Exploration

Marvin's been enjoying the great outdoors recently. He had several good few hikes lately in the mountains near our city.

He's loving having a few guys around who love this kind of stuff and a vehicle that can get him to places we've not yet explored. It's been fun watching him get excited over hiking routes, new valleys, and watching him play on google earth and try to calculate how far each trip has taken him.

He's been training for a big climb (5642 meters of 18510 feet) here in a few weeks (granted everything remains stable with my pregnancy.)

The first of his hikes took him to a valley he's wanted to explore for a while. It was definitely an exploration hike as they had to find the best path. Unfortunately they learned a lot about the terrain and had to hike through a marsh, across the freezing river several times, and then had to whack their way through ferns that were about head high to get back to the van.

He went back to this same spot this weekend with some local friends. One of the guys he went with carried a plastic bag the whole way up because he didn't have a pack. (Now that's talent.) They found a better path and had a good time.

Lunch time

Right now he's on an overnight trip and hopes to summit tomorrow.  We can't wait to have him back home, but thankful for these opportunties for him to enjoy our surroundings.