Silence for the Soul

(internet slow here, pictures tomorrow or Sat. sorry. and they are good ones too!!! Promise)

Greetings Earthlings!!

I definitely have been in some absolutely beautiful country this week. After arriving in Red Lodge we drove the Bear Tooth Pass. Lookouts to Yellowstone are absolutely amazing. The route had a land slide so it was closed that day and we didn’t make it all the way out there, but still got to see some beautiful mountain tops. The Rangers directed us to a pretty day hike that afternoon up to some falls and some lake. Not really sure where it was or what it was called, but it was beautiful as well. Nice to hike 3 or so miles without a pack on…really nice actually.














After our day and a half in Red Lodge our exiting was the best ever, Local Yokel. Some of the best organic and local lamb and asparagus I have ever had. Ok I will fill in a few people. I recently have been put on a no Dairy, Gluten, Wheat, Pineapple, and many other assorted foods. Basically, the lining in my stomach has disappeared due to various antibiotics in the past and certain foods pass through my stomach and leak into my body… gross I know. Buuuut, it has been proven difficult to have such a strict diet while on the trail and under a budget that only allows fast food meals and under 8$ meal budget. Therefore, Local Yokel = heaven!








Deciding that Red Lodge would not work for a group, Monday we headed into Cody. Rangers directed us to the Clark Creek Trail. You can do a, 2 miles to a waterfall, 8 miles to Yellowstone River, or a point to point to a 4WD road. We went straight up the TH and hiked to the waterfall and a footbridge 2.5 miles in to get a feel for the area. We got stuck at the end of a parade in the small town just before the trail head. It was pretty cute actually. I love small town stuff, makes me bummed I'll be missing Monument's 4th of July Parade this summer... :(


Deciding that we like it, Tuesday was spent in a few coffee shops, sport stores, and outdoor stores getting maps and talking with locals about the trail, water melt, and animals. O! we also got a free bear video showing from the park rangers! O Anita, how nice of her! It was classic. So, mother, I am totally bear educated and could totally tell you the difference between a defensive bear and a predatory bear! Boo ya! (I like to yell out “Hey Big Mama” as we’re walking on the trail. To scare them away of course!)








Wednesday we hit the trail bright and early. The motive for trekking the trail was to get a good handle on the terrain and know where good campsites would be. The terrain was more treacherous than I think we thought. Screamed through Sunday night’s, and successfully made it to Monday nights. Right alongside the Yellowstone River. In a canyon. So beautiful! However… mosquito galore! I honestly have never, EVER, seen that make of those little demons. They seriously made the hike MISERABLE! I would swat the air and hit at least 10 on one swing. UHG! I don’t even want to think about it now. GROSS!!! We needed to continue on to find Tuesday night’s site up the canyon. But…. Remember that whole water thing we have been dealing with this entire summer. Ya, still exists out here too. The Yellowstone consumed our trail. However, the streams were something else. I understand why it is called the "yellow"stone. Anyway, after bushwhacking alongside a canyon wall and realizing there is no possible way we could take students this way, we turn back.









Campfire smoke has never been more revealing in my whole life. Many say, “I hate white rabbits” to get the smoke out of their faces…. We were saying, “I love no mosquitoes!” as our eyes leaked and pinkend from the smoke. We were so desperate to get a fire going, we didn’t veer as much as 7 feet off the trail to set rocks up to make a fire pit. Yes, it was that bad! Our spirits were pretty low at this point. We found this trail and thought for sure it would work just as the overflowing river and gnarly mosquitoes nail us. I guess the beauty did put a smile on my face more than a few times, and the elk drinking from the river. That was pretty neat!









Waking up sweating from the sun beaming into my tent set the tone for the day. Despite the beauty, hiking out was not my favorite hike ever. It was awe-inspiring knowing I was entitled to step out of my tent where MILLIONS of mosquitoes awaited to gnaw on my arms for 6 hours while using both hands utilizing my trekking poles to get up the mountain side. Therefore, leaving me defenseless. Great… ya exactly what I intended as I yawned that morning half way in my unzipped sleeping bag.





