Day Hike to Lost Lake

Court, Timber and I headed out today for a hike to Lost Lake, out and back totaling 11 miles. It was rather chilly at the start of our hike with temps in the low 50's and rainy. We didn't get a lot of pictures because of the weather, however we were heading up the trail around the 3 mile mark when I noticed Timber's head pop up. I looked to my right and at 75 yards stood a mother moose with her calf feeding in some grass along the stream. They paid us little mind.

Court started getting blisters along the trail and they were as bad as any I have ever seen. All in all it was a good day blisters aside. Beautiful scenery! Great company.

Lost Lake

Where has the time gone

This month has flown by, things are extremely busy in Billings. The long and the short of it is things are good. We are excited for our church, we will work on a Habitat House on August 9.

Court, Avery and I just returned from a trip back to the "Dub" otherwise known as Wilmington, NC. I had the privilege of marrying one of our closets friends Jamie Miller, now Jamie Miller Craig. It was an awesome weekend. Great wedding, great friends, etc...

On Sunday I spoke at our old church. I felt a bit scattered but God seemed to use the message. Hopefully, I conveyed how God is at work in Montana and how we are trying to join in. 

Then Monday came, our friends dropped us at the airport only to find out our flight was cancelled. No trip home! Thankfully some other friends of ours were out of town so we crashed at their place, which has a pool. A quick phone call or two turned the night into one final fair-well party. Avery played with her new boyfriend, Kaden, who by the way was the first little kid I liked. He is still my boy. She could do a lot worse. Though I am not ready for this whole crush thing. It was cute however.

I have long said I don't believe they have bugs in Montana, but this week I was reminded they have them in North Carolina. Avery has 21 bug bites as of today. She had a big week, she played with several of her friends and hung with all of the people who love to spoil her. She loves that and them. 

Finally on Tuesday evening we began the trek home. We returned to Billings at 9 p.m., a day behind and tired. I woke up, went to work and hiked 7 miles with the young guy I work with on Wednesdays. Time for bed!

Oh, yea, I have no idea how I ever lived in such a hot, humid climate. I about died!

A week in review...

We had a great start to the week as our church gathering on Father's Day went well. Early in the week was pretty much status quo. I worked at my job, took care of the weekly church admin stuff and did daddy day care on days when Court worked.

Tuesday was a good day, in the morning Avery and I hung with a friend of hers and her daddy all morning and I pretty much spent all afternoon doing church related stuff. We are looking into purchasing a trailer to haul our childcare equipment to and fro each week. 

I recently took on a 2nd kid at my job. Can't say much other than he is a teenager who wants to do outdoor related activities. So we took a day hike on Wednesday.  He did well on the hike considering he had never been on such an expedition. We did about 5 miles with less than 500 foot of elevation gain. We also fished a bit at a stocked fish pond. These two pics are from our hike. The picture on the left is West Fork Rock Creek and the one on the right is a glacier stream running into the creek. 

Thursday was an early start, Jon (the other pastor) and I left my house at 5:20 a.m. for an over night staff planning retreat. I miss many, many things about Wilmington, NC, however one thing I don't miss was taking staff retreats to the beach. I never fully understood this practice because we lived at the beach. I was also quite bias in that I did not like the beach at all.

We pulled into the parking lot of our trailhead 

around 7 a.m. in the Beartooth Mountains. Our plan was to hike 4 miles to Lake Gertrude the hike included roughly a 2000 foot elevation gain. The goal of our trip was 3 fold, fun, fall strategic planning for our church and spiritual retreat. The spiritual retreat part is easy in the Beartooth Mountains for those that appreciate such rugged beauty. Our hike was grueling, but certainly our thoughts rarely left a sense of awe and wonder with God. Spiritual retreat is easily achieved in such a place.

The highlights of the trip were seeing a couple of Moose, Lake Gertrude, a couple hours fly fishing and catching 26 trout, Timberline Basin, taking an afternoon to; talk about, plan and pray for our church and once we got over our fear of seeing a bear on the way out the next morning it was a highlight as well.

We really didn't have any low lights, Timber did chase down and attempt to bite a porcupine. He came back with about 20 stickers in his grill. They didn't seem to hurt him though and I was able to pull them all out. 

Below you'll find some pics from the day trip and you can also watch a short video at Ryan's Youtube 

The next morning we woke up at 5 a.m. hiked down the 4 mile trail, seeing a black bear on the way and got home in time to take Avery to preschool and start working on church stuff. Oh yea, we bought the childcare trailer.

Lake Gertrude (Base Camp)

Timberline Basin

Silver Run Plateau and Glacier over my right shoulder (12,500 feet)