Angel's Rest Hike

This morning, Davan and I took on Angel's Rest. It's 2.3 miles each way with an 1880 ft elevation gain, which makes it a nice little workout. It's a favorite hike with us and Davan has requested to do it in each season this year. We've done fall and winter, although, with the warm weather we're having, it was almost spring like today with both temperature and some trees budding.

I got up at my usual 7:00 and got breakfast together and knocked out a few other chores. We often do oatmeal on hiking mornings, but I didn't buy any pears this week, which is our preferred fruit for oatmeal for the both of us, so I opted to do a tray for Davan and a green drink for me.

I packed up our crate to carry everything to the van:


Davan's tray is on top:

I did themes in rows. The leftmost row is the cereal row and consists of, from top to bottom, Ezekiel, Uncle Sam's and raw oats. The next row is the cookie row and is a grapefruit oatmeal cookie, a chocolate orange cookie and a lemon lime cookie. In the fresh fruit row, we have strawberries, kiwi and an apple. The final row is frozen berries and is raspberries, blueberries and blackberries.

Davan woke up a little tired and grumpy about heading out, but she quickly turned it around and was delighted to see her tray.

The first view point required a picture and a break, of course:

Then on we went:


Getting closer to the top, we stopped at the fence view point:
All those logs and sticks behind the fence are new to us. Clearing the trail, perhaps?

On the Angel's Rest hike, you know you're almost there when you cross the rock field:

It made us happy:

At the top, we enjoyed the view:


And each had a chocolate orange cookie to see us back down the trail:


And we needed that sustenance because Davan enjoys running down this trail. Suffice it to say that we were back down much fast than we'd gotten up and there was no time for more pictures.

A rough recipe for grapefruit oatmeal cookies (I just eyeball stuff, so this is all pretty approximate):

1/4 cup soaked (if you think of it in advance - 8 hours is great, a 1/2 hour or not at all is fine) pumpkin seeds
2 cups rolled oats
juice and pulp of one grapefruit

Blend the seeds and oats in your food processor until they look like bread crumbs. Pour in the grapefruit juice and pulp and blend until mixed. Form cookies with hands. These are very lightly flavored and very light in comparison to most date filled raw cookies.

A rough recipe for chocolate orange cookies:

1/2 cup walnuts
1 cup oats
4 TBS raw cacao powder
1 package Sunkist Orange Essence Prunes (yeah, probably full of stuff we shouldn't eat, but there it is)

Blend the walnuts and oats in your food processor until they look like bread crumbs. Add the cacao powder and blend briefly. Add the prunes and run until combined. If the cookies won't stick together at this point, add some raisins or dates until sticky. On the other hand, if I've misled you the other way and they are too sticky, your best bet at this point is to remove the mixture from the food processor, mix up more walnuts and oats, then kneed it into the mix. Form cookies.

A rough recipe for lemon lime cookies:

1/2 cup walnuts
1 cup oatmeal
3/4 cup dates
juice and zest of a small lime
juice and zest of a small lemon

Blend the walnuts and oats in your food processor until they look like bread crumbs. Add zest and mix briefly. Add dates and run until incorporated. Pour in the juices. Blend until well mixed. It should be damp and stick easily to itself. If not, adjust as necessary. Form cookies.