Top of Timp

Rachel and I decided to climb Mt. Timpanogos rather last minute.  We have talked about doing it for a while but it was either too hot, too cold, or we didn't have time.  This last weekend we decided to squeeze it in and headed up to begin in the afternoon on Saturday.

We started hiking at about 2:30 pm and made it to the top at sunset (about 8:00 pm).  It was crazy hard (especially for me since I couldn't seem to catch my breath once we got near the top) but it was spectacular.  We started back down pretty much immediately because it was so, so cold on the top and it was getting dark fast.  We hiked down, stopping to eat a little dinner on the way.  We had head lamps which was good since it turns out a full moon really doesn't light up the ground very well.  We did see a couple of people heading up even after we got to the top and it was already dark.  As we were hiking down, we passed a few people who were heading up hoping to see the sunrise.   We even met one guy who was heading up for the 3rd time that day.  Yikes!!  We actually did see him earlier up near the top when he was coming down.  We asked him why he was doing it for the 3rd time and he said just to see if he could.

The whole hike was 14 miles and it took us about 11 hours to do it.  We got back to our car at 1:30 am.  By that time David was home calling search and rescue to come find us.  Really.  He was very worried about us and since we didn't have cell coverage we couldn't call him to tell him it was just taking us a long time due to the darkness and our exhaustion.  As soon as we drove out of the canyon we were able to call him so the search and rescue team didn't actually have to start searching.  Phew!

All in all, here are the words I would use to describe our hiking experience:

Great

Hard

Amazing

Long

Worth it (at least once)

Hard

Awesome

Steep

Crazy

Exhilarating

And did I say hard?   Hahahaha

I'm so glad I did it even though my legs are still hurting (it's Monday now) and I only have one mountain left to climb on my bucket list.....Donahue Pass in Yosemite.  Next summer!!!

 Just getting started

 The view of Utah Lake from the saddle before he headed up to the summit.  Notice all the red leaves in the foreground.  It was so beautiful!!

We still needed to climb to the top of that peak behind Rachel.  She did great.  I struggled.  The air was thin and my body was tired but she encouraged me on and we made it!!!

 The Top!!

Duck Lake/Island Lake

About a week before Labor Day Weekend, we decided to go on a backpacking trip up in the Uintas at the request of Rachel.  We quickly planned and gathered our gear and were ready to leave Saturday morning.  Friday afternoon Rachel ended up in the dentist office with a tooth ache.  It looked like she would need a root canal (which she got this morning) but there wasn't an abscess... yet.  The dentist prescribed antibiotics and pain killers and we headed up to the Uintas as planned on Saturday morning.

The Crystal Lake trail head parking lot was packed to overflowing and there were people everywhere.  That wasn't a good sign since I was looking to get away from all the people.  It turned out to be great though.  Most were day hikers and only went to the first lake.  We kept going past about 4 or 5 lakes to Duck Lake where there were only a couple of other people.  It was about 3 1/2 miles and we had a great camp site.

The next day we left camp set up and hiked about 1 1/2 miles to Island Lake.  It was really pretty and it had some big cliffs that are well-known for jumping off of into the lake.  It was really cold and windy though so we passed on the cliff jumping.  Maybe we'll come back in the middle of the summer when it's warmer.

The funniest thing about our trip was the herd of cattle that seemed to be roaming around Duck Lake.  They mostly left us alone but the first morning they all gathered around our camp site.  They mooed very loudly and seemed to want to join us.  We finally had to herd them away so they wouldn't actually walk on our tents.  Hahaha

We enjoyed the campfire and the hikes.  We did lots of rock skipping and rock throwing into the lake which is always fun.  David has a nice hammock to sleep in so he was comfortable (for the first time in a long time on a hike).  We didn't hike out the same way we went in so we got to see some different scenery.  Overall, it was a great weekend trip and I loved the solitude of being up and away from people.  I also enjoyed the pine forest shower as we hiked.  Did you know that is a real thing?  Walking through a pine forest greatly relieves stress and anxiety and they call it a pine forest shower or pine forest bathing.

Hope you enjoy the slide show.

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