On Top of the World (Or at least Utah Valley)

See this mountain? This is Mount Timpanogos. To me it represents home. Whenever I leave to go anywhere, as soon as I get a glimpse of this mountain, I take a big sigh and think to myself, "I am home."
And now when I look at it, I can say, "My whole family has been to the top of it."
I love the fall. It's my favorite time of the year. I love the smell of the air, the golden tinge of the sunlight, and the colors. Brad wanted to hike to the top of Timpanogos with his family. I hadn't been up to the top in over 20 years ( I'll save that story for another time). So our party of 12 set out for the Timpanoeke trailhead. Little did we know that the weekend of the 24th was free entrance into National Parks and Monuements, sooo....we had some company.
Fourteen miles...the hike was fourteen miles. Good thing the it was a beautiful day and the scenery spectacular.

It was a beautiful hike. I have never really been good at hiking uphill and when a mountain peak is 11,749 feet, there is going to be a LOT of uphill hiking. Luckily the scenery helped. We all hiked at a different pace, which meant once again, I was manning the end of the party (you know, to protect my family from predators, which cull the herd by picking off the old and infirm). We made it up to the saddle and enjoyed a moment together before we proceeded up to the summit.

Hunter, Rachel and Emma. I guess the food was good. Have you noticed how delicious food tastes on a long hike?

Emma, Derek and Trent

Caleb and Max

Caroline and Trent

That last bit to the summit is an exercise of mind over matter. I kept chanting to myself, "Don't worry about the heights, look where you are stepping, keep moving and don't give up! Oh, and why is it that the kids seem to be expending so much less effort than me?"

We made it up to the top! What a view, it was the first time that Rachel, Emma and Caleb had been to the top of any mountain and they are incredible hikers.

Don't I look happy?

After spending some time at the top, we started back down. Rachel was anxious because she had another (!) homecoming dance she was asked to. She and Emma basically ran all the way down. She was still two hours late to her date but luckily, she had her phone with her so she could tell her date what was going on throughout the day so he didn't think that she was standing him up. Brad, Derek and the boys did their best to keep up with them so there would be a car for them to take Rachel back home. Oh to be young and fit again!

Trent and Caroline was somewhere in the middle of the party and I had the company of this wonderful man.

I'm so glad that he stayed with me and kept me company, my feet hurt and I had to keep encouraging myself to take one more step. We made it to the trail head 90 minutes behind Rachel and Emma. Both of my big toenails are a deep shade of purple but it was worth it.

Lake of The Crags

"You are surrounded by small perpendicular peaks that are a beautiful miniature of the giganitc peaks found in other areas of the Tetons. Around you on all sides are these perpendicular spires and peaks and the area is studded with snow fields. This area has one of the most beautiful mountain views in the Tetons, lacking the grandeur of the spectacular great peaks but in many ways surpassing them all in beauty. This is a place that has always affected me as a sort of Shan-gri-la, where I like to sit and think and contempate the solitude and beauties of nature."
~Paul Petzoldt

You said it, Paul.

One morning, our gang of seven set off for the Lake of the Crags. Brad went there in 1993 and Dan has been a couple of times as well. I do not know of any human being that can hike as well as these two. So when they suggested that we go up there, I knew that we had crossed a threshold with my children - they are now considered hard core hikers.

This is Brad in 1993. He went to Lake of the Crags with my brother, Ed.

Wood and Susan kindly offered to watch Lucy, Kate and Sadie for the day so that Abby could come too. We started out at String Lake. There will be no Jenny Lake Ferry for us-- because ferries are for wusses. The trail to Hanging Canyons isn't a maintained trail so we relied on Dan and Brad's memories as to where to get off the main trail.

Steep. Have I mentioned how steep the trail is? There is a 2800 foot elevation change in two miles. I told everyone before we went on the hike that I'm a slow hiker, especially uphill. I did not (or maybe I did, depending on how you look at it) disappoint.

It got to the point that they had to stop every once in awhile to let me catch up to them. Rachel later told me that she was glad I made it necessary for them to stop periodically, as Dan sets a pace that a mountain goat would have a hard time keeping up with. Brad stayed behind to make sure I was still moving. I figure I was lagging behind for a purpose. You see, when predators hunt, who do they go after? The weak, the sick and the old; thus culling the herd so that the group in general remain healthy. I was ony protecting my hiking buddies. You are welcome.

