Walls of Jericho overnight, the Flem-girls first.

This was supposed to be a bigger group hike, but real life sometimes intervenes (DW had a bad cold so she kept DD3 w/ her @ home) and so it ended up just being DD1 & 2, Matthew, Lesley, and myself.

The girls and I arrived pretty early ~10am and it was still sprinkling a lil bit, I was slightly worried since the girls didn't bring any raingear. But the rain just went away within minutes of arriving. Also as we arrive a large van with a bunch of large packs and college students were milling about, but they were gone before we even got our packs on. So that was a small relief (not that I mind people, but solitude is always a plus). So we start off and its nice and cool, slightly humid.  DD2 is walking by herself, but she's triping on rocks and roots. And each time she falls she's banging her knees. So before we get 2 miles down the mountain, DD2 wants to go home. So we take a 10 minute breather, drink some water, have some gorp and just let the emotion melt off a bit. It works and half an hour later we arrive at the Hurrican Cr bridge and we have lunch. Matt and Lesley arrive as we're there.

We all refill our water bottles then hike the short distance (~.5 mile) to the campsite. The campsite is next to an old cemetary, a pretty large meadow and Turkey Cr (the was dry by the campite). The campsite area is prob about an acre in total and can accomodate a pretty big crowd.

After setting up our tents, The DDs changed into swimsuits and we walk for 30 minutes up into the canyon. Beware, the path is narrow and the is a big dropoff on 1 side. The only water flowing into the creek is a small stream from a spring, but it's cold and fresh. The girls have fun wading and splashing around, and  climbing up the canyon/creekbed rocks. There were some laughs as the girls were really fun and cute playing Lil' Mermaid, but the sun was starting to go behind the mountain and we hike back.

We arrive back at the campsite and there's a group of about 15 college students from Miss. State Outdoor Rec club. But they were a fairly quiet bunch and we hardly knew they were around. After dinner we roasted some marshmallows, and within minutes after we had our fill of that the rain started. So we quickly hung our food and went to bed. The kids did well in our Swiss Gear Hiker 2-man tent, They loved the BA pads and we stayed dry & toasty. 

The next day after breakfast (oatmeal) we packed up and hiked back up the mtn. About a mile from the trailhead (Matt and Lesley went on ahead) I realized I had dropped my DW's new camera at the last break stop. So  we drop our packs and trailrun back down half the mtn to find the camera exactly where I had set my pack down before. So after returning we just put our heads down and kept going no matter what until we got back to the trailhead. We rewarded ourselves w/ some DQ on the drive home.

Lessons learned:

-Take less stuff. I had an entire outfit, pillows, heavy sleeping bag and alot of spare/emergency stuff (repair tape, spare lights, etc).  

-Each child should have a sleeping bag. DD2 only had a fleece blankey, and she got cold during the night and had to share the bag / me.

-Attach waist camera pack to hipbelt w/ Safety pins to avoid losing.

pics: http://www.alatrails.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=58