Just a walk in the backyard . . .

Yes, this is where I live. Spectacular isn't it? Yesterday Nathan, Andy, Katie, Aaron and myself braved the weather forecast, geared up for an adventure and went to hike Mist Falls. It's at the bottom of Kings Canyon, about an hour away from us. We knew we had the possibility of rain or snow, but decided we didn't have many other weekend options coming up . . . so yesterday was the day.

The 9 mile hike wasn't too bad. A good portion of it was flat (that's my kind of hiking). It started snowing. Although, this was actually better news than rain, which would have been so much wetter. I'm thinking I may need to invest in some sort of light waterproof hiking jacket. As we reached the falls, the mist from it coupled with the icy temperatures and the snow made it instantly really cold and really wet. So we went a bit off the trail, surrounded ourselves with some rocks and trees to be a little dryer. Then good ol' Nathan took his handy dandy mini stove and we boiled water for hot chocolate. It definitely hit the spot. He even pulled out some fancy Venezuelan dark chocolate. This kind of stuff sure makes hiking worth it! I'm sure glad we have friends that are up for snowy adventures!

Here's some pictures from the day:

Starting off

The mountains were beautiful, and still had snow on top!

We came upon a sign. That's always exciting. You know you can't be lost.

Pretty plant I found. I'm not sure what it is though. Mini pumpkins?

Us and the Kings River. The water is running so fast!

It's hard to tell, but it's totally snowing here. It was so cold and windy at this part.

So we warmed up with some hot chocolate. Go Nathan!

Friends

Awww, isn't he cute?

That's Mist Falls behind us. It was so misty and wet . . . we didn't enjoy it for long. We booked it the 4 1/2 miles back to the car!