August 8th, 2009....a date that I'll always remember

SATURDAY MORNING!!!! HIKE DAY!!!!:) ALARM GOES OFF 7am!!! Wake up and head to Woodstock for a BEAUTIFUL DAY of hiking ahead!!!;) Stopped on the way to pick up the usual: 3 waters, cookies, and gum!! Arrived at Woodstock at 7:45 ready for some delicious breakfast!! WHICH IT WAS!!! French toast!! EGGS!! BREAKFAST POTATOES!! AND WATER!! Sooooo yummy!!! Matt and I waited at Woodstock until 8:10am for anyone else that may be arriving for the hike, yeah no one!! So we hiked to SouthHill to pick up Nicole!!! Who of course was ready to go, and I wouldn't be surprised if she waited outside from 6am, unlike her 10 minutes that she said she did!!:) Seeing last hike she was on the dot with the waiting time!! HA!! We head from SouthHill to Hanifl Centre where we meet the Wiebe's!!! Dave and Cookie of course were coming along!! They wouldn't miss a hike EVER!!! It was funny, when Dave was coming down Cookie was still walking around the corner, so all we saw was Dave first and we're like ooooh Cookie didn't make it, Nicole was very saddened, and then we saw Cookie and she SCREAMED "OH YAY"!!!! A very happy reaction!! We hiked the same route as our very first hike down Tehri Road, except the difference this time, is when we arrived at "The Gap" we went West down a hiking trail right off the Gap!! So we turned left, went down this very slippery (as Nicole can attest for) cement trail and I found several shortcuts!! Granted not TRUE shortcuts, BUT I made them shortcuts!! And after 5 attempted shortcuts I got another NEW nickname, this time Shorty!!;) So now I have: Petey, Steve the Pirate, and Shorty!! HECK YES!! After my last shortcut of basically sliding down mud and very THORNY bushes I gave up on finding new shortcuts!!!:) Even though this trip was predicted to be a 4 hour hike we thought it would be easier getting to Tatur than it was to Rajpur, just because 3/4th of the trail was nature and gravel, instead of PURE cement like Rajpur was!!! Our first checkpoint we were heading for was a little town called Mazatan, which Dave and Cookie knew from their last trip to Tatur!! On the way we passed these trees that we SWORE came out from Dr. Seuss!!! They were straight up and down with the littlest of branches sticking out, but looked very unique and cool!! We hiked through the trails and on our way we passed many cow farmers walking their cows up the paths!! And of course when we walked behind the cows we scared them and made them run ahead so the cow farmer had to go chase them!! WHOOPSIE!!:) We arrived at Mazatan and the first thing we saw was a SCHOOL!! AND this time the school teacher was real cool about us talking with her and her students and taking pictures!! They used the oldschool chalk and chalkboard slates!! It was real cool!!:) The elementary students were very shy, but once we started taking pictures and showing it to them they opened up!! Then we passed the jr/sr high students and they were doing advanced algebra outside!!! And were very well behaved and focused!! EVEN with a BEAUTIFUL valley in front of them!! I know I couldn't focus if I had that view as a classroom!! We walked through the town and felt like giants, cause their doors were very small and it seamed like you could palm the door!!:) It was awesome!!! Cookie "The Pathfinder" talked to some locals and found us a way up the hillside to our next checkpoint!!! We went one way, while Dave though he could find a quicker way!! Of course with the Pathfinder on our side we found the fastest route!! So we had to wait for Dave, I went up the hill to look for him and that view was AMAZING!!! Our hike cont...