Well I have kept all of you my faithful readers (I probably am refering to myself more than anyone else but that is beside the point) in suspense. It is time to end that suspense. I am alive. I haven't really written anything because I haven't done anything too cool, or really even cool enough to write about.
Monday however was labor day, so what should someone do to take a day off labor... if you said go hiking that is exactly right. I don't actually labor at work so I figured I better do the opposite of what I do there. So I hiked an amazingly hard mountain, with spectacular results.
My brother woke me up at the butt crack of dawn, 8:45 to have me let him in to my house. Dave Seeley showed up at about 9. Suzy sent me a text and said she was running late, not a problem, we just watched a tv program that Dave was on that he had me record on the ol DVR. Then we had to run some errands, get some food for lunch, and something to fix Dave's camel pack. Dan called Suzy and we decided to have him meet us up there.
The day got going right on time, that is to say two hours after the time we originally planned. None of us cared that we started hiking that late though. We started the hike at about 11:15, and our pace wasn't very strong. Suzy was feeling a little under the weather, so while we were on our second rest having only been hiking fifteen minutes, Dan caught up with us. Suzy felt completely better after the rest and we pushed on for another 15 minutes. We continued our slow ascent for some time. It was about this time that my brother Tyler just took off. At about this point I was feeling ill, note to self (and reader) don't ever have a bagel with cream cheese before a stressful hike. We started meeting people who had already made it to the top and were coming back down, little did we know that they were either in amazing shape or they had started at like 6 am. It was about this time that Dan just took off, and I was feeling pretty good again.
As we hiked we passed a father and his kids, he had a hammock, I figured he might be a cool guy. Granted I can't really pass judgement in the few seconds I saw him but as we were walking off he started yelling at one of his kids, about having spilled their soup for the third time. He probably was talking kindly to his kid until we passed, just his luck.
Anyways... we continued onward. A little after that Dave said, "Hey look at that snake... It's a rattle snake." There ahead of us on the trail was a 2-2.5 foot rattle snake. We all paused to look at the rattle snake crossing the trail, or I guess you could say we all paused so we wouldn't get bitten. It was about this time that we started to realize that we were slow. People were saying that it took them 2 hours to get to the saddle (You end up hiking between two mountains where they meet is the saddle. It is a good place to rest before the final ascent) We were already into the journey 3 hours. After about two more rest stops I decided to just go all out so I could conquer the freaking mountain. I just left Suzy and Dave behind.
The last section of the trail before the saddle almost killed me. I was barely moving, my steps were about a quarter of their normal length. This was due to the severe incline and how tired I already was. When I got to the top I walked to where my brother was sitting and essentially collapsed. He had been there for about an hour, he took a nap. I was amazed. Suzy got there about fifteen minutes after I did, Dave had decided to wait there for the rest of us to come back down. We waited there for about fifteen more minutes and Dan returned on his way back down.
I had already drank 2 liters of water on the way up, I had two more liters of liquid, one of water and one of kool aid. After talking to Dan for another fifteen minutes, Suzy, my brother and I began our final ascent. The final ascent was really cool, it was a rock scramble. It took us 45 min to get to the top. It was worth it!...
The view was amazing, It felt like you could look straight down on the whole valley. You could easily see from the point of the mountain, to as far north as you wanted really. I could see the grainery up by my parents house in Kaysville, beyond that the mountain by Ogden. Unfortunately I felt like crap. I needed food while I was at the saddle, so I had more of my bagel boy did I regret that choice. The top of the mountain was not very big and it dropped off very steeply to the north side it was really cool. Another cool thing was that the trees were starting to change colors, that just added to the effect. Not to mention I had climbed a freaking mountain. (One more reason to point to me during Gestures to indicate the word "man". LOL)
We proceded to descend the mountain, which was pretty uneventful except I felt like crap! I felt sick again, no bagel this time (I threw those off the top of the mountain!), I just felt sick. My brother beat all of us down the mountain by about an hour. He kicked our trash on this hike. We left at about 11:15, we got off the mountain at about 7:00. Over eight hours of hiking, on the internet it says it is a six hour hike. Needless to say I didn't do anything else that night.
But hey I climbed a freaking mountain what have you ever done? Lol.
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