Cathedral Mountain hike

Funny story...at least it is now. When we got on the bus at Tolkat River to head back to the entrance, we knew we were going to get off again and hike Cathedral Mountain (the "primitive" trail that goes around the base and opens up to see the rest of the park). We told the bus driver where we wanted off, as we were driving, we would stop for wildlife.

The bus drivers have signals for each other (we got pretty good at the signs because Everest always wanted to sit up front). At one point a bus going the other way, stopped and signed "bear", but then signed "in the brush" or "hidden". The bus stopped and we waited for the bear to appear out of the brush. We waited about 5 minutes, the bus was packed and everyone was looking for the bear.

The bus driver decided to keep going, she made it about 1/4 to 1/2 mile from where we had stopped to look for the bear and she stopped again. Everyone stood up, thinking she saw the bear. As we are all looking out the window......

she turns and says to us, "this is your stop, this is Cathedral, be careful and make a lot of noise while you hike." We thought she was kidding. We slowly got off the bus and I said to Nathan "what do you think? Do we hike or find another hike?" We decided to hike there, but make PLENTY of noise. We never saw the bear, but we did see at least 5 other hikers, so we felt pretty safe.

This is where we left the car seats. The bear was spotted on the other side of the first hill.

Both boys were troopers, they hiked most of this hike. We hiked for about 3 hours. It was slightly up hill the whole way.

Bonnie hiking with Leaf. Everest was having fun being the leader. Leaf was having fun picking leaves and flowers. We sang the whole time and made sure the bear bells were making plenty of noise.

We wanted to hike further, but realized it was already 5 and we still had a 2 hour bus ride. There is no food or water in the park, so you have what you can carry, we had lunch and plenty of snacks, but not enough for dinner too.

Everyone told us how bad mosquitoes are in Alaska, our whole trip was fairly mosquito free, until this hike! The further we hiked the worse they got. By the time we stopped for a snack and to turn around, the mosquitoes were so thick, we were ready to get out of there. Nathan wanted to get some family pictures and we were all like " hurry up and take it so we can get out of here!"

Baby, you were at Denali National Park too! You can see the belt I wore to support my belly. I could not have done it without the belt, it really helps. Yes, I am huge, you should see me now. My midwife told me I have a lot of amniotic fluid and my last 2 placentas were almost as big as the baby, so here is to hoping it is only 1 (we have had it checked and it is) and not a 10 or more pound baby.

One quick shot with Grami and Everest before we practically ran from the mosquitoes.