Royal Arch - Failed Attempt at the Summit

Well, I guess the title gives away the ending of yesterday's hiking story.  Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed that we didn't make it to the top.  

I edited this post to add this picture of Natalie during her pre-hike warm-up in the parking lot. It's cute and I thought you might like it.   

Again the forecast was not great - possible rain and snow, and afternoon winds.  So we got ourselves out there nice and early to avoid as much yuck as possible.  

It was actually a perfect day for a hike, and with the girls all bundled up and strapped in, we quickly worked up enough heat to strip off our own jackets.  We got up to the branch in the trail that leads to Royal Arch - that's as far as we made it last week because we were walking in so much slush that we couldn't go much further.  The trail was clear this time though so we went on.  

We got partway up and made it to the steps that lead up to the false summit.  It was getting a bit snowy though, but we thought maybe it would clear up when we got out of the canyon and into the sunshine again.  We pressed on, up the steps, thought the footing was beginning to get a bit slicker.  Finally some other hikers came down from the trail, and we were able to ask them about the terrain ahead.  "It only gets worse" was their answer.  Well, we had already gotten ourselves in pretty deep and were starting to worry about actually coming down the steep canyon on the ice, so we decided not to press on.  (Below is a picture looking down the trail just below where we turned around... to my right is the little ravine, and to my left is the mountainside that we held onto when our footing was bad.  Behind me is the trail down the mountain that we had to take back.  It was much easier going up than coming down.  

We both agreed that we could probably do it no problem, but with the babies on our backs it was not worth the risk at all!  The idea of falling, even just on our butts, let alone down into the shallow ravine at our side, with the babies on was way too scary!!  So setting egos aside we went back down, and had our lunch in the woods at the top of Bluebell Road.  

We also got to enjoy a bit of playtime where we stopped, and even taste some pine needles!!  

And we had a visit from a large, black squirrel with tufted ears!  Pretty neat!  

We did have a great photo op on the way down the hill... We had to stick the girls in the field to take advantage!!  

Next week we will attempt the Royal Arch summit again.  Unless there has been snow or rain, and then I think we'll try something a little lower that will be less disappointing!!  We won't be able to move on until we've got this notch on our belts!!