Rams Head Lake. Just a hop, skip and a scramble away from Lake of the Crags.

Lake of the Crags. All together now....oooh, aaaah. We took a well deserved rest and soaked in the surroundings.

The water was painfully cold, as is evidenced by the chunks of snow floating on it. But we must keep smiling, right?

We tried to take a family picture. So which one should we use for our Christmas picture this year?

This is my choice.

The hike down was a bit easier for me but I learned an important lesson, I will not wear my hiking sandals for another long hike again. Rocks kept getting in my shoes and my feet got really cold on the snowfields. Look at us, we are glissading! (That means sliding down a snowfield while trying to avoid bruising your body and your dignity.)

 We made it to String Lake to find that Grammie and Grampa had taken the kids to play in the water. It was a good day, but we all felt it the next morning.Dan told me that the kids kept up with him the entire time with Caleb jumping from boulder to boulder and the girls not even breaking a sweat.  Brad calculated that the girls and I hiked about 24 miles on this trip and he and Caleb logged in 50. Yup, I guess that means we are a hiking family.
I think the difficulty of the journey made the destination that much more beautiful. Life is funny that way.

We Could Have Been Eaten By a Bear...

...but we weren't. And that's good.

We made one more trip for the season to The Tetons and Yellowstone. I know what you're thinking, "What? You went there again? Don't you get tired of doing the same thing so many times?"

The answer is yes and no.

Yes, we went there again. No, we aren't doing the same thing again. There were several things that we did that we haven't done before or don't do very often:

1. We went on a few hikes that we had never been to before.
2. We got to spend quality time with Dan, Abby and their cute girls.
3. We got to hang out with Derek and Laura and family for part of the time. (Okay, we do that a lot, but we always enjoy it.)
4. We hiked with Trent and Caroline. (Which we don't do very often and we enoy it.)
5. Rachel drove in the National Parks, and did a really good job doing it.
6. Brad, Dan and the kids went for a nighttime hike to Huckleberry Hotspring and had a soak in the light of the full moon and the company of a bullfrog. I had a nice quiet time in the cabin by my own self.
7. The girls and I drove home and left Brad and Caleb there (they came home with Wood and Derek).
8. Rachel, Emma and Caleb went on their first 11 mile hike up into the Tetons.

Instead of just hiking to the lakes we usually sample, Brad found some places that we had never been to before. Here we are at the Lower Schwabacher Landing of the Snake River. It was a thoroughly pleasant walk by and through the Snake River. We even got to see a snake swimming in the Snake River. Huh, we've never seen that before.

We got to hike to Emma Matilda Lake with Trent and Caroline, Wood and Dan and Abby (and all kidlets that are usually connected to Dan or Abby).

Heh, it looks like Kate is putting something on top of that pine tree.

(Not the actual bear we encountered. This photo was taken with a telephoto lens from the safety of the car.)

We hiked to Phelps Lake with the intention of swimming and jumping off a boulder into the cold water. Instead, we got cloudy, windy weather and a bear that followed us along part of the trail. It was minding its own business, just rooting around rotten logs for tasty grubs. But we Millers have a deep respect for nature and anything that might possibly rip one to shreds so let's just say having a bear saunter within 10 yard of us made us uneasy. At one point we climbed up on the boulder we would have used to jump into the lake and just watched it. Kate and Lucy were scared of the bear until I named it StrawBEARY Shortcake. While we were on the boulder, we broke out our lunch of sushi and turkey sandwiches.

In retrospect, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

But we made it out unscathed and knowing we now have a cool story to tell about a bear encounter.

We went swimming/wading in Moose Falls in Yellowstone. Lucy and I had an adventure where we were stuck out in the middle of the river because I was too wimpy to get my clothes wet.

We sat out on rocks and pondered nothing in particular.

At one point, Dan and Abby headed back to California and Wood, Susan and we hiked along the Howard Eaton Trail that follows the Yellowstone River. The adults thought it was a beautiful hike but Rach, Em and Cabes thought it was boring.

It was only because the day before, we hiked to Lake of the Crags, which is just a smidge more challenging.

But I'll save the descriptions of that hike for another day.

I love it up here.