On Friday Josh turned 27.  To celebrate, me and my honey dropped the kid off and went to hike to the summit of Old Boney Mountain.  Since we were going to be hiking to the top of a mountain in the middle of summer we wanted to pack only the essentials, which of course included a machete...

doesn't he look tough?

Our conversation regarding the machete went like this -

What do you need a machete for?
 Rattlesnakes.
So, if we run into a rattlesnake you're going to chop off it's head?
No, I'm going to push it out of the way.
Couldn't you just use a stick?
What if there isn't a stick lying around?  This way, I have one with me.

Josh is an Eagle Scout, so how can I really argue with that?

So, we decided to follow Old Boney Trail, figuring it would take us to the top of Old Boney.  But apparently this is faulty logic because this is as close as we got -

 
We hiked for a while, having faith that the trail would get us there, but we eventually got to the point of no return and just ended up in Sycamore Canyon.

We saw some interesting stuff along the way -

fossilized shells

giant, creepy spider

but really, these weren't much of a consolation prize for missing the summit.  But, hey, there's nothing like hiking 10.5 miles for your birthday, right?

Josh and I have been hiking a lot this last year so we thought this would be a nice way to end the summer, but there was another reason I wanted to tackle this hike.  About 6 or 7 years ago my dad took Ashley and I to hike to the summit, telling us it would be an easy half day kind of a hike.  So we brought one water bottle a piece and a ziploc bag of trail mix between the three of us.  About 3 miles up Ashley and I were nearly out of water and wanted to go back but Dad kept saying, "We're almost there."  Even after the fifth time repeating that, we still believed him.  At the top of the mountain we drank the last of our water.  Then, he said there was a different way down, but there really wasn't, so add about 3/4 of a mile backtracking.  Half way down Ashley sat down under a bush and I had doubts that she was ever going to get back up.  About a mile and a half from the car a group of (prepared) hikers took pity on us and gave us an apple.  Probably our saving grace.  So seven hours and nine miles later we got back to our car and managed to survive long enough to hit a gas station for some gatorade.  I didn't hike with my dad for the next five years.

But for all the grief we've dished out to my dad over this, I do have to give him credit - at least he got us to the top.