Hiking Timp

Jayce and I camped out for a night on Mt. Timpanogos on Friday. Jayce signed up to volunteer with a group called T.E.R.T. that sends people up to the top of Timp every weekend of the summer to help out in emergencies. This is Jayce's fifth time in the last seven years and my third time going with him and it's a great experience every time.

I just love the beauty of the mountains.

Our pictures definitely don't even do it justice. An iPhone can only capture so much.

We hiked up the Timpooneke Trail this time to switch it up, which means we hiked up the opposite side of the mountain than we normally do. It was beautiful and we were really glad we gave it a shot even though it's supposed to be a little bit longer. It's also apparently supposed to be less steep of a trail but there were plenty of times when I turned to Jayce and said, "Really? Less steep??" I mean, you're climbing a mountain either trail you take, so it's quite a feat either way you go.

We finally made it to this big valley towards the top. It was such a relief, but while we were taking a break I saw that the trail led to another big up hill stretch on scary rocks and wanted to cut my legs off. :)

Probably right when I was wishing I had a machete:

 

Those little white flowers were scattered throughout the valley we walked through and they were motivation. There's something simply beautiful about white flowers.

 Made it up the scary rock part!

This is gross and I'm sorry.

Jayce took this without my knowledge but it puts to rest anyone's ideas about girls sparkling instead of sweating. If that were the case I'd fit right in with the Cullens I guess, but no, I just sweat. A lot. #Terrygirlproblems

We got to the shelter in a little under four hours and it felt so good to have made it that far. The campsite is just another 15-ish minutes down from there. While up there we saw a bunch of mountain goats and I had to snap a picture for the boys. I knew Cameron would be excited to hear about it.

We even got service right by the shack up there, go figure! We took the chance to FaceTime in and see how Bammy, Grampy, and kids were doing. Technology is amazing.

We got to the camp site around 8:00 and it was a ghost town which was pretty eerie because there were supposed to be quite a few T.E.R.T. people spending the night with us and we thought we would have for sure been the last ones to arrive. Luckily there was a random family camping out nearby so I didn't feel too creeped out, but we weren't sure where the other volunteers were. We quickly set up the tent and got organized with the last of the light and then got working on dinner. Over the next hour and half or so the other volunteers filtered in and I let out a big "whew!" when the first one showed up. Everyone had started the hike later in the day.

The view from the campsite the next morning:

Saturday was pretty chilly up there and we were just hanging out by the shelter all day because that's a good stopping point for most hikers before they go to the summit. I was shivering even in my 5 layers, but it was really neat to talk to all the hikers that passed in and out. I met one woman who does this every year with her family. She had a FOUR-year-old that was summiting with the dad and other kids while she waited at the shelter.

There were a lot of couples, a lot of families, some small groups of families, and even several foreigners. There was even a guy who biked the entire thing up and down. That's pure crazy to me. And not allowed I'm pretty sure, but oh well. It was a busy day which made it fun to be up there. 

We also had fun volunteers to work with. Surprisingly we even semi-knew a couple of them from our time at BYU! Small world.

 Us at the shelter right before heading back down:

 On the hike down:

We passed through a bunch of aspens and had to take a picture for Jayce's dad who is a big fan.

It was beyond wonderful to go up there together and camp out and just have time away with each other after his four weeks in Las Vegas. I'm extremely grateful to my in-laws for taking the kids so that we could have that opportunity.

The hike up was really hard but I just kept thinking, "Hard things are always done one step at a time." That certainly rang true hiking up Timp because after the first thirty minutes my legs were already Jello and pretty much the rest of the time after that I had to tell myself to just keep moving one foot forward. I think I'll have to keep reminding myself about this throughout the year.