Mt. Timpanogos

Evan every summer wants to do a fairly challenging hike.  Last summer it was Mt. Olympus, which was pretty brutal, and this year he had his eye on Timp.  And no not the cave where it's paved and you have chain smokers walking up in their cut off jeans and wife beaters.  With the slight detour of breaking my foot, I have been really trying hard to get myself in condition to even attempt this hike.  It's fairly long and pretty steep and I didn't want to be the reason we didn't make it to the top.  Sunday morning rolled around, and we met my Dad at 6am to get to the trail head by 7.  It was very very early needless to say.  Once we got there, I saw our first wildlife spotting, my Dad almost literally ran smack into it too.

This was right by the trailhead, but still in the forest area.

My Dad literally didn't see the moose, and walked right past it

This was the moose standing in the middle of the parking lot.  And yes Torre wouldn't stop barking at it.

Got as close as we felt safe!

 This started the excitement of the day, and we hadn't even started hiking.  We were making incredible time considering how freaking steep it was.  And the trail really was so pretty.  Plus since we got up so early, it wasn't hot at all very comfortable for the elevation gain we were doing over the rocks and gravel.  (As a side note, this trail wasn't dirt about 75% of it was creek bed rock almost, so those little and big rocks that are extremely sharp.)

A really pretty waterfall we found near the start.

This is the gravel/rocks we were walking over.

We made it about a mile away from the top and Torre was really starting to struggle going over some pretty big rocks, so we decided to call it a day and head back down.  While we were stopped before we headed down, there were mountain goats literally about 100 yards away.  They are so amazing looking, it definitely made the hike that much more worth it.

Meanwhile Torre was having a hay day in the snow we found, she really was pretty good the whole way up.  She would play in all the water we found and snow.  Had no complaints the way up with her.

On the way down however, we started having some real problems.  We got to the parts where Torre had to walk over more gravel and she would just lay down and refuse to walk over it.  Evan would have to carry her over the fairly sharp rocks and then we were literally pushing/dragging her down because we weren't understanding why she wouldn't walk.  At every water area we found we were dumping water on her so we thought it was impossible she was that hot.  Finally it came to a point when Evan had put her down that she shouldn't even move.  That's when panic hit both of us, and Evan told me I had to go find water.  I ran literally as fast as I could down the mountain to find anything, because we had ran out of water dumping it on her.  Once I found some I sprinted back up the mountain to get it to them and he met me in the middle carrying her again.  Hands down the scariest thing ever.  After we had dumped literally 6 water bottles on her and she drank about two bowls of water she started responding again and did make it down.  I've never felt like the worst dog owner ever, I honestly didn't feel like it was that hot.  And please whoever is reading this, don't call animal control on us.  We do love our dogs.  Torre was pretty done the rest of the day.  We bathed her and put her on the couch when we got home and that is where she has stayed.  She really was having a blast before that all happened, so it's sad our day ended on that note.

Overall it was a great hike and so pretty.  And yes we are going to do it again since we were about a mile away from the top.  And this next time no Torre.  And Evan was the super hero of the day for walking 14 miles, and still finding the energy to carry our dog for 2 miles at least.  I have no clue how he did it, I tried carrying her and I literally made it 20 feet.  Thanks for being the best like always.


Also this weekend we did a demo at Jordanelle.  Alta apparently loves paddle boarding and would swim out to Evan so he could pull her on with him.  Also the Howards joined at the end of the day to try them out, it was a great end to a great day.  Minus the area around Jordanelle being on fire, that part wasn't the greatest.  And my in-laws had to evacuate since they were camping there for the night.  So they had a rather hectic end to their day.  I'm just glad everyone made it out safely, minus Oliver had a rather eventful night when they got home, poor little boy.

The huge flames from the fire!

This picture cracks me up, she was loving the water.