Timpanogos Summit

Yesterday Grandpa, Grandma, Joe, Melanie and Greg took a hike to the summit of Mount Timpanogos. It took us seven hours exactly to cover the 8.5 miles and over 6,000 feet of vertical rise. It was the most difficult physical thing I have ever done in my life. We all made it though and it was certainly a grand view from up there. I guess you might say tha we reached a high point in our lives. Below is a photo of the objective taken from a meadow somewhere in the middle of the hike. This is one of the many brutal parts of the climb. We were climbing giant stones going almost straight up. It was so exhausting and I thought my heart was going to burst before we made it.

We had to stop and rest about every 25 minutes. One of the best rest stops was at "Scout Falls".
When we finally made it to the "Saddle", which is only two hours from the top, there were beautiful mountain goats there to greet us. we counted at least 30 of them in the area.

Grandma was the first in our party to touch the little building on the summit. She totally amazed me with her grit and determination. I know it was hard and painful for her but she never complained and just kept going.

All the great mountaineers.
The view from the top.

Coming back down, we had to negotiate a very steep rocky slope...

...then we slid down a huge snow field. It was a butt freezing experience.

After that we just walked the rest of the way down.