Camping, day 2 part 3

Getting down was a long and arduous task made more difficult by the fact that we were almost out of water and quickly running out of time. The trail, which was merely steep on the way up, was a collection of rather grave hazards on the way down. I hadn't realized how narrow it was in parts before my momentum made the edge a hazard. I hadn't realized that the roots from cedars running parallel to the path were potential ankle-breakers, or that the steps that were merely painfully exhausting on the way up were going to be dangerously painful and strenuous on my knees on the way down.

Before, when my son was riding on my back, it made hiking harder. Now, as he walked on his own and held my hand, his weight was even more of a strain (imagine navigating your own weight down a steep hill with a weight varying between 5 and 50 pounds dangling from one of your arms all of the time). The boy and I non-verbally worked out a system that allowed me to help him down the difficult parts of the trail. This usually involved me walking on the roughest part of the trail so he could walk on the smoothest part next to me (while dangling at the end of my arm to hop down big steps).

"Steak and beer, steak and a nice cold beer," I kept reminding myself.

We did eventually make it down to the car, of course. I have never been happier to see a parking lot. I downed about a half-liter of water in a single swallow. We were all exhausted, but feeling pretty proud of ourselves. I looked at my camera and realized I'd taken more than 100 photos. It was 7:30, we had about 2 hours of light left, and an hour to drive back to our campsite for the aforementioned steak and beer.

It was dark by the time the steaks hit our plastic plates, but they tasted pretty damn good anyway.

Steak and beer!