Bear Spray

It has been a while since my last blog. With the church up and running with weekly gatherings we are all busy. That being said things are positive and fragile. What does that mean? We are trying not to define success by the old numerical standards, but to help frame our first seven weeks I'll use some numbers. We have had as many as 50 people attend our gatherings and as few as 10. Most weeks now we are running 25-35 people and several people now seem to come week after week. The community we are striving to provide seems to be developing and this is why it seems positive. 

Fragile, I guess I didn't understand how uncertain this whole experience would be. Moving out and trying to do this seemed uncertain, but in time we got comfortable with our new life and ministry. Then developing a core group seemed difficult and always felt fragile. Moving to a public gathering felt a lot like do or die time. I believed from that point forward the church would work or not work. I wasn't prepared for the positive mixed with the uncertainty. So it feels fragile. I believe in retrospect I was unprepared for the amount of faith it takes to plant a church. That beings said God continues to walk along side us. That's cool!

The family is well, in fact, we recently returned from Avery's first overnight camping trip. It was awesome. The days leading up to the adventure you could feel and see Avery's excitement rising. The morning of departure she was up early and ready to go. We arrived at our campsite in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness around mid morning and set up the tent and gathered fire wood. Avery was quite the little helper to only be 3 years old. 

Once camp was prepared we hopped in the truck to drive over to the trailhead of our intended hike. It was the Lower Basin Lake trail, 2.5 miles which goes from 6500 feet at the trailhead to 8500 feet at the lake. I knew it would be a difficult hike for us, so we planned it first leaving 2 easier hikes for the rest of the trip. A 2000 foot ascent over 2.5 miles is steep, steeper than I imagined. It was kicking our butts, I was toting Avery in her new kid tote backpack. She weighs roughly 35 lbs now, so she was heavy. The hike itself was beautiful. Most of the hike is along the Basin Creek which has a few waterfalls. The views are spectacular and Avery was so wired she made the entire 2 hour hike up the side of that mountain pure joy. 

A day or two before we left I realized that the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness not only had black bears, but also had grizzly bears in fact they were more common. So I went to a local outdoor store to purchase a bear bell (a bell you hang on your pack) apparently bears don't like metallic sounds. I also bought a can of bear spray, which is essentially pepper spray on human growth hormone. The spray shoots roughly 20 feet, I have no desire to ever have a grizzly of any kind that close to me or my family. 

Turns out the bear bell ($3.95) was a waste of money. Avery literally talked, sang and generally made noise at the top of her lungs all the way up the mountain and back down it. Once we reached the lake it was awesome. So quite and peaceful. You could holler and cause quite the echo. This reminded Avery of a Backyardigans song, "There's an echo in the canyon." She started singing the song on the decent and sang it at the top of her lungs the entire way down, 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

On the hike we saw several waterfalls, had to cross the creek twice, saw a few old log cabins, Avery went to the bathroom in the woods for the first time in her life and did not understand why it needed to be buried, during a short section of the trek near the top Avery demanded to be the lead of our expedition and Timber who led for most of the trip stopped on more than 1 occasion looked back at us with a face that said, "You guys had to wait until I was 11 years old to start this type of hiking."

We did another short 1 mile hike that day with little to no ascent, however it was around small mountain lake with water so clear trout are easily seen. Avery liked that part of the hike. That night we made a campfire, ate and cooked marsh mellows. Avery like most kids is a pyromaniac and loved the marsh mellows. 

She was so driven by adrenaline she powered through the day without a nap and way past her bed time when we got in the tent at 10 p.m. she got into her new sleeping bag. It was a mummy bag which we promptly mummied her up and she was fast asleep within 5 minutes. 

As I lay in my bag that night, a little concerned about the potential of grizzly bears entering the camp I realized it was probably the best day of my life to this point. I know the PC thing to say is the day your child was born is the best day, but the reality of that day is I was so overwhelmed with trying to do things I had no idea how to do (i.e. be a good husband and dad) i really didn't enjoy it. Certainly in retrospect the gift of Avery makes that the best day. That being said June 17, 2009 was the best day of my life when I knew it was the best day. 

Court, Avery, Timber and I had spent and entire day together experiencing new and exciting things. We enjoyed each others company and worked well together. Court who is generally in most ways a city girl, showed the side of her that I am most attracted to, her fearlessness. She hiked that mountain, collected firewood, cooked over a campfire, etc...she was pretty awesome. She seemed to sleep just fine, if she was worried about grizzly bears she didn't act like it. Laying in my sleeping bag that night I thanked God for the day and my family.

That night a storm came in and rain set in for the morning. It cancelled our hike for the day, but we were all tired and a bit wet from making breakfast in the rain. So we tore camp down and headed home. I can hardly wait to go back. Avery wants to bring her fishing pole (Barbie model) and "catch some of those fishes."

If you subscribe to my youtube account and are on my friends list I'll give you access to a short video retrospective of our day.