The views were amazing and worth the hike, mosquitoes, and mud. The boys did better than I expected considering we were on the trail for about three and a half hours (including lunch). Connor kept jumping over sections of mud while yelling "Parkour master!" His inevitable sliding falls usually brought out a slow clap from Alex.
Janelle and Alex took plenty of pictures, but they both stopped before the true end of the trail. The boys and I continued up the last bit. That's where these pictures are from. One of them should show Alex and Janelle from one of our vantage spots while we were going up.
Janelle really wants to show Alex some of the sights during her last few days off while Alex is still here. Today's hike certainly showed that we need to do this sort of thing more often. I'm glad that we had good weather today so we could do this.