Back in July I had decided that it was time to venture up to Mount Charleston. Mount Charleston is the mountain just to the West of the Las Vegas valley. The length of the drive from the house to Mt. Charleston community is only about fifty miles yet the differences in climate are amazing. To give you an idea the house is at approximately 1700 feet. The small community of Mt. Charleston is at approximately 7400 feet. On the particular day that we went it made for a difference of nearly 30 degrees.
We left the house early and started our day by heading over to IHOP and getting a good breakfast. I had never been up the mountain before and I was unsure if there were places to eat or exactly was up at the top. So I figured a good breakfast wouldn’t hurt.
After breakfast we started the drive up the mountain. We quickly made it to the main turn off to proceed up the mountain. Up to this point we had experienced nothing but the typical desert landscape. This slowly started to give way to more mountainous features. The drive was quick and before we knew it we arrived at one of the campgrounds.
We decided that we would get out and start up one of the trails. The particular trail that we decided upon was in great shape and we pretty easy to navigate even with Lexi in tow. She was having a great time. We would come upon little rocks and she would make a huge deal of jumping off of them. It was really funny. We came upon this huge, twisted, fallen tree that was just off to the side of the trail. I thought that it was a great place to try to take a couple pictures of Lexi in the element. I sat her down and begged and pleaded with her to smile and look pretty for the camera and she responded!!
Having done my part to be evil daddy with the camera we started back up the trail. We didn’t go up to much farther because the trail was getting rougher and rougher and we felt it best to turn back. As we started to come back down I darted in front of the girls, turned back, and was lucky enough to capture several shots similar to this…
…but this is easily my favorite.
We passed our earlier photo location and I spotted another area that I hoped would be good for pictures. I was lucky in that I had the foresight to remember to pack along my mini-tripod just in case. Boy was I glad that I did. I mounted my camera to the little tripod and placed it on the end of the same log that I had used to sit Lexi on the way up the trail. I set the camera to snap a picture in 30 seconds, pressed the shutter button, and ran for dear life in hopes of getting into the frame and settled in time. Here are the results…
I was very happy with the results. Especially considering this was the only shot that I took like this on the entire trip. Also it was fun to get a good picture of the entire family out and having a good time.
We continued our climb back down to the car and passed another family heading back up the same trail. I witnesses as the wife was attempting to take a picture of her husband along with their kiddo. I turned around and shouted if they would like me to take a picture of them to which they responded a resounding yes. So I hiked back up the short distance to help them out with their pictures. I took a couple photos for them and then headed back down to catch up with Dawn and Lexi.
Once back to the car we took a much needed break and drank all the water that we had brought with us. We decided that it was a good time to go head back to the little town and grab a bite to eat. We drove the short distance back down the mountain to the Mt. Charleston Lodge and had a small snack/lunch.
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