Camping and Rock Climbing in the High Sierras

I found more scout camp pictures on my phone, so I'm starting off with those. The boys left the church really early (I thing around 6:30) Sunday morning. 

Here are all the boys from the two Paso wards, plus their leaders. We were so grateful to these leaders! They stayed up at camp all week, and they had religious devotionals every night. 

Check out the size of the pine cones!

Here's our campsite. We had plenty of space. We were farthest from the bathrooms, but it was nice to be away from the other campers. Plus we were closest to Chawanakee.

Setting up our tent. 

We visited the scouts at their campsite during lunch.

They gave us a tour of the camp during free time.

There were tons of huge boulders right next to our campsite. 

Levi always did want to be a fireman.

 We went to their closing ceremony, which was right before the family BBQ.

 Showing off their Chieftain Run and Iron Bear tattoos.

They were pretty tired and ready to go home by the end of the week. But we dragged them further up the mountains to go rock climbing!

It took about an hour, and it was such a beautiful drive! 

It was cooler up there too, which felt great for rock climbing. We were in the middle of nowhere, and we had the rock to ourselves!

Spencer had just earned his rock climbing merit badge, so Dave felt more comfortable having him belay him. I don't like doing it because then I can't take pictures.

This was the perfect rock climbing spot! Of course there was a bit of a hike to get there, including a scramble (there always is!). But it was nice and shady, and there was plenty of room to hang out at the base. This makes all the difference!

We were tired of eating PB&J for lunch, so I hauled up the Coleman and cooked hot dogs. I felt pretty dang awesome, sitting on a rock at the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, cooking on a camp stove.

 Wow, Brennan, nice stretch! He got to the top of every climb!

Yesss!

 Our non-climbers did great just hanging out with mom - what good sports!

 Chillin' and singing about kool-aid.

What a great way to spend the Fourth of July! We stopped in Fresno on the way home and had dinner at a pizza buffet. After camping for 3 days, it was so nice to not cook or clean up a meal!