From BELLS to Hardy HAR HAR!

A CRAZY & INTENSE hike From Bells Canyon to Lake Hardy then down into Alpine.

16 miles of pure elevation and a LOT of bush wacking.  When we were done - even Steve said he was more soar after this hike then he has ever been with any of his 5 marathons.  YAH!  Seriously not our brightest idea.  Just chalking this one up to MORE hard things we have done.  We really didn't know what we were getting in to.

 Look at this NASTY  BIG slug, it was so creepy to watch it slither along.

 Ash & Steve looking at the GPS.  It was awesome that it tracks how fast you are moving, how many miles you have gone and so much more.

 We have been to Bells Canyon Lower falls before, except last time we were with Nate.  Miss you bud!  After this part, we were in unfamiliar territory and there was very little trail.

                                                 Lunch time, we get to take off our packs and rest for a bit.

                          Now we are relying only upon our GPS in a direction toward the upper reservoir.  We have begun our search which really seemed like - FOR  EH   VER!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (forever)

 We finally made it to the upper reservoir from a good 10 hours of hiking.  And there were SO MANY mosquitoes!

                    We set up our tent just in time to get a rain storm, so we got in the tent and played some cards.   See 2 pics below... Yep, DELTA playing cards.

                        We ate our tinfoil dinners then it rained and Hailed.

                     We were so stinking happy to lay down and give every muscle a rest.

                              Sat. early morning we begin our ascent to the summit.

                                      After hiking for so long, we found this, MORE mountain.

                                    So, onward and upward we go - SERIOUSLY hard work at this point.

                                              Finally at the top of this never ending mountain and less than a mile away      from Lake Hardy.

                 Well, we can see the stinking lake, it looks fairly easy to get to.  WELL, for crying out loud, think again WILLIAMS TEAM.  From here, it took us an hour to hike through more HUGE boulders to get to the lake.  AND it is FLAMING hot, and we are already so tired from hiking the day before and trekking about 4-5 hours just to get to this lake.  And we still had SO MUCH MORE hiking to do to get down the mountain.  But, it was REALLY pretty scenery!

                                  Us at the Lake.  We met friends here that we hadn't seen in YEARS.

                                      So warn out, not happy in any area, and still about 1 1/2 hours left to go.

             No, this is not made up, this face is real!  There was no posing for this face.

I have done a half marathon before which is 13.2 miles.  This was more intense than that, and with Steve saying this was harder than his FULL marathons is REALLY SOMETHING.  He can run a marathon and really be fine to go do something else after that, he has a lot of endurance.  Ashley and I never want to do this HIKE again.  Steve has already mentioned "another time." WOW!