Cobb Mountain for New Years

We went to Cobb Mountain with our friends for a little New Years getaway.  It's always a good time with Greg and Sharyn no matter where we go.  The entire time the house was kept nice and warm and cozy.

We played games (Sequence and Aggravation) (we played teams and the girls kicked butt) and we watched some movies and had popcorn.  One night we had some of my homemade stew and another night we had Sharyn's homemade spaghetti.  Mike and Greg drove to the store to get some goodies.

Tuesday morning we hiked in the woods behind the charming red cabin.  The trail was steep and kind of slippery because of the thick layer of leaves, twigs, acorns and other debris in our path.  The path we were on sort of dead ended and Mike and Sharyn said that it looked like there was a trail up above the one we were on and that we should all climb up to it.  I'm almost always up for a challenge when it comes to climbing.  I quickly began to scramble up the hill and shortly afterward followed Greg finding his own way up.  As I was climbing, it was looking less and less desirable and I told Mike and Sharyn not to come up because it was too difficult.  Although there was no way I was coming back down the hill for fear of falling and Greg must have agreed because he kept climbing, too.  We safely made it to the top and found out that it wasn't a trail worth climbing to after all and was a dead end as well.  So we ended up following the path back down to where the two trails converged.  That was our little adventure for the day.

Since we were having such warm gorgeous weather for this time of year, in the afternoon on Tuesday we drove to Six Sigma and sampled some wines and ate cheese with crackers at one of their picnic tables outside.  They have some very nice wines.  It's one of our favorites to visit not only for the wine but for the lovely drive out there and I couldn't help myself but to purchase a couple of bottles.  They are also a working ranch and have grassfed beef, grassfed lamb and pastured pork for sale.

Yesterday on New Year's Day we drove to Robert Louis Stevenson State Park for a hike.

The trail near the beginning of our hike.

Lots of roots, twigs and branches.

The memorial.

Getting closer to the fire road.

At the fire road pointing to the north peak which is the direction we went which goes toward the peak of Mount St. Helena.

The path to the top.

The path to the right which goes back to the main road below.

Some rock climbing going on ahead at Bubble Rock.

There is a nice ledge to sit on and take a break at this point.

The view below from where we were at the rock.

After sitting for a spell to watch the climbers, we decided to head back down.  We ended up hiking a total of 4.06 miles.  Michael and I decided that we want to come back in February and hike to the top.  It's five miles up and five back down for a total of ten miles and we'll need to bring some food and plenty of water along with us.  I'm already excited and looking forward to it.

Our calendar is filling up with camping trips, events and things and 2014 is beginning to look just as busy for us as 2013 was and I'm guessing it's going to fly right on by, too.