1st Winter Trip to Ledges State Park

On Saturday afternoon, the girls and I headed up to Ledges to check out the frozen and snow covered park. We all had two layers of warm clothes and what we hoped were waterproof boots! We were ready to take on the trails! We parked on the lower end of the park, by the river, and started out heading up the little frozen stream. Every now and then we'd hear the ice crack and the girls would freak out. Fortunately, this little stream wasn't very deep, so not much of a threat.We made it to the first little stream that crosses the park road and the girls had to play and break the ice. We were surprised to find the streams as open as they were. They enjoyed throwing big ice chunks into the open areas.

We headed on up the road and noticed mother, son and their three dogs coming down one of the trails. The girls wanted to see the dogs, so we stopped and they played. We headed on up to the next stream together and the girls had fun playing with the dogs and the young boy.

We had to get a group photo, so you can see my shadow on the lower left side of the photo. That is Maddie's shadow next to me and then Skyler and Emma are trying to figure out how to break more ice around the edge of the open water. It was quite thick in this spot and it didn't break easily.
After playing for quite a while together, it was time for Lucas, his mom and the dogs to head on back to their car. We played around the stone bridge for quite a while. The girls picked up rocks and threw them into the stream to try and figure out how thick the ice might be. It was pretty thin in this area, so we stayed along the edges.Here's Skyler sporting her new smile (she finally pulled her front snaggletooth this week -- actually she let a complete stranger pull it on church night -- go figure!). This is one of our favorite spots in the summer. There are big rocks along the side of the stream and the girls climb up and down and toss little rocks into the stream.

Eventually we headed on up the road toward the last little stream. Maddie (in the red sweatshirt) was way out in front leading the way, followed by Emma in the pink sweatshirt and Skyler in the green sweatshirt. The water is much deeper at this stream and the ice wasn't very thick, so we didn't stay long at this stream. We finally made it back to the first little stream where the girls wanted to stay and play. As you can see, Skyler was standing in the water (not a good thing as later she had to whine a little bit about cold feet -- I had done plenty of warning that if her feet got wet, they would get cold -- however it didn't do any good) and Maddie was rocking on a loose chunk of ice. As you can see by Skyler's boots, the water was not deep right here.
No hiking trip would be complete without Skyler falling down and into the water. As you can see, this trip was complete :-) Fortunately the water was not deep in this area and they were having fun playing on their "ice" island. It wasn't too long after this that Skyler's feet were freezing and time to go.

Emma was pretending to fish. The stick was her fishing pole and she was catching lots of ice fish.

Here she is showing off her big catch of the day -- a great big "ice" fish (you have to use your imagination to see the fish).It was finally time to head back to the car. The sun had gone down behind the ledge and it was starting to get chilly. We made it back to the car and then everyone had to take off the wet outer layer and their boots. Unfortunately the underneath layer was also pretty wet, especially the socks! I had some towels in the back of the car, so they used those like blankets. We sang party songs, including "Don't Ya Wish Your Girlfriend was Hot Like Me" and "Hey Hey You You", all the way home. If they didn't like the song on the CD, then they would "vote" it off, pretending to play American Idol. Soon we were back home and the girls were quickly into warm, dry clothes and ready to play some Wii. I was ready to go home and rest :-)