The Mercurio Family » Hiking

Family Hike to Rip Rap Falls!

chrisandfaith — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:46:23 +0000

Success! This past Saturday, Faith and I decided to go for it! We took both boys on our first family hike since Joshua was born! It wasn’t a really long hike (3 miles round trip) but we felt it was quite an accomplishment for us all! Aiden even walked most of the hike himself =). He was a little nervous about the stream crossings but we just grabbed his hand and pulled him in haha! He did great! We went up to Rip Rap falls from a trailhead in Crimora, VA. The plan was to go swimming since it had been in the 90′s the day before, but once we were up in the mountains, it was quite a bit cooler!? Swimming will have to wait til summer!

Josh, one of our friends from church, also came with us. After eating an early lunch, Faith and the boys headed back to the car and Josh and I hike up further to fish for some native brook trout. Fun day!

Family Visit in Virginia

chrisandfaith — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:29:28 +0000

A few weeks ago, Grandma and Grandpa, and Uncle Jono and Aunt Kate (and Bailey) came to visit! We gave them the VA outdoors experience with a hike up Humpback rock on friday night and a hike out to St. Mary’s Falls on saturday morning! I was a lot of fun, even though I underestimated how long the St. Mary’s Falls hike was!?

First Family Backpacking Trip

chrisandfaith — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:36:18 +0000

Click the picture above to see all the other great shots from our first family backpacking trip! We did a really short hike up to the top of Cole Mountain and camped in a place we thought was alright (apparently, you’re not supposed to camp in the open field). It was such a beautiful night!

Aiden’s first camping trip!

chrisandfaith — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 19:41:10 +0000

Humpback Rock Hike

chrisandfaith — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:42:37 +0000

Last night Faith, Aiden and I went on a hike up Humpback Rock! I still can’t believe this is only a 30 minute drive!?

Colorado Trip

chrisandfaith — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:42:50 +0000

Just got back a few days ago from another Colorado trip. It was the longest time away from Faith and Aiden since he was born so it was pretty tough but fortunately I had lots of stuff going on to help distract me. I actually flew out for the Engage 2009 Point-Person Conference but I went a few days early and got a chance to visit with my college roommate and his family! We had an awesome time and got the chance to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park! It was absolutely beautiful! We actually were told by the visitor center guide not to do the hike we did because it was too snowy but we went ahead and did it anyway and man were we rewarded with some awesome views! I took the liberty to take a few pictures and decided to post them up here. Click on them to see the whole album! And yes if you’re wondering, some of them are HDR pictures.

Thats me out on the cliff!

…dreamy…

Roomies!

Colorado Springs Engage ’08

chrisandfaith — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:32:51 +0000

Man I love Colorado! Every time I go I just want to stay and never come back. I went out last week for Engage ’08. Engage is the conference for all the Alliance Youth Point-People. It basically means that I got to spend time with about 40 other Alliance youth pastors from every corner of the country. One of the nights was sweet because we got a free Trace Bundy concert! He was fun to meet and talk with and he was definitely an amazing guitarist! Much of our week was spent in the hotel conference center but we did get some “mountain” time!

A bunch of us went on a short hike up to the top of Mt. Herman which overlooked CO Springs. It was nice but the best part of the trip was the extra day Rick and I spent driving to the Dunes and to the Royal Gorge after the conference was over…

We drove south through Pueblo, west to the dunes, north to Salida and then east to Canon City and eventually Colorado Springs again. The dunes were amazing! I really can’t even describe the feeling because I’ve never been able to run around in mountains of sand before! It was almost surreal, like I was on a different planet! Still haven’t been able to make it out to see the Maroon Bells but that trip is coming! Click on any of the pictures to check out the whole album!

Middle Run Geocaching

chrisandfaith — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:54:26 +0000

So I had a few free hours this afternoon and decided to take a short hike and find some geocaches! Faith has already made fun of my pictures…she thinks it looks like I’m trying to sell GPS units. Anyway, not even two miles from our house is Middle Run. Its a county park with lots of mountain bike trails and little bridges. Its loaded with caches! The first one I found was way up in a tree…probably the most fun I’ve had geocaching ever! The second one was in a stump.