My Birthday Adventure (a.k.a, All's Well the End's Well)

After weeks of snow, then wind, then rain, the sun came out on my birthday and my homeschool co-op was kind enough to let me pitch our scheduled activity and take them on a hike instead. We went to a nice spot on the Sandy River, where you can run off the trail with a clear conscience, one of my favorite things to do on a hike.

We had a lovely walk to a nice little stream, where we snacked and played and some engineers in the group built a couple of bridges. We succumbed to the siren call of the other side of the stream, where the Sandy River routinely rises and falls, leaving lots of great sandy washes that are good for finding animal tracks and interesting objects deposited by the river.

The only problem with this area we entered is that all the sandy washes start to look kind of alike. When we were walking back, I was afraid we had missed our trail. No problem, though, because the main trail is up on a ridge that was visible, and there are lots of deer trails that lead back up to it; as long as we didn't get too far north of the road, we'd be able to see the main trail. So, rather than risk getting too far north of the road,  I suggested we head down one of these little deer trails. As you can see by this picture, the deer trail didn't actually last that long, though we're still all having a good time.
I'm still filled with confidence that we'll find a good spot to get back up to the trail, and before long we can hear the road, so at worst we'll just come out at the road and walk back to our cars. The nice open grassy-sandy terrain gives way to increasingly dense undergrowth, however. And, there is still a fair amount of water left over from the recent rain and snow melt, and all of the little deer trails we try end in a swamp.

It doesn't look like a lot of water, but it deters us, nonetheless. At least, it deters us for about 45 minutes of wandering through the underbrush, until the little ones start to flag, M starts begging in a trembling voice "Mom, can't we please call search and rescue," one of our party has to be at work in about an hour, and the sun is getting alarmingly low in the sky. Time to ford the swamp.

As luck should have it, we found a log that ran from the middle of a narrow-ish section of the swamp to the other side. We loaded the little ones on our hips and backs, waded through the almost knee-deep (and very cold!) water, inched our way across the slippery wet log, then squeezed through about a 6-inch wide trail in the blackberry vines, and HALLELUJAH! The main trail! The big kids declared it our funnest outing ever, and I have to say, it was a great birthday adventure. 
Thanks for being such good sports, everyone!