Chase and Brielle Hike Timp!

I have talked for years about hiking Timpanogos with Brielle for years.  Well the time arrived.  We picked August 29th 2019 to be our summit day.  It has been a long time since I have hiked Timp. I knew it was going to be a long hard day, well it turned out to be way longer and harder than I ever expected, and Brielle crushed it....

We got a late start up the mountain.  We decided it was best to sleep in and be well rested for our hike.

We passed many waterfalls on our way up.  we would often stop and drink out of them.

We packed food and always enjoyed stopping to fuel our bodies up.  It was a hot day and it is a steep trail.  We brought a water filter so we could keep our water bottles full.

One of the small waterfalls that we stopped and filled our water bottles up at.

It was the end of August but there was plenty of snow still up on Timp. Brielle and I climbed in this little snow cave and drank the the water melting off it.  It cooled us down and the water was cold and delicious..

Up top the meadows were beautiful with all of the wild flowers.

Brielle taking a break, eating her favorite treat "Oreos." I love that little cookie face!!

Our first encounter with the Mountain Goats was by emerald lake and the glacier.  We stopped at took a quick pick on our way up.  It was getting later and I tried to turn Brielle around here and go back down, but she was determined to summit no matter what!

Brielle named this section the "Snow tsunami field". We had fun slipping and sliding through the snow.  

She powered through the rock fields.  after emerald lake I told her no more breaks until we get up top because it was getting late.  She just kept climbing like a little mountain goat.

Looking back at "Tsunami snow and rock fields" we had just passed through.  Brielle is on a steep part here.  The mountain is so big and majestic, and you climb it one step at a time..

Made it up on the saddle to the west facing face of the mountain.  it was hot and windy on this side.  It was the final push to the summit.

Brielle named this part of the trail "Hells Road" She said it was hot and miserable just like hell!!  She was tired and hot but she kept moving one foot in front of the other..

The Summit!!  11,749 feet above sea level.

She signed her name into history.  There are not many 10 year olds that have made this hike from the Aspen grove side.

We rested and fueled our bodies for the long hike down.  "Hells Road" was still hell and the way down.

We stopped and emerald Lake on the way down.  It was beautiful and nobody was around.  We decided to take a swim to cool us off and pump us up for the rest of the hike down.  the water Wass so cold it felt like it froze my eyeballs into solid ice :)

On the way down it was getting late. In this picture it is around 7:45 pm.  Nobody else was still this high on the mountain.  The mountain goats came off the cliffs and came down into the meadows to feed.  We walked through droves of Mountain Goats on our way down, we had so much fun watching them watch us.  Brielle also stopped and picked some wild flowers for her Mom in the meadows, it was beautiful, peaceful, and an experience we will never forget.   After this picture we went into hustle mode.  It was getting dark and we had a lot of steep switch backs to get through that can be dangerous in the daytime and horrifying in the dark night.  We were both tired but we decided no breaks.  We talked about pioneers, soldiers, and POWS that had to do impossible things, this helped us keep going.  Well it got dark, real dark, no moon with clouds and lightning all around us.  Brielle had a head lamp and I used my iPhones flash light.   We watched the lightning all around us and prayed it would not start raining.  Our legs ached, it was hard to know how far down we were because we could not see other than what our lights showed us on the paths.  Sometimes our eyes would play tricks on us and we would think we saw small creatures chasing us and we would scream!  All we wanted was to get off that mountain.  At 11:00 PM we hit the final field before our car.  We would scream out because we were so happy to get off of our feet that hurt so much.  Brielle crawled in back of the car and fell asleep.  I started down the canyon and after about three miles it started raining on the car.  We got lucky!!  We had fun, and maybe one day we will do it again but not any time soon....