Ellie's First Hike

Seth and I have a hard time getting up on Saturdays. It's our one and only day to laze around and sleep as long as Ellie will allow... so we tend to start asking ourselves what we should do with the day around 2:00 pm. Today we decided a late afternoon/evening hike in Millcreek Canyon with a picnic sounded good. We packed Ellie up in her front carrier and off we went.

The "easiest" hike in Millcreek is the Pipeline Trail. It has an elevation climb of (only) 800 feet and is about 2 miles from the trailhead to the main lookout over SLC. We started out around 4:30 pm and walked up and up and up. Our progress was considerably slower than either of us is used to because Ellie's legs were dangling in front of Seth's and the climb was steep enough he was conscious of not wanting to squish her. :) El did great, though, hanging out with daddy.

The view from the top of the mountain was beautiful. I'm always impressed with the Salt Lake valley when I see it from above. It is technically high desert, but the valley floor is so green! The city has done a great job of keeping trees on most streets and creating many, many parks.

On the way down, we encountered a little more excitement... a rattlesnake. Luckily, he was just a baby - but I was still scared! Luckily, too, the sun was just going down behind the mountains, otherwise we might have been stuck for quite a while! Seth handed Ellie off to me (and I transfered her to the sling since it's more comfortable for me) and went off to find a stick. Unfortunately, though, we were on a part of the trail that was completely void of trees. Scrub bushes and dead grass don't really produce sturdy, long sticks. It took a little while, but eventually the snake slithered away into the brush. We took advantage of its movement and worked our way quickly to the lower part of the trail.

Once we made it back to the shaded, woody part of the trail, I spent some time watching Ellie's reaction to our trip. She happily hung out in the sling, looking around with big eyes. Apparently, she loves green leaves. Yay!

After the hike, we decided to check out one of the picnic sites also up in the canyon. They are popular places, however, so we ended up eating our picnic on the bank of a creek. Eleanor loved the rushing water.

Unfortunately, we forgot the camera for this adventure, but we remembered it for the second half of the day...