Hiking Timp

Zack really loves hiking.  He especially loves hiking to the tops of mountains.  Mostly I think this is cool, except I kind of worry that he'll start doing crazy things as he gets older.  Oh well, there are worse things to worry about I guess.  Anyway, he's been wanting to hike to the top of Timp for years.  And for years we say this is the year it'll happen.  And then life gets busy and another year goes by.  So this year was finally the year!  It was very last second, as is everything in our life.  Poor Kate.  She LOVES to plan ahead.  Like at breakfast she asks what we're having for dinner.  She would love to have every second of life planned out.  And I have to keep telling her sorry.  Right now we live minute to minute, so I can tell you what I think might happen, but there's a good chance that will change.  She loves it.

Anyway, that was a total tangent.  Jake and Zack decided Friday night they were going to hike Timp the next morning.  At first I wasn't going to go with them, but then I decided this is one of the few peaks I can probably make it up, so I better join in the adventure.  I hiked Timp once a long, long time ago.  Like pre-mission.  And I hiked it from the other side and in the middle of the summer.  So this was really different.  We hiked from our side of the mountain and started a little after 6am.  It was so beautiful.  The millions of pictures I'll post don't do it justice.  We hiked across snow, saw waterfalls and mountain goats, and scrambled up rocks to get to the top.  Usually I'm warm blooded and never cold when I'm exercising, but not for this.  There was a cold wind blowing most of the time, and it went right through my clothes.  Apparently I need better wind gear.  I was so cold at the peak that I stayed up there for all of 5 minutes and then took off.  I thought I was going to die.  Gratefully it warmed up for the hike down.  The last couple hours of hiking were kind of a suffer fest.  You're tired, want to be done, but still have lots of miles left.  My feet don't handle lots of miles anymore.  And if I'd known I was going to do that hike I probably would have gotten new shoes.  But we made it to the top and back down again.  And I'm really glad I went on this adventure with my boys!  They were even nice enough to wait for me once in awhile.  And now for a million pictures.

Taking a break after getting down from the peak

The leaves were beautiful!

Ready to go!

I'm sure they were waiting for me here

This is at the top.  Can you tell I'm so cold I want to die?