You know, I am learning that nature is most definitely one of my passions. I burden for natural disasters and can’t help but to embrace the beauty that God has created and selfishly is sharing with us. But… why is it so hard to accept the sometimes not so good things that come from nature. Like over flowing streams, mosquitoes, wolves at 1am, snow at 2am, cold nights, hot mornings, scary bears, and even storms. All of these things are really cool, under the right conditions. Why can’t it always be the right conditions… well, I am learning that maybe it is always the right condition but we are not always in the right mindset. It is like wind. Many people hate wind, a lot, but when you are doing something (such as setting up a tent or crossing a river on a log) the wind makes everything so much more epic!
Why do we narrow certain circumstances out as hard/annoying/ scary/ dangerous? Why can’t they all just be epic!? Think about that… over a zillion (yes, zillion) mosquitoes while trekking along the Yellowstone River… I’d say that is epic. But before my mentality shift it was definitely considered miserable… looking back, dude…. That was pretty epic!
God is revealing many things to me. It is amazing how much He speaks to you when you listen…. Hm, imagine that. Most of it has to do with the fact that I am in the middle of beauty with no distractions. No cell phone, music, fashion worries. Nothing! It allows us to narrow down on the things that actually matter in this life. All the things we label as necessities like super nice car, iphone, makeup, blah blah blah. You get the picture. None of those things matter. Nothing! Not one bit. When it comes down to it, God’s word says everything that we need. Most of it is based off of the relationships that we have with each other and the relationships and interactions we create with others. We aren’t here to be the most fashionable or most popular, but we are here to fulfill the great commission. To be Disciples of Christ. No one said it would be an easy road. In fact, it warned against how hard it would be instead. But with God, all things are possible.

Love you guys. Thanks for reading and staying updated. Means a lot. Love you all… all you MO family and CO family. Friends too… you guys all rock!

Next group comes on Sunday. Still not 100% sure where we will take them. Black Hills at Sundance, Clark Creek in the Shoshone, or this new one we heard today called Dead Indian… we shall see…..

Peace and Blessins!

Two Weeks to Wander Begins

Smello there friends and family. So, after that last group we were planning on heading to the Tetons to backpack for two weeks with just Robbie, Dave, and I and do some discipleship training. And of course, that didn't happen because of a number of things. The first being snow. Way too much snow to spend more than a few days up there. Also, because the Big Horns are snowed out for the next little bit we have to hunt for some places to take the next group or two why the snow melts off.

So, that brings me to where I am now. Billings, Montana. After the group left on Sat, we spend time cleaning stuff up and simply relaxing. It was quite a challenging week. We took off from Sheridan Sunday afternoon and headed south to find dry land. Arriving in Lander, we pull up to a ranger station who directs us to NOLS. (National Outdoor Leadership School- don't be surprised if I work there one day. It is quite the place!) They help us out by saying that everywhere they are leading trips they need snow shoes but have run out so that are post holing it. Great....


So we head out that night to get a jump start on traveling back up North. Finally arrive in Casper at another famous KOA. (such a life savor this summer) Wake up bright and early and continue North East to where we started the summer off in WY at a pit stop for lunch off I-90, in Sundance, WY.

We know for certain that the Black Hills up there are dry so we had to map out a route to take. After linking a few trails together, we decided to do it ourselves in a day and a half. We start about 8am and by noon have already traveled nearly 8 miles. Packs and everything. We have our tents, food, and warm cloths. Turns out we needed water and food only. We decided that we have a feel for the terrain and could map out a decent 5 night hike, so we hunker down and crack out the rest of the hike before 8pm. Yup, that's right! We killed 20 miles in 12 hours! Not to mention we had all the dumb unnecessary stuff in our packs. But hey, no one can complain when we drop a few extra pounds in a day!








(Pictures to come)



Yesterday morning we woke up at our KOA in Sundance and headed straight to see Devil's Tower. Pretty cool if you ask me. I was itching to climb it though. I am definitely starting to miss my climbing gear, slack line, and soccer ball more and more as we move forward. Then we headed straight up to Billings through an Indian Resorvation. Along the road were about 30 or 40 natives riding their horses. The front leaders had big head dressings and flag/staff things they were holding in their saddles. Pretty cool. It is a shame what the US has done to these people, I think they have every right to be mad!

So, brings me to this morning. We are scooping out some stuff to hike up here. Beautiful country up here. Our motive is to discover another place to take groups. We know Sundance area and want to use it as a back up because yes it is pretty, but it reminded me of Spruce Mnt for all you Monument people. It is more of a day hike area that we are linking stuff to make it longer. Not ideal...


Anyway. God is doing some cool stuff. Definitely reveal how the body of Christ is meant to operate and how we are to utilize the community and our brothers and sisters to help us. We can't do things on our own and I feel as though that is how I have lived much of my life. I considered myself independent and may have said I rely on God for everything, but in reality still tried to deal with a few things all on my own. God wants to help, He wants to be there through the joys and the pains. I am shifting my mentality of what an independent person looks like. I am now independent from this world and dependent on God.

John 15:4

Starting with a Twist, or a few....

