About this time of year every year, my friend Jim Doolittle gets an itch to go hiking. So he spent weeks planning a "Big Hike", and got about 25-30 other friends to go along.

The plan was to rendezvous at the Gardner's house at about noon, take a couple vans and other assorted vehicles south of town, and then hike to a peak locally called Soldier's Cap. The hike would be about 2 miles, and should only take an hour or so both ways. Yeah right.

As it runs out, we had collected quite a few people, including some genteel ladies. It took at least 45 minutes to get to the top, and then everyone who made it there (some people went just part way) rested a while and yakked.

Here is where we started; the flat rock in the top right was our target.

On the way up, we saw an incredible sight. A group of wild horses (which still exist here in Idaho) went right past us. It was breathtaking. We were climbing up in a small valley between two ridges, and the horses came in over the top, stood a while, and then galloped past us. I had forgotten my camera back at the van, but three other friends hadn't. I don't have their pictures yet, but I will post them as soon as I can.

At the top of Soldier's Cap, my younger brother stumbled onto a geocache. We made an entry in the logbook, and my bother exchanged a pair of tweezers for some cheap earbuds. He also found a glass flask with a paper in it dated 1997, which he brought back home, and received a lecture about from Dad. I made some good contacts on the small ham radio I had carried up, and then it looked like it was going to rain.

We hurried down the mountain, and then a friend who works for the newspaper (and has a very nice camera) wanted to take a group shot. His camera has a little infrared remote, which I thought was pretty cool. We got everybody lined up, and then noticed that an 8 year old boy was missing. Well, we took a quick survey and found that he had indeed made it to the top, but nobody was sure they had seen him come back.

We started searching the surrounding vehicles and bushes, and when he wasn't found in about 10 minutes a large-scale search was organized. I was among the people who didn't have heavy clothing, and it was getting colder, so I stayed back at the parking area. Three other vehicles took groups up the trails and sent them sweeping from the top back down. The group in my van called, looked and prayed.

After about 2 hours of searching, Dad called the sheriff's office to notify them that we might need a search party. While he was on the phone, we got a radio call from a group saying that they had found Tom and were coming back. He had gotten separated from his group and wandered around on the wrong side of the hill.

It then took another hour to round up all the searchers and get them back to our "base" at the large (by comparison) dirt road. So we ended up getting back much later than expected, but safe and sound. We came home, got rid of all the ticks, ate supper, and I am am now going to bed.