September hike

-A couple weeks ago we attempted to hike Mt. Timpanogos as an Elders Quorum. Somehow the word got spread to the Deacons Quorum, also including a 11 year old kid from primary. So needless to say, we did not make it to the top, and instead found ourselves digging deep into our motivational speech pockets to get a few of these kids off the mountain. It was a slow pace, with numerous breaks. About 4 hours into the hike, I asked to check the backpack of the 11 year old. I discovered two 2 liters of water and a candy stash. We took a 2 liter from him, and away he went. Then later, he had his sugar crash. Once we got real food in him and plenty of water, he finally pushed thru and finished strong. Another kid was just extremely tired and claimed he could not walk another step, but we managed to finish the last three miles on this mentality. It was an extremely frustrating hike with our end goal still not met.

-So, on Sept. 11th, 2010, Mark(E.Q. president) and I decided to hike Mt. Timpanogos by ourselves. We purposely did not invite anyone else(from the ward), to avoid word getting spread to a less than capable kid. So I picked him up at 4 am and we hit the trail around 4:45 am. It was a little chilly, but we made it to the top(7 miles) in 3 hours 50 minutes. Along the way we saw, some herds of Mountain goats and at one point were within 10 feet of a couple who were ramming their heads together. It was so awesome. I've wanted to hike Timp for several years and can't believe I put this off for so long. It was an incredible site with spectacular views. Next time, I will bring my good camera to take some better pictures. On our hike down, we made it in 2 hours 47 minutes. We estimated a roundtrip of 8 hours from reviews we read online. So to do the hike in 6 hours 37 minutes was awesome. I took my GPS watch and tracked our elevation, distance and time. It was a great tool to have to gauge how much distance we had left to get to the top or to the bottom.

-When we reached the saddle, which is a mile from the shack at the top. My watch said it was about 11.041 feet. By the time we got to the top, it was 11,749 feet. It was an obvious difference in air thickness. I wouldn't say it was hard to breathe, but I could tell a difference. For me, I could also feel my heart working harder, and due to my current condition(ablation surgery in a couple days), we decided to not stay up there too long. And besides, Luke had a soccer game at 2 pm that I was hoping to get back in time to watch. It was an awesome trip.

Shack on top of Timp...

Emerald Lake(nicknamed Glacier lake)...

Views of Utah County...