Back in June, our friends Dan and Megan Miller invited us along for a hike up Mt Timpanogos. The more we looked into it, the more we realized we would not be hiking up to the top. This was mostly on account of statements like "Do not attempt to reach the summit without an ice axe and crampons" and "Hike at your own risk" and "There may be ice covering parts of the trail." Those statements made us a little nervous. Especially since the Millers were bringing along 4 month old Hazel. The decision was made that we would go and hike as far as we felt safe. So off we went.
We took stops along the way. I found the best rocks. The first part of the hike was fantastic because it was sooooo green! It reminded me of home. Parts of the trail were paved and parts had plants growing over most of it. It was neat. Then we started hitting the waterfalls.
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| Jonathan made his own hat from a handkerchief. |
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| Dan, Megan and little Hazel. |
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| Dan went down to the waterfall. It was super cold water. |
After the first bit of the hike had successfully hungered me, we stopped for lunch at this wonderful spot. Hazel loved her view. We made friends with a chipmunk after Dan fed him a nut. There was also a hummingbird nearby. He was an interesting fellow. He would fly way up high in the air, hover there for a minute or two and then dove bomb towards the ground. He was a little bit away, so we couldn't tell if he was attacking or trying to impress another bird or what. It was crazy. Anyway, it was a great lunch of sandwich, trail mix, crackers and lots of water.
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| Lunch time view. |
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| This view looked back along the way we had been hiking all day. |
We continued on our way. We started to see less and less green. No more bushes, or trees. They were replaced with rocks. We followed the rocky trail and in the distance could see huge patches of snow that covered the trail. There was a set of footprints across, so we dug our feet in and went across. It was super steep and slippery. There were about 5 altogether that we crossed. We sent Jonathan in first to make the spots bigger for us to step in and we started using sticks as ice picks.
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| The initial snow crossing. |
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| Victory! |
Then we found our last group of waterfalls for the day. Dan and Megan kept going up to see how high they could go. But we decided to call it a day, so we looked at the waterfalls instead.
Jonathan went down to touch it. He soon realized that the water does not come in one nice stream, but it splashes down in an unpredictable way. He got pretty wet with the freezing water.
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| How many waterfalls do you see? |
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| Cheese! |
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| Sliding down the rocky terrain. It was much steeper than it appears. |
On the way back, at one of our stops we found this rock with a sweet shell fossil in it. It is crazy to me to find water fossils in an unexpected spot. I know that there used to be a huge lake and that the world didn't look like it does now, but it still blows my mind.
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| Shell close-up. |
We made it part way up and back down safely. It was an exhausting but fun day. On the way back, a snake sped across the path at lightening speed. I jumped back at lightening speed. Jonathan didn't see it at all, it was so fast. It was a harmless little one. When we got back to the car, we had to wait a little bit for Dan and Megan- since they had gone further up. While we waited at picnic tables, we took off our shoes and ate some more snacks. There were some chipmunks in the area so we sat really still to see how close they would come. Turns out- pretty close. One of them almost tried to nibble on Jonathan's toe! Hahahaha. Then some squirrels came out and they yelled at the chipmunks. We had some good times with nature on our expedition. Maybe next time we'll hike to the top.
