Darby Wind Caves

We had a great day hiking the Darby Canyon trail up to the Wind Caves. 

It is 2.6 miles, 1,800 feet elevation gain and is supposed to take 2-2 1/2 hours to hike. 

This is the longest hike Mabin's been on. 

No surprise right? 

He's always done very well with any adventure we've wanted to try so we had high hopes. 

Started out in the backpack.

That only lasted about 10 minutes. 

Mabes decided he liked the Snugli front carrier better.

So we stashed the backpack along the trail and picked it up on our way down.

 Love my cute boys. 

 

Mabes was hiding. 

 Mikey was having lots of fun with the panorama setting.

 It was b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l.

 I look like death here. 

This was after about an hour of hiking. 

You wouldn't believe it but I felt fine, not even too hot because there was a nice breeze the entire day.

Apparently my red face didn't feel the same.

 The bottom of the waterfall. 

 It got pretty chilly (felt very, very refreshing for us hikers) when we got near the caves so we bundled Mabes up and took a break to feed him and ourselves. 

It took him awhile to breast feed because he was so distracted by the waterfall.  

The cave!
They have really handy stone steps leading up to the mouth that made it easy to climb.
Still, it was pretty steep for my liking.
I'm such a wimp and kept imagining slipping and falling all the way down the mountain and shooting out over the waterfall.
Or, even worse, that happening to Mikey and Mabin.
Gave me heart palpitations.

 We made it to the cave!

A very kind older woman suggested that perhaps it was too cold for us to go spelunking in the cave with our little boy. 

We agreed, we felt good enough about just getting up to the cave, maybe we'll explore it another day. 

It took us exactly 2 hours to hike up. 

Not too shabby eh?

At least that's what we think.

Getting ready to head back down. 

 Mabes was so tired from all the hiking, he slept the whole way down. 

Directions:

Turn your computer sideways so you can see the video the right way up. 

(I always forget that I shouldn't video record with my camera sideways.)

Took us an hour to hike down.

People we met on the trail were so impressed that we took our 6 1/2 month old on this hike. 

It wasn't a hard hike at all (there were just a few steep climbs right at the mouth of the cave) but it made us feel pretty cool....

until we passed a couple that had 4 month old twin girls on the same hike. 

They showed us up.

We were secretly hoping that the people that complimented us for being daring wouldn't see this little family and would still think we were the cool ones.  

The best part of the day? 

Besides the beautiful scenery....talking with Mikey.

We love to talk, and dream and plan our future.

Even Mabes joined in the conversation for most of the hike. 

It was a success. 

No melt downs from Mabes.

 Or me.

No injuries from falling off a very high waterfall. 

No bear or cougar attacks.