Crystal Vista Hiking Trail

We ended up hiking the Crystal Vista trail yesterday. The trailhead was about half an hour's drive from the condo, down some serious backwoods roads and out in the middle of nowhere. The trailhead itself was about two miles down a gravel road. As expected, we saw not another soul the entire three hours we were out there. This is probably a good thing, as my kids are LOUD. Pretty sure I'd never have to worry about bears as long as I have them along...

The hike up ended up being about .7 miles straight up a rocky, gravelly four wheeler road. It was still shady and a little cool when we went up, so the complaining index was minimal - despite the boy having done something to his foot yesterday morning and it giving him real trouble on the way back down. Something about sliding into pillows and carpet while playing baseball in the bedroom, I dunno.

At any rate, the hike up was very pretty. Although the woods never opened up enough to give awesome vistas or anything, the glimpses of the lake and surrounding hills were beautiful. We also found the abandoned crystal quarry and dug around there for a bit. There was a great deal of quartz on the ground, a lot of it very clear. We had the obligatory snackage while up there, hung out for a bit and trekked back down. All in all, about 2.5 miles for the day, and considering the rough terrain, I think we all wore ourselves out.

We finished the afternoon at the pool, then hit a South American restaurant in Hot Springs for dinner. Back to the Future and two bowls of popcorn rounded out the evening nicely - I'm really not wanting to see Monday already approaching. Time to start planning next weekend, right?