Hiking Mt. Hermon

Our plans to go to the mountains to camp for a couple days went to pieces with bad weather in the forecast, and other issues. So we just took a day trip to Mt. Hermon, just 45 minutes away from home in the foothills of Pikes Peak.

 With all the rain this spring, the hike was beautifully sprinkled with wildflowers.

 We had a beautiful family time hiking the four-mile round trip hike.

Jonathan and I just plodded along, but drank in all the beautiful spring flowers, bees, and butterflies.

 The little ones are so happy on treks like this. We remembered other hikes where we all helped carry the little ones, and now finally they are all big enough to run the trail themselves.

 The meadows with aspen dressed in fresh spring green leaves were my favorite spots. 

And I could feel a poem coming on.

 Springs in the Lowly Places

by Anna Lucas

Oh, it's not on the mountain summit where whistling breezes blow,

But it's down in the little valleys where the rippling streamlets flow.

 It's not at the mountain summit where stunning is the view

That you find the gurgling spring and violets dripping dew.

 The mountain top is barren, the boulders huge abound. 

The path is steep and rocky and a hawk is circling round.

 All dry and gravelly is the path blown on by chilly breeze,

And there's a lonely sentinel among the summit's trees,

A trunk that's been struck by lightning, bent and tossed and blown,

And long and far may be the view, but who wants a path of stone?

 I'd rather have the cool, green path beside the mountain spring

Down lowly in the valley where birds and insects sing.

 There gurgling is the water cool, flowing gently down the hill,

Filling each rounded little pool, leaving reflection still.

[This water bottle had a filter in it!]

White violets are nodding 'gainst heart-shaped leaves they're pressed.

Wild iris, ferns, and lupine in quiet shade find rest. 

 The hummingbird is whirring, the chipmunk scuttles by.

Sweet honeysuckle listens to the rippling lullaby.

No, it's not the mountain's tiptop that answers the searching quest,

And it's not in fame or fortune that a hurting heart finds rest.

 

 It's in the sunlit meadows and the lowly little glen

Down by the winding streamlet that the poet finds his pen.

 For it's where the path is lowest the fresh, sweet spring does flow,

And it's where the heart is humblest that living waters go.

 It's in the little valleys the heart finds songs to sing

And deeds of love and mercy are like the mountain spring.

  Finding the least and lowest place to serve and love and live,

And always going further down, willing to forgive.

 And though the mountain summit is lofty, proud, and high,

I'll walk the dappled valley with streamlets flowing by.