Mtn. Timpanogos

Many, many years ago, my older brother Dan had taken me and my younger siblings Tim and Tana up the Timpanogos trail to Emerald Lake.  I don't remember much, such as how terrible my feet must have felt afterward, only that I had a fun time with my family and how cool it was at the top.

My phone pics won't be much better then 1990's pics
 I was about 12-14 yrs old, so I wanted to take Jarom and Tarin (others weren't interested or not strong enough yet).  I hoped to create fun memories and accomplishment with them.  My nephews Denham and Brenin are in town for a few more days and hoped they could make the climb (altitude is a real issue when you've lived at lower altitude-boys are from Indiana).  Woke everyone one up at 4:30AM to get a jump on the trail and before the hot sun spoiled any determination.  

As I woke them up, I noticed something on their faces, arms and legs...Clever little Rian waited til they had fallen asleep and tagged everyone with marker!  Funny girl left her mark so they would remember her while we hiked!  I'll admit it was pretty funny.

By 5:45 we were on the trail with flashlights making our way up.  The moon was full and bright despite the cloudy night, so we didn't need our flashlights.  We made it a good way before the sun made it's appearance.

Sadly, the cloud coverage prevented a grand opening for the sun...but overall, it was a blessing that the sun didn't show itself before 2pm.

We made it to the lower falls and saw a moose.  It was pretty comfortable chillin' by the run off, but we had to get going.

Next we made it to the 2nd falls over a mile into the hike.  This was really nice.  Also, there were lots of butterflies and flowers everywhere, thanks to the rains we've had. :o)

After the falls, it was a lot of switchbacks to Primrose Cirque.  That is the area the kids called the golf course, because from far away, it looked all manicured and really green.  I kept warning them that that was the hardest part of the entire hike...2200 elevation gain from the 2nd falls (3 miles) to the top of Primrose.

We hit a few glacial patches...

Primrose had a ton of waterfalls...this is also close to where we decided to eat lunch.  It was only 10:30am, and even though I had packed a ton of snacks, they were getting pretty wiped out.  We were all pretty tired, but Denham was determined to make it to the lake.  So we pressed on...

Looking down we could see we were getting higher and higher...

One spot we reached we decided to have a snowball fight...lots of fun.  The top of Primrose was the top of the waterfall that cascaded down to all the other falls...that came from Emerald Lake.  It was an amazing view!!  But most of all, we were getting closer to our destination.

This place I like to call twin trees.  It marks the end of Primrose Cirque.  Also, I've always wanted to hike in to this area and camp over night.  It's so beautiful up there and so serine.

Finally at around 12:15pm we made it to the lake...

this shelter was up there and was fun to explore.

After eating so snacks and loving our accomplishments, we had a fun time watching Tarin and Denham swim in the lake.  Remember this water is glacial water, freezing cold, but they wanted to try.  I caught this picture of Denham counting down his jump, but to his dismay, the rock he stood on wiggled him off before he could finish counting...it was the funniest thing ever! 

After an hour or so, we decided to head back.  Denham wasn't feeling so great, I think the altitude was getting to him, and then pretty cold with only a dry shirt...but he perked up.  We were all pretty tired, so the hike down was really hard.  To look down and see what we needed to do was quite disheartening, but I tried to keep their minds off of it and by 6pm we were down!  I am so proud of these 4 kids...this was a difficult hike and they were amazing.  Roughly 12 hours of hiking gaining 3500ft in altitude and round trip of 9.6 miles!!  I don't think they will be forgetting this hike any time soon.  Denham hopes to make it to the saddle next summer.  That would be awesome!  Great work everyone!