Porter and I were invited on a backpacking trip to the Beehive lakes near Harrison lake in Northern Idaho by Cameron Rippy and his son Kimball who is Porter's age. Cameron is the scout leader and so along with 8 other scouts, we hiked up a steep 5 mile trail to the top of some alpine lakes. I carried most of Porter's gear, but gave him a fanny pack so he could carry the essentials such as a water bottle, squirt gun, sling shot, whistle, pocket knife and other things a 7-yr old would call a necessity.
Here we are at the trailhead ready to set out.
One of the first stream crossings we came across, we took the opportunity to dunk our hats for a quick cool down.
Porter and Kimball took every opportunity to fill up their waterguns.
The view from the trail just kept getting better and better.
Some stream crossings required a little balancing help from the adults.
When we finally got near the top of the trail where the lake was, the boys were thrilled to find tons of snow. Needless to say there were snowballs thrown and the water was frigid. Seriously, like 32 degrees. There were icebergs floating in the water, but that didn't stop me from jumping in and swimming 20 feet, climbing onto the iceberg, and then jumping back in and swimming back to shore where I suffered the worst Ice cream headache i'd ever had. I don't know how Bear Grylls does it.
Porter tried fishing, and had fun practicing his casting.
Quentin caught a fish and Kimball and Porter thought it was so cool. I taught them how to clean a fish and they thought it was so cool to see the fishes guts.
When nature calls, you gotta answer. Just don't forget the toilet paper.
Porter was exhausted on the way down and all he could think about was getting some food because his dad forgot to pack enough food.
When we got back to the cars we decided to play in the river to cool off and clean up after two days of smelling like sweat and campfires.
