worried that! All of them are so funny, social and love to have fun! And fun we did have :) I guess that's one reason why we had so much fun. We ALL wanted to!

I was trying to take a picture of the bird in this one, but they got in the way ;)

After enjoying the view, finally eating dinner and exploring a little bit we decided we better put the tent up before it was dark. When looking for a place to camp we found the best one right on top! So we pretty much camped ontop of the world :)

What a cute little tent. Suzanna and Kara are looking good too.

We were a little disappointed in the sun set, some clouds got in the way but the night lights made up for it. The little valleys to the east and west of us were very pretty that night and the stars were gorgeous! After setting up the tent we hiked over to a near-by summit and sat looking down on cache valley, watching the sun set and talking. It was an hour of life I hope I remember forever! Ha and I also hope I remember our hike back to our tent, in the dark :)

We got back to our tent safely, got all tucked in our sleeping bags, almost ready for bed when someone asked what time it was. Suzanna looked at her watch and told us that it was barely 8:30! We couldn't believe it was that early! Well we weren't going to bed yet! We stayed up almost all night laughing and talking with each other. We had serious, deep discussions and stupid, crazy ones. These three girls crack me up and are seriously amazing. They are such examples to me and I am so honored to call them my friends!

At one point in the night we decided to go star gazing. We all turned around in our sleeping bags so the top half of our body was outside the tent door and our feet were still in the tent. The stars and moon were beautiful! We were all in awe at the beauty of it, and how blessed we were to be there that night to see what our Heavenly Father created just for US!

After a fun night filled with laughs and rocks in our back we woke up to an amazing sun rise!

i love love love this picture!

Remember how I said it was kinda windy on top when we got there. That was nothing compared to how windy it was that morning! When we were getting ready to leave, gathering all our stuff together, someone had to stay and hold the tent or it would have blown away!

Yep all four of us slept in that :) and do you see how windy it is. I wish I would have recorded us trying to fold up the tent and the tarp! It was so funny and near impossible!

We left a little behind schedule because of the wind. So we were going to have to book it down the mountain so we could be back in time for conference

Suzanna was our leader on the way down

I figured out that we ended up hiking about 8 miles round trip. We sure felt it the next day and on monday we were all so sore. We probably looked so good walking around campus.

The trail was sure eye candy and i loved it but it was also very challenging. We were either hiking straight up or down or bushwhacking! We all had our nice "wipeout" moment but thankfully no one got hurt.

The only creature we came upon, other than the bird that scared Suzanna and Katie half to death, was this little guy. A Wolf spider. Suzanna almost stepped on her but I don't know how she missed it, it's SO big.

This is my favorite picture, so I saved it for last! We all made it home safe and sound and just in time for conference :)

I loved every minute of this backpacking adventure! It was just what I needed. It was good to get away and not have to worry about my phone or if I need to be somewhere. I didn't have to worry about what I was doing and if I should be studying instead. It was my time. Time that I could be in the moment, not have to worry about anything and just be me! Time to get away from the hustle and bustle of the world and of my life and to go up into the mountains where you are surrounded by a testimony that Heavenly Father loves us and cares for us. I need that. I needed to be reminded of that and the beauty of the Wellsvilles and Katie, Kara, and Suzanna did that for me.