The first time I hiked to The Crack, I was playing hooky from work. Or, taking a mental health day as it is called now. I told my husband on the next day off he had during the week, I was going to call into work and we were going hiking. I didn’t care where, but we were going! Since then, I have been dreaming of hiking the crack again during monsoon season. When it is just warm enough to jump into the icy-cold waters of the creek. And there are amazing clouds to cover your journey back out.
Well, that is not exactly what happened. End of July should be monsoon season. But it was a sunny day. No clouds in sight. But the high was supposed to be in the 80s, so we decided to hike The Crack anyways. We woke up fairly early and got to the trail head at about 8 in the morning. I lathered on the sunblock, we put on our packs, and headed down into the trail.
And it was hot. So hot. Like, stopping in every bit of shade I could hot. But I used this opportunity to practice being grateful when the breeze would hit and any shade would come my way. My husband says I am not made for the sun. He is right. And this trail is nothing but sun the entire way.
Finally, after what seemed like forever (2 hours), we made it to The Crack. And, I was not as red as I was expecting! Probably because I wore gym shorts this time as apposed to the jean shorts I wore last time we hiked this trail. Anyways, we were ready to swim with our swimsuits under our clothes. We put on our water shoes and tip toed our way into the water. Because after being so hot, the water is sooooooo cold. But soooo refreshing.
We had lunch on the side of the creek under the shade. We filtered water from the creek. Because, freshly filtered spring water is my absolute favorite. While we were down there, there were two other people having a photoshoot. And naturally, we had to have our own mini-shoot. Mostly of us filtering water and random bugs we found on trees! 😂 After a few more dips into the creek, we decided to head back to the car.
I filtered some fresh, cold water into my nalgene and my water bladder for the hike back. And I thought the hike in was hot. The hike out was miserable. I kept saying to myself, “Just keep swimming”. My idea of cold water in the nalgene lasted not even half of the hike back. It was tea-hot before we got back to the car. But I kept pouring that tea water on myself, because when the breeze hit, it was magic. And remember the non existent clouds? Well, they came. Full of thunder and rain. But off in the distance just following us, but not reaching us the entire hike back.
But will I be back? Absolutely. Hopefully with monsoon clouds next time!
