Brady and I hiked Mt. Timp on Saturday. I had tried to get a larger group of people together to do it, but no one else ended up coming when it came time to go. We left Provo at midnight and started on the trail above Aspen Grove at 12:40. As we hiked I decided to come up with various epithets for the areas you hike through. We reached the meadow of serenity by about 3:30. Once you're to the other side of the meadow, past Emerald Lake and the shelter you enter into the rock field of eternal damnation. It seems to never end, the path is impossible to find in the dark, there are no comfortable places to rest, and your feet get sore from stepping on rocks and only rocks, so the name was fitting to us. At one point my flashlight caught a white four-legged figure moving about which startled me for a moment even though it was still a ways away. When the sun came up we found that there were flocks (word choice?) of mountain goats that wander about, sadly I forgot to get a picture. We finished that at 4:40.
Then you have to climb the hill of death. It's an extremely steep strip of mostly dirt that connects you to the trail leading to the saddle. After already hiking for 4 hours the hill of death is rough. We got up to the saddle and then pushed right on to the summit. We reached the summit around 5:50 and hunkered down under the East ledge to get out of the wind. We still had an hour to wait for sunrise, but the sky was just starting to lighten and change colors so we got to enjoy the full effect. I actually fell asleep for about 10 minutes while waiting.

Here's sunrise:

The people behind Brady to his right are sitting on the ledge of the summit, directly in the wind. It's much colder right where they are. Where Brady and I are is just below that ledge and the wind goes over us, that's the recommended place to sit for sunrise.

We then started down and took an hour break at Emerald Lake. We got back to the car at about noon. So, in total it was a 11.5 hour hike, 5 hours up, 4 hours down and the rest of the time spent at the top and Emerald Lake.

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Now for something completely different:

I was at Panda Express for lunch/dinner with Megan, Chad, and Mollie yesterday afternoon. I was the only one that got a fortune cookie with an actual fortune. I guess even the Chinese wanted me to go to FHE that night, or something.... :

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