Day 26: Mt. Timpanogos

Day 26 - A picture of something that means a lot to you.

So something that means a lot to me,

is the fact that Kevin likes to do fun outdoorsy things with me.

And today I thought I'd tell  you about the fun hike we went on 2 weekends ago.

{August 12-13}

The Mt. Timpooneke Hike!

This is a good one guys.

But WARNING:
It's a long one.
{totally funny and worth the read! however, i will not be offended if you skip to the punch line and check out the pics}

It all started back in July when Kevin's co-worker, Luke Wilson,

invited us to hike Mt. Timponogus with him and his wife.

We set the date in our calendar and I was SO EXCITED to do it!

The Thursday before we leave,

I find out that Luke's wife isn't going to be going down with us because of the kids {they have 2},

and that we are hiking with another friend of Luke's, Blake.

Okay,

bummer that I'm the only girl.

Oh well.

{Scarlet and Chantel = i WISH you had come!!!}

We 3 left Rexburg around 7pm,

expecting to get to Dustin's house {in P.G.} around 10:30.
But as we're cruising along,
we hit a detour.
That takes us clear the heck through Preston,
and through Logan as well!
{turns out two semi trucks collided and there was loooottts of flammable spillage on the road}

Anyways.
We got to Dustin's around 11:30 and hung out and talked with him for a while.
Our original plan was to start hiking at 4,
but I found out {through Chantel} that to hit the sunrise we needed to start hiking at 2.
We were all wide awake and too excited to sleep anyways.
Around 1:30 we met Blake at the base of the canyon and he got in with us.
It was 2 when we parked and started.

Please keep in mind:
1. it was 2am
2. it was very dark

Luke, who had hiked it before, led the way followed by Blake,
and then me,
and then Kevin.
We were bookin' it up that mountain.
We were proud of ourselves for packing good snacks and lots of water,
and for all having our little head lamps.
I do remember hearing Kevin behind me say{within 5 minutes of hiking}:
"Are we seriously going to hike it this fast the whole time?!"
Like I said:
We were haulin' A. up that mountainside.

So we hike and hike and hike.
As we're hiking,
I'm noticing that the trail we are on is really narrow.
Weird.
I thought that this "oh so sweet hike" would at least have a more distinguished and tromped out trail.
Seeing how crowded the parking lot was for 2am,
I thought that we'd have seen more people on the trail by now too.
This is a popular hike, right?
Huh.
And then all of a sudden we are walking through wild flowers and weeds taller than me.
Shouldn't these be cut down or something?
They're hitting me in the face and getting in my eyes!
But we're still on the trail,
so no big deal.
If other peeps can deal with this,
so can I.
{i was NOT about to play the "wimpy girl" card!}

We are still going strong,
and it's been about 2 hours.
We totally thought we'd make it to the top in record time.
And then we walk through a field.
And then another field.
All up on this mountain top, mind you.
They were beautiful.
But that's when Luke starts mentioning that he doesn't remember the fields,
and that he thought we would have been at a different spot by now.
Okay...
Luke, how long ago did you hike this?
In '04.
Wonderful.
And he might've hiked it from the other side {turns out there are two trails}.
We go a little further before stopping,
and Kevin yells out that he has 3g on his phone.
It's slow,
but better than nothing if we can find out where we are.
As we're huddled around Kevin's glowing phone,
we hear someone coming down the trail.
Oh good!
They can give us directions!
Nope,
turns out the poor sucker was a lone hiker,
and just as lost as we were.
He even thrust out his phone {that showed his GPS route} and said:
"This is where I've been! All over this freakin' mountain! And I can't find the summit!"

It was really hard not to laugh when I saw it because it there were huge loops and circles all over!
Poor dude!
He didn't stick around long,
mumbled something about going back to his car,
 and took off down the trail again.
He'd been hiking since 1 and it was now 4:30am.
As the guys are trying to read different articles on where we are,
I hear another group coming up on us.
Oh yay!
More help!
Not.
This group had 4 guys and one girl,
and all they had to say was that they had been following deer trails all over the mountain.
Deer trails!
And they kept saying how wet they were,
and how many mesquite bites they got.
Yea...that's why I ALWAYS bring skeeter spray with me.
And drench myself.
{I didn't get a single bite.}
This group had been going since midnight!

Kevin's phone wasn't much help.
He couldn't get it to keep a clear signal.
But we all agreed that we were on the WRONG TRAIL,
and that we should turn around and hike back to where we saw it fork off.
Maybe that's where we went wrong.

Going down always is faster than going up.
We got back to our "supposed mistake spot" and picked the trail we thought was the "right one".
30 minutes into that one the trees thinned out and we could see more,
because it was also getting lighter now too.

At that moment we also looked to our left.

Low and behold,

there we saw a trail of lights zig-zagging up the OTHER mountainside.

Oh shoot.

That's probably Mt. Timponogus.

The mountain we've been thinking we've been climbing.

Noooooooooooo.
......

Yes.
We climbed back down the WRONG mountain,
and then hiked right back up the REAL one.
When we got back to the trail head,
we saw that 10 feet to the right {we had veered LEFT} was another big sign that said:
 MT. TIMPOONEKE TRAIL
Complete with a huge gazebo type thing.
We felt pretty silly that we hadn't seen it {remember it was DARK!}.
 And i could totally relate this to the gospel right now,
but that's for another post.

This is us after climbing down the wrong mountain,
about to go up the RIGHT one.
We were crackin' up over everything that was said,
and our stomachs hurt from laughing.
We all felt a little looney.



We officially started up Mt. Timponogus at 6:30.
Oh yea,
and my camera died and I was ticked.
So that's why there aren't a lot MORE pics.
These are what we got from Luke and Blake:







This waterfall was beautiful.
If you look close,
you'll see there is actually a trail that goes directly behind/under it!






There were lots of streams and muddy spots that made it exciting:






As we were going up,
lots of peeps were already coming down.
We would ask them:
"Did you summit?"
And they all said:
"No, it's real sketchy and there's huge glaciers that make it pretty scary."
We passed only 2 people that had made it to the tippy top,
and they were carrying ice picks.
Lame.



We cut a lot of time off by hiking straight up this glacier.
It was hard,
but worth it.
The sun came out when we were climbing it,
and then it got real hot.



At one point we had to walk over this.
Crazy huh?
I wouldn't want to be standing on top when it collapses!





On the way back down,
to cut off more time,
we slid down a steeper part of the glacer.
There was a pretty defined trail going down,
but it was kinda scary because we'd get going so fast!
And we didn't have gloves,
so our hands -which were helping us slow down- were FREEZING.
*Kevin would like me to add in here,
that he did NOT slide down on his bum OR get his hands wet at all.
He would like everyone to know that he "surfed" down on his feet.
Like a pro.*



Haha!
I think this was at the end of all the sliding,
and I was saying something about how numb my hands were.
My face is pretty nast though,
that's for sure!



We got 3/4 of the way up and were pretty pooped,
but proud of ourselves for climbing as much as we did.
We got back down at 10:30.
So a total of 8 1/2 hours of hiking.
Yea baby!
Kevin kept saying:
"If feels like I just got beat up."
Our bodies were pretty tired and our feet were sore from walking!



But we did it!

The End.