I am so proud of my children and their endurance to hike such a long, difficult hike today. The kids have successfully hiked Glacier National Park, Angels Landing in Zion, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon and Buttle Lake, BC. Each hike has been wonderful in its own way, showing us rare glimpses of beauty, strength in ourselves, both physically and mentally and bringing us a deeper connection to God’s creations. Each hike threatened it’s own risks, stretched our limits, tested our skills and outdoor knowledge in their own way. We have walked along the edge of fear, faced it with knowledge and preparation, along with a proper measure of respect for the risks, and walked away better and stronger each time. We are so proud of our kids! Today’s hike to the lava at The Volcano National Park was a test of endurance for our children as well as ourselves. We hiked 11 miles (round trip) over some of the toughest terrain any of us could ever imagine. Each step was an exercise in mental awareness, because you could easily step on a crumbling piece of obsidian and crack through to shred your skin. Or worse, you could buckle your ankle and fall down on the lava rock which was like a million razor blades and cut yourself to pieces. No two steps were alike, it was nearly a half marathon distance, and each step had to be carefully calculated. What an exhausting trip. Especially the last 1.5 hours of it when we were hiking home in the pitch black. There was no moon above, nothing but black below. Without our flashlights, we would have been stumbling blindly. Even with the lights, all we could see was one to two steps at a time...no way to think about the correct path to take, and many times we’d find ourselves blocked in by a wall of lava rock, having to backtrack to find a clear path forward to the next beacon. The trail was marked by flashing beacons about every half to three-quarters of a mile. Earlier in the hike, when we reached the active lava flow, we could tell that we were nearing the lava well in advance of actually being able to see it. We could smell it, feel the heat, and see the heat waves long before we got there. It was like walking on a foreign planet! We were educated at the Park Ranger station that the new lava would be easily recognizable by it’s gray color and silvery sheen....but even before we noticed that, we felt the heat and smelled the molten rock smell. All of the sudden those cool sea breezes turned to a wall of heat. Then we realized that we were standing on warm lava rock, standing right in front of a pile of that new shiny silver cooling lava. Bending over to put your hand near it immediately showed that it was fresh lava...still in the process of cooling. It wasn’t long before our resident pyro (Kendall) found the molten stuff, clearly visible in the cracks of the cooling stone. That’s when we realized that we were surrounded by fingers of fresh lava....and the current lava flow spread it’s delta out across the lava bench, it fanned out in all directions. The active river of lava was tucked away behind these many fingers and outcroppings of cooling stone that we dared not venture onto for fear of breaking through to our certain demise...so we stayed at a safe distance and burned stuff in the lava that we could reach through the cracks. :-) Kendall burned his stick and Clint threw some fried chicken in there for a nice fire show!
