The White Squirrel Challenge

Yes, I know! Sounds vague and somewhat intriguing! Dad stumbled across the White Squirrel Challenge several months back and asked me if I would be interested in completing it with him. The challenge is to hike 8 trails in the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy to earn an awesome white squirrel badge as well as gift certificates to Mast General and Diamond Brand. Yes, I admit it, the gift certificates were a bit more of an incentive than the patch. BUT, getting a patch at the end reminds me a little of my Girl Scout days, so I'm excited about that too!

For our first hike, we rounded up Bobby, Kezaih, & the kids to "Tour de Falls" in Dupont Forest on St. Patrick's Day. Then, the next weekend, Dad and I took a very, very long round-about-way to get to the second of the Dupont Forest hikes the next weekend. Accidentally ended up at Connestee Falls, then finally found the trailhead to "Stone Mountain".

By the way, did you know "The Hunger Games" was filmed partially in Dupont Forest? I just saw that movie last weekend. Well, I must say that I recognized the scene they filmed at Triple Falls . . . because we had hiked there in March!! That was very awesome. :)

Lessons learned on our hikes so far:

#1 - Bring a map.

     If you don't, you may end up parking in the wrong parking lot, which means you start the hike from the wrong end. Not a detrimental event, just meant that the last leg of our 2.6 mile hike was ALL uphill. :) Kinda tough on two kids that are very much wavering on the brink of being worn out.

#2 - Bring. A. Map.
     If you don't, you will end up driving around for a couple hours in the middle of no-cell-signal-where until you come out the other side and can use your smart phone to find directions & memorize them. :)

So, that's it so far. Lessons learned (or rather, reviewed) for hiking. Can you tell I don't do this often?

Emma & Me at Connestee Falls overlook - that's right. A 1/10 mile boardwalk to view the falls. :)

Emma and Dad on the way to the top of Stone Mountain Trail

Dad and me (I'm starting to get kinda good at these self-portraits . . . 1st try!! And I love it!)

The view from the summit of Stone Mountain Trail . . . the last 600 feet of the trail was single-track and practically vertical!! What FUN!

Bobby, Nolan, Maddie, and Kezaih at High Falls

High Falls - Beautiful!! (And HUGE!!)

I tried to convince Nolan he could fit all the way inside this tree trunk. He disagreed with me. I still think he would have fit. :)

Bobby & Nolan at Triple Falls

Dad at Triple Falls - Notice the edge? Kind of hard to see, but this is the ledge my water bottle decided to try to commit suicide off. It fell out of my carrier and started rolling away, I was going to let it go, but everyone started yelling . . . Maddie and/or Nolan had started like they were going to try to catch it. Note to self: say out loud next time "LET IT GO!!!"

Dad at Triple Falls

Triple Falls from farther away . . . I had no idea we had semi-large and very impressive water falls in our backyard!

And then there was this one. Yeah. Can't remember the name of it.