Urban Adventurers: Hiking Stone Mountain

President's Day was approaching and Shanna and I decided we needed to get the kids out of the house or we would all go crazy. We decided to take the kids to hike up Stone Mountain. We also invited Grandma and Grandpa to go with us ~~as reinforcements~~ because we love having them with us. Shanna had looked up some letterboxes that we could find and the kids were excited to find something secret.

Listening to the clue for the first letterbox before starting the hike.

Beginning the hike.

When I think of hiking Stone Mountain--this is what I picture the entire hike to be....and most of it is, but carrying a 2 year old in a backpack makes stepping up the rocks a little bit harder. Plus toward the top there is a point that it gets extremely steep and you start to wonder why you really want to make it to the top since you have been to the top many times and it probably looks the same today and wouldn't now be a great time to turn around and start back? and it is more of a challenge.

Grandpa was great at sharing the backpack duties with me--Poor Aaron was kind of cold in this picture--luckily he was able to rotate jackets and sweatshirts most of the time--it was good if you were exercising, but sitting in a backpack won't get you warm!

Before Stone Mountain became a protected area a lot of people carved their names or sayings into the rock...Alex was amazed to find a heart in the middle of his hike! I also like this picture because at one point he had brought his arms inside his shirt to keep them warm--when he put them back his shirt was backwards.

It was a nice day...but not quite as nice as we wanted--most of us dressed in short sleeves and when we got there it was nice jacket weather or sweatshirt weather, but a bit cool for t-shirts. I had one jacket in the car that we rotated, and Grandpa was nice enough to lend out his sweatshirt as well.

We took a short break for a snack. This little pavillion area is deceptive because you are almost at the top, so you feel good, but what you don't realize/remember that the next little bit is going to be much harder than any other area of the trail.

Looking for the letterbox--the clues said to be careful not to let people see you (so they wouldn't ruin the letterbox) and so Caroline came up with a good cover--we were tourists from England...now no one will guess what we were really up to.

A victory dance to celebrate that she found to spot for the letterbox (we knew it was right because there was a geocache in the same spot...but the letterbox was gone)