The long way home

Stewart Falls up close

It's my own fault.
You'd think in 25 years of marriage I'd learn to be afraid when Marc says "It's fine. We'll be fine. It'll be an adventure!"
We were at the company party at Sundance.
Xactware had rented out the whole place for a day and we could do whatever we wanted...go horseback riding, mountain biking, ride the ski-lift up and down, picnic, enjoy the mountain streams, relax...
We put in for horseback rides and won.
So we spent a dusty hour riding Trigger and Gringo around the resort. That was nice even though Marc's trusty steed, Gringo, was intent on grazing and my sweet pony kept nosing up to the back end of the lead.
We came back a little saddlesore and hot and covered in trail dust.
So we jumped on the lift and rode all the way to the top from where we could see Stewart Falls off in the distance.
"We could hike over there," Marc suggested. "We have time."
"Um, how far it it? How do we get back?" I asked. "Is there a way down?"
"Of course there is," Marc snorted. "How hard can it be? And if it's too hard, we'll just come back here and ride the chair down."
He looked it up on his phone...only 1.5 miles over and 1.5 miles down. Sounded doable.
Well...I think the GPS calculates mileage differently than my feet do.
We hiked and hiked and dodged trees and rocks and slipped along on the same dust we'd just choked on earlier with Trigger and Gringo.
But it was shady and interesting and we did get to the falls where I slipped off my shoes and sat with my toes in the ice water.
We watched people with little kids and teenagers play on the rocks and in the waterfall.
Eventually it came time, though, to look for the way home.
I couldn't see any marked trails and we knew the way back the way we came would be harder than coming over.

Stewart Falls from Trigger's back

A guy told us to go "this way where it was steep for a bit and then all downhill" so off we went on the "Return to Sundance" trail.
Well, this trail fits the definition of eternity.
It wove through the bushes, over the desert sand, up the hill and around. It was in the shade here and there but mostly it was sunny and dry.
We climbed and slid and hauled butt for what I figure were miles more than 1.5 miles.
I started to gripe. I thanked Marc repeatedly for getting me into this and getting us lost.
My toes hurt from banging into the ends of my shoes. At one point my knees simply refused to handle another hurdle. I would have loved to abandon the ship and have called an ambulance but how could I tell them where we were?
We are all right now. Neither of us can walk or stand up without serious effort and pain but we're off the mountain and home.
Marc thinks we had a ball. He says he knew where we were at every moment.
I'm just not sure we didn't leave Utah for considerable lengths of time.