Well, it has been quite the adventure and I have only been in the Big Horns for 7 days…and won’t be here much longer. Alright so lets rewind about nine days to last Friday, June 10th.
It all started when we forgot to get gas at a lunch stop as we were driving to WY from Chicago. We discovered this just as we hit the middle of Buffalo and Gillette with 45 miles both ways. We decided no reason to turn around to chance the same distance, so we go as far as we can on what is left in our reserve tank of our rockin’ mini van. Just as Dave (my trip leader) starts to feel the gas spittin’ we cross ‘Crazy Women Creek.’





Just after the creek was an exit that goes straight into this house/farm. “Hepp Brother’s Farm.” During this time our car was pretty quiet with a few jokes here and there to keep our optimistic attitudes in check. We pull off at Crazy Women Creek exit, I mean come on, who wouldn’t with a name like that in our circumstances?! Haha. Not gunna lie, I was a little spectacle, but as we pulled into the drive there were two 5 gallon gas tanks right outside the garage. Of course there were! Robbie goes up to the front door and explains the situation to our newly made friend Paul. He offers as much as we need as if it wasn’t the first time this has happened to him. Thank goodness for Paul! In fact, he is the owner of the nearest gas station 15 miles down the hwy. He tells us to be sure to go to that one to fill up. Now, we have our gas, Dave, Robbie, and I are in shock of all that has happened. So random. Dave’s next task was to document this. How many people stop and bum gas from the Hepp Brother’s at Crazy Women Creek?! So we trek about ¼ mile back up the hwy to capture the photo Dave wanted to badly! … hilarious.


We finally make it into Sheridan and stay at a KOA (Kampgrounds of America for all you dumbies! ☺) for the night. Saturday’s plan was to get up and check out our trail heads, come back and take inventory, then spend some quiet alone time for a couple hours to prepare for the week. We should have known that because of the gas event on Friday that our plan would not be accurate.

THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF A WEEK FULL OF THE UNEXPECTED…. Without going into extreme detail, I am going to list off all the events that took place this week.

_Saturday
1) 7:45am Drive to Burgess Junction Ranger Station to simply check in with them. Discover that the road we reach our Trail Head (TH) on is closed due to snow. This is the advise we got, “There is going to be anywhere from 1 to 10 feet of snow up on those trails.” Wonderful.




2) Check out the road for ourselves and pull in 200 yards before our sweet mini van can’t go on.
3) Begin traveling on HWY 14 south in the Big Horns to find dry land to plan a 5 night 6 day hike.
4) Discover Shell Canyon with Ranger Creek Station and Campground, Bench Trail at Post Creek, and Chimney Rock after nearly 3 hours of driving up and down a 3,000ft elevation difference canyon. The car remained positive, but an extremely quiet and thoughtful ride. With no food in our bellies and the altitude starting to kick in, we finally decide to head back to Sheridan to map out a route.
5) 3:00pm Find a book store and purchase some Topo Maps to begin linking different trails together to get a full trip in. After picking our brains we decide to sleep on it so we head back to KOA and take inventory and hit the hay.

_Sunday
6) Start fresh with breakfast and mapping routes. We finally have a TH and a TE and are eager for out team to meet us in Dayton to begin.
7) Our team arrives nearly 2 hours late as we wait at a park for them. We finally get to meet the team, full of energy of course, and head up the mnt!
8) We pull into our first TH and discover we cannot reach it because it is on Private Property. Of course. So we pull into the next road over about ¼ mile back up the road and find out it is a lady name Gal’s camp called Kedesh Ranch. She and her sons willingly allow us to unload and start our hike from their property until we reach BLM and back into the National Forest.
9) Finally begin hiking about 8pm with our Student Leaders of the day in the lead. Our only direction from the ranchers to get back to our trail was to “follow the fence to the gate.” Sweet… That didn’t work out so well. The terrane was intense. Mix desert and mountains.





10) Nearly an hour in we were still searching for water and our campsite that should have only been a 20min hike in.
11) About 11pm we discover a stream down a steep hill. As we trek down, our friend Jordan sprains his ankle pretty badly. Dave directs Robbie and I to take control of water fill up and lead the group to set up camp. We had to retrace our steps so we stayed of BLM property.
12) About midnight we have our tents up and dinner cooking.



