At the top of the world

Or... at least at the top of Mount Timpanogas.

David and I attempted our second hike up Mount Timpanogas last weekend. Our first hike up Timp was last year with David's family.

 This year, we attempted it by ourselves.

David loves hiking and is helping me to enjoy it as well. After our hike last year, we made it a goal to try to hike Timp again this summer. We knew it might not happen because we were planning on starting a family soon but we were hoping it might work at the end of the summer—after I'd recovered a bit.

So, three months and two days after Leah was born, we hiked Timp again.

We hiked 18 miles in 10 1/2 hours.


It was really tough.


We started hiking at 4 a.m. so we needed flashlights to see where we were going. The sky was so clear and the stars were so bright. It was really pretty. And, as the sun rose up in the sky, we saw the vibrant colors of autumn all around us. It was absolutely gorgeous!

But I was also really tired. Last year, I worked out in the gym 3-4 times a week and was in pretty good shape. This year, I'd recently had a baby so I haven't really been out much and my exercise has gone down to basically walking a few miles each week. So I was in a lot of pain by the end.

David was so great. He coaxed me along the whole way. He even had to bribe me with the promise of Coldstone ice cream in order to get me to the top. But we did it. We hiked all 18 miles and lived to see another day. :-)

 Here we are at the top of the mountain. We were both exhausted by at this time and we still had 9 more miles to go. Luckily, it was all downhill hiking and the view from the top was incredible. Otherwise, I might have refused to go on.

Here is a picture of Utah County. Can you see the red trees on the mountain? Beautiful, huh? We also saw a bunch of mountain goats as well.

My plan is to get in better shape for our hike next year—yes, we are already planning our next hike to Timp. We're going to do a lot more little hikes to work our way up to this one and I'm going to take Leah out on walks a lot more. We're not sure if we'll be brave enough to take Leah next year. She may be too small still and it was great motivation going down the mountain knowing that the faster we walked, the sooner we'd see our baby girl again. Either way, it's going to be another great adventure!

Thanks again to Grandma Landeen (Meemaw) for taking care of Leah while we conquered this mountain!