This picture was taken at the saddle, so it's not in order with the rest of the pictures, but it's my favorite picture so I'm putting it up top.
Monday morning, August 3rd, we woke up at 3am, were on the road by 330am, parked by 430, and were on the trailhead by 445am to begin our hike to Mt Timpanogos. It was also my brother Luis' 49th birthday; a great way to celebrate!
I am so glad we started early because it got hot on our way back down the moutain. We used headlamps for about the first hour, and then we could see well enough without them.
The wildflowers were beautiful. We also saw some wildlife: deer, moutain goats, chipmunks and while we were in the dark, we heard noise in the bushes, what sounded like a big animal near, and then we heard a loud snort, kinda like a horse, though I think it was a moose, so we picked up our pace :).
I was so impressed with our 14 year old boys. They did great! Even when we got to the steep parts at near the top of the mountain, they just kept truckin'.
Such beautiful views throughout the entire hike! Though it doesn't have much shade, so beginning in the early morning is important. We were able to get to the saddle before the sun was fully out, and by that point it's cooler up there so it was fine until we were on our way back down.
The one big downside to this hike are there are no restrooms/portapotties and it takes about 8 hours to hike. This may not be a big deal to a guy, but it is to this girl.
It's a little scary at the top, lots of rock, some of which is loose, and very steep and high up. But we were careful.
From top to bottom it was over 14 miles.
That night we celebrated Luis' birthday (again as we'd also had a raspberry bundt cake the night before) with ice cream sundaes.
Tuesday morning we went on a family hike to Gloria Falls. It's about 2.3 miles round trip and the falls are amazing. There are currently no signs to get to this hike, but you follow the trail signs to Red Pine Lake and after about a mile, immediately after crossing a narrow bridge, you take a sharp left into a wooded area that doesn't look a whole lot like a trail and fall the water to the falls.
Pepa and Danny took off that evening, and then Luis and Fred's family took off the following morning. Becca's family took off Monday morning. It was a great family reunion. We missed having mom and dad there; it was the first time without them both. We talked about them and looked through pictures and other items that had been stored in large tupperware's for the past several months.
