Saturday, September 27, 2008

12 Hours of Hiking = Lots of Pain

Well, we did it! We climbed Timp!!! Me, Kels, Mare, Jules, Ryan and Byron made it to the top. We started at 4:15 am at the Timpanookee trail head and hiked in the dark for the first three hours. The stars were so beautiful and clear without the city lights interfering! We took a small detour around 5 am and scaled a small (ok, so it wasn't that small) rock hill... compliments of the friends we made. Perhaps we can learn that we shouldn't follow the crowd... but they seemed to know what they were doing! Once we got back on the trail we made pretty good time and made it to the summit around 10:30. We had a nice break at the top, ate lunch, took some photos and began our trek down the mountain. Let me just say that the sheer cliffs consisting of sharp pieces of mountain were not exactly my favorite part. There's something about the possibility of sliding down the face of the mountain that just didn't seem all that appealing to me. Call me crazy.

We went down the Aspen Grove side, which was a little more difficult to navigate, but we did it, and had quite the time doing it. Once we reached the glacier, we had no other choice but to slide down it. I wish I would have recorded Kels and Mare sliding down... it was quite the sight! Kels went down first and lost her hiking stick in the process of trying not to spin out of control. Mare went next, but Kels wasn't off the glacier yet. So, as you can probably guess, they collided and began to spin/tumble/slide very quickly down the remainder of the glacier. They made it safely down, with only minor injuries. I was last to go down, so I attempted to use the information/skills I had learned from Kels and Mare's experience, and had a fairly safe ride down (minus the loss of my hiking stick... sorry, Dad.) After navigating the endless rock field and several switchbacks later, we made it to our cars.

So now we sit watching Emperor's New Groove with plans to just sit all night. We made lots of memories, had tons of fun and got to enjoy the beautiful fall colors!

The sunrise from the backside of Timp. It was absolutely beautiful!


We did it!!! Kels, Me, Mare, Jules, Ryan & Byron at the summit with Utah Valley below us!

Utah Valley from the summit


This is the glacier we slid down (part of it.) Notice the "small" rocks in the ice... those were not exactly fun to slide over...

4 comments:

Jan said...

This looks amazing. It's something I have always thought I'd like to do but never have done. You are awesome!

Kelsey M. said...

Yay for making it back alive! P.S. I busted up in laughter reading about Mare & I's journey down the ice...very well put. Ha love you!

maremee said...

Holy smokes Loges...so fun. I laughed out loud during the story.

How Sweet it is! said...

I am glad you all made it back off the mountain alive! At least hte weather was better than when you hiked it with your dad and Nicole!