_Monday
12) Dave and Tom (the youth pastor) wake up early to hike back to the camp to contact LeaderTreks and figure out an evac plan for our injured friend Jordan. My morning devos get interrupted by a four wheeler coming in to load up Jordan and evac him out. I am ordered to take two of the adults back to camp to drive up the canyon, pick up their vans at the TE in Ranger Creek and load up the kids.
13) I begin the drive up the canyon and see two red flashing lights…. ROAD CLOSED. There had been a landside on the canyon road.
14) Jordan is taken to a clinic 30 min away and Robbie and I stay with the students on the green grassy camp area doing team builders and lunch.
15) 3:30 rolls around and the canyon opens up and Jordan is back from the clinic on crutches. Gal offers a cabin for Jordan and an adult to stay at for the week as the rest of us head up to our trail end to set up base camp and do some day hikes.
16) We get to Rancher Creek and just as we begin setting up tents, it rains. The rain was off and on all night and into the morning.

_Tuesday
17) We do a day hike up snow show pass. With cold, wet shoes from the snow drifts we trekked through, we finally make it to the top. It was a fairly easy day on Tuesday.
18) That night a student’s stomach was not feeling well and we had to evac her in the morning to the cabin at the ranch with Jordan and Nora also.






_Wednesday
19) Decide to break camp and hike up Adelaide Lake Trail. We starting the trip with trouble finding water, and now that we were higher up we had trouble finding trails that were crossable. The river was roaring because of the glacier run off.
20) About 3 hours got us about 1.5 miles up and we struggled to cross the over flowing creeks. A few soaked shoes and one girl with wet pants from a slip. We set up a base camp at the first dry land we find. There was moose and bear poop everywhere. Definitely in some wildlife country. Robbie almost stepped on a baby dear, Bambie, as we were crossing through a valley. It was definitely sick and would not even lift his head as we stood less than 5 feet from it.






_Thursday
21) Time to tear down camp and take Old Mail Trail Loop to reach Ranger Creek that night. We hit 5 foot snow drifts ½ mile into the hike. Deciding to continue, we preserver through that mess.
22) With hope of the snow to clear, we only hit more and more. No one is prepared for this, shoes and clothes are soaked by now.
23) Things continue to get worse. We hit a ranging river that seems uncrossable. We find a sturdy tree that is over the water and set up some ropes to cross. A definite nail biting moment. If anyone where to fall in, bad news bears. Thank the Lord everyone made it across safe.
24) Reaching the top of the hill we know we must continue on. So back down the other side of the hill we hit a valley. Beautiful valley, but marsh land galore. The road we needed to cross over the river at was under the water too much. No way we could put 20 students through that depth of water.
25) 30 then 45 mins pass and we have searched up and down the river numerous times and cannot cross anywhere. Night was near, students are freezing, wet, and tired and we couldn’t go on.
26) We retrace steps again back up the hill to set up camp. We get two fires going, the tarp up, and tents stacked in. Then… guess what’s next, yup. Rain. Dinner and Team Time came and went fast.
27) Just as we were getting into tents for the night, the wolves just a few valleys away began howling. Yup, wolves. Great. Our bear bag was not hung and not placed far enough away from camp, the dinner pots didn’t get cleaned, and we had 20 kids up on top of a mountain. Sleep didn’t come that night…. But I will tell you what did.







_Friday
28) Snow. 1:30 am I hear “pitter patter, pitter patter.” Just as we thought all of our trials were over, we get showered with more. Boots outside, bags outside, and tent walls caving in, the morning never seemed to come.
29) Knowing the only way back to Ranger Creek was the way we came, we began our trek back from the way we came through the 5 foot drifts and log river crossing we already accomplished, but now with 5-7 inches of fresh snow. Wonderful.
30) Finally reaching the last mile stretch with the sun shining means mud everywhere. Muddy muddy trail back to the vans. The sight of two white vans never felt so good.
31) Pack up quickly and head back to Sheridan, about 1 hr 15 min drive… o wait, not this time. We get to HWY 14 North and yup, you guessed it, ROAD CLOSED. So we take the longest route possible back to Sheridan. 3 hour drive, with road construction….
32) It never seems to end!







So, quite the experience for a first LeaderTreks Trip. I am leaving out all the great stuff. I learned a lot about leading from the back. About the wilderness and backpacking. About unpredictability. About dealing and handling the unexpected. About honestly with self and others. I am learning how the body is meant to work together. Healing in lives is definitely taking place. God is expanding His love and leadership into the lives of youth, which is encouraging the older generations.


We are currently in the Starbucks in Sheridan getting ready to head south to discover a new trail that is not covered in snow. We have two weeks without any students because of one drop out. We were supposed to be in the Tetons walking through a discipleship devotional together, but instead we will be blazing a new place. I will keep you updated!

Thanks to all who are following. Love you all.

Daddy- Happy Father’s Day. You are the best Dad a girl could as for. You are the roots to the rose between the three thrones. Thanks for everything. Enjoy the condo at Table Rock.