Sunday, August 30, 2009

Lone Peak Aug 28



Amy, Josh and I took off Friday night about 6:00 for Lone Peak. We decided it would be fun to pack in and camp and then do the ascent the next morning. Our plan was to get up Jacobs Ladder to the top off the ridge and find a place to camp there in the meadow. It actually turned out just perfect. It took us 2.5-3 hours to get up the horrendously steep section. Jacobs Ladder just seems to go an go and never end. When your wearing a pack those steep steep sections hurt that much worse. Josh and Amy did awesome. Amy was our pacer and Josh and I just tried to keep up. We finally made it and quickly found a nice little spot in the trees to camp. We quickly set up camp and fixed ourselves some freeze dried stroganoff which tasted heavenly. We got a little fire going with the help of some pine gum and sat there for a few minutes and enjoyed the moment. It was peaceful and quiet. We could see the lights of the city...Utah county on one side and Salt Lake county on the other. It was nice to be away from all the hustle and bustle. We were all quite tired so we retired to bed and tried to get some sleep. Josh quickly crashed but Amy and I had trouble sleeping. I think the older you get the harder it is to sleep unless everything is just perfect. The ground was a bit hard and I didn't bring my down pillow up so I didn't sleep the greatest. I did get some good sleep from about 5:30 to 7:00. I had some really strange dreams at that time which I remember quite vividly. I dreamed I was mad because I woke up and found us in a condo instead of our tent in the woods. I also dreamed that the new tent we had just bought came with a tv mounted at the top. I was also mad about this because I just needed and wanted to get away from civilization and here I found myself in a condo and with a TV! Anyway, we arose and quickly got ourselves ready to head out for the summit. We had planned oatmeal for breakfast but we were nearly out of water and I wasn't 100% sure we would run into water on the way up. We had a bar or two and promised Josh we would have the oatmeal for lunch on our way back down if we found water. Josh loves oatmeal. I hadn't really had any water the night before and I was starting to feel a bit dehydrated. I was hoping that there was still some water running up there somewhere. This was my third time up this year and the previous times there was plenty of water...but this was late in the summer. Luckily about 30 minutes into our hike we found a small trickle and a tiny pond had formed. I whipped out the filter and we drank to our hearts content and filled our camel backs up and off we went feeling refreshed and energized. We pushed it to the top and arrived at the top at 10:00. So from where we camped to the summit took us about 2.5 hours. The last section, right before the summit there are some fairly exposed parts and Josh struggled a bit through that. I think Amy and I were a bit nervous as well, but he did great and conquered his fear. We hung out on the top for probably about half an hour. We met some nice people up there. One of them happened to be the legendary trail runner, Davy Crocket. He has completed multiple 100 mile runs and has done Timp something like 60 times. He is also famous for his five consecutive summits of Timp. I had read about him an it was nice to meet him and talk with him. I told him I was an ultra-marathon wanabee. Maybe someday I will attempt a 100, but its hard to comprehend right now. The way down was fairly uneventful. We got down to our tents quickly, took down camp and made Josh his oatmeal. We loaded up the packs and off we went back down that horrendously steep Jacobs Ladder. We pushed down it and I was really surprised how good Amy did. This was the section I knew would give her trouble because it is such a steep downhill and the downhill is what troubles her knees. With the aid of a few IB's she did awesome. In fact Josh and I had trouble keeping up with her. On the last half mile the car finally was within sight and Josh took off running. He passed several other hikers that had passed us earlier and beat Amy and I down by a few minutes. He's quite a kid and I think he had a good time. I just hope I don't burn him out at such a young age. My hope is that he will develop a love for the mountains like Amy and I have. Overall it was an awesome trip. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is up for a serious weekend adventure!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Timp July 31-1

Climbed Timp with the scouts. Overall a good trip. best part for me was that my boy Josh came with us and he did awesome. Not one complaint the whole time. He did better than a lot of the scouts. There were 13 boys and 7 adults and we all made it to the top. I think the boys were pretty beat by the end of the day but they made it.