Mount Timpanogos Hike

Heather has a habit of choosing some epic hiking adventures to celebrate her August birthday. This year, she invited me and others (Megan came, plus some of Terrell's sibs) to hike Mount Timpanogos with her. Since her birthday was on a Sunday, and we were camping together the weekend after, she picked Saturday, August 28th for the outing. Even though that's our anniversary, but with Gregg's encouragement, I decided to join her (after all, it's kind of a normal situation to celebrate our anniversary not together). But as the day got closer, I was nervous about this hike. It is long! And uphill! How would my sore hip handle it? How would my feet handle it? I'm too old and out of shape for something like this! How early will I have to wake up? Gregg had hiked it before and said that even if I didn't make it to the top, it was still a beautiful hike, so I kept that in mind and decided that I'd enjoy it no matter how far I made it.

As for the waking up part, I decided that I'd probably get the most sleep if I slept at home and woke up early rather than trying to sleep on someone's couch a little bit closer. So I started practicing waking up earlier and earlier every day that week. On Saturday morning, I ended up waking up at 4:30 am, driving to Salt Lake to pick up Meg, and getting to the trailhead at 7, where we found H&T about a half mile down the road. It was a busy day on the mountain, to say the least!

We waited for Terrell's family to arrive then all walked up the road to the trailhead. Then we started climbing! It was a smoky day, as many have been this summer, but it was still beautiful to be in the mountains and fun to chat with my sisters while we hiked. And we saw mountain goats! We climbed and climbed and climbed and made it to the saddle, where we could barely see down into Provo because of all the smoke. Gregg had said the view was the same from there as it was from the top, and I was happy to just call that good and wait for the others to ascend. But peer pressure got me to keep trying (I can always turn around!) and eventually, slowly but surely, I made it all the way to the shack on the peak! Woo! What a feeling of accomplishment! It was a long, slow haul. But my hip actually felt great! 

My feet felt good, too, and I'm glad I decided to wear my (very old) hiking boots instead of my (also old, but not as old, but pretty worn out) tennis shoes. The boots were quite the comedy of errors, though! I had shoe-gooed their soles a couple of times before this hike, but there was just not much for the glue to adhere to anymore (the foam stuff was just disintegrating into dust . . . "sole dust"). Multiple times along the route, I had to stop and have my boots taped up (thanks to Mugs for bringing her athletic tape just in case!) so the heels wouldn't flap or fall off. It was suuuper dorky looking, but I just didn't care. It gave us something to laugh at, anyway. And as soon as I got home, those boots went into the garbage can!

Overall we were hiking for just under 10 hours! Terrell went the extra (half) mile and fetched the car from down the road to ferry us sisters back down to my car. Meg and I got dinner at Iceberg Drive In by her house, then I dropped her off. I pulled into my driveway sometime around 8:30 pm, tired, stiff, and happy. What a day, what a hike! Thanks to Heather for setting hard goals and inviting me to join her!

Up we go!

Goats!

Mama and baby right by the side of the trail.

Say hello to the dorkiest hiker on the mountain! But
I made it to the saddle (and beyond)!

Feelin' good at the saddle!

Group shot at the saddle.
Meg, Kim, Heather, Sheldon, Terrell, Elaine, Daniel.

Group shot in the shack - we all made it to the tippy top!

Another for good measure, without sunglasses.

Lots of inspirational quotes and names on the
shack, which looked like it had been repainted
multiple times over the years.

Smoky view.

I did it!

We did it!

Now we go down.

It was getting bad, ya'll!

A well-earned burger, fries and shake.
Oh, that tasted good!

I finally finished listening to this on my drive.
I had started it months ago in print, but found the dialect
too hard to read. Switching to audio was a great choice!

This is one I’ve had on my TBR for a long time, but I didn’t know much about it going in, other than it was a classic. I wouldn’t say it’s very plot driven (until the last two hours, then holy smokes, it gets chugging!), but I was rooting for Janie through the whole story of her life as an adult. Joyful, sad, terrifying, hopeful, courageous... it’s all of these.