First Hike

When our friend Ema emailed to suggest we go on a hike with Cara, after a brief hesitation I jumped at the idea. Perhaps we should start with a shorter hike, say Discovery Park or someplace like that, but Cara had already spent upwards of 3 hours in the Ergo (with breaks), so a real hike didn't seem that far off. We settled on a 9-mile hike up to Melakwa Lake, ignoring the many possible problems such as a longer drive than Cara had been on since leaving Taiwan, a long stint in the front carrier, possible bugs and the fact that she was fussing from having her second tooth come in. Cara doesn't do things by halves after all - something she shares with her parents!

The punchline is, she did great. Minor fuss in the car as we left Seattle but she soon settled down to a nice nap that lasted all the way to Snoqualmie Pass. We packed up and were soon on the trail, with Cara enjoying all the new sights around her. She started to get a little antsy after about 30 minutes, just in time for a stop near the Denny Creek water slide where we found a quiet flat spot off the to side for Cara to crawl around a little and sample the local pine needles.

Back on the trail Cara quickly dozed off, missing the beautiful waterfall along the trail. I'm sure we'll be back that way with her again. The trail seemed much longer with the extra weight of a sleeping child on my front, but since Ema was carrying all our other gear, I couldn't complain. And eventually we reached Hemlock pass, soon after arriving at scenic Melakwa Lake.

Cara had woken by then, but seemed quite content to hang out with her mommy. We found a clear spot to put down a groundcloth, change her diaper and give her a bottle, while chowing down hungrily ourselves. We didn't spend too long exploring since it was getting late and I wasn't certain how she was going to react to the long hike back to the car. Cara did have time to explore the texture of a pine cone and complained only when I didn't let her eat it. She also checked out her first big tree, and seemed appropriately impressed (probably by the bark more than anything).

She started fussing soon after we began hiking away from the lake and I was beginning to worry I'd end up carrying a tantruming baby four and a half miles down the trail. But not our sweet girl. The fusses soon abated and Cara conked out for another 50-minute nap. Brief playtime by the water slide, another bottle at the car, and we were soon headed home, feeling very satisfied with our day. As icing on the cake, Cara slept the whole way home.

I'm hoping we get many more hikes in this summer!