This map shows the terrain and trail of the area that we did. The top middle arrow shows the peak. As you can see, there are actually two different trails that get you to the top. One can take the left side (south trail) or the right side (north trail) or use both (one to climb and one to descend). We only used the north trail to climb and descend from, because it is the most difficult of the two. It's a little shorter, but it takes longer and requires more strength because of the elevation gain (4500+ feet). 
We started at around 7500 ft and ended at almost 12,000 ft. This is a closer look at the north trail (going from bottom right to upper left on the map).Well, of course, I pretty much haven't had any exercise since I've moved here. Therefore, I knew I needed to prepare for this in some way or I would never make it. I did only 4 exercises before the big day.
The first thing that I did was hike the first three miles of the trail (6 miles roundtrip) one Saturday morning. It was quite exhausting because it has a huge elevation gain of around 2000 feet just in that section of it. 
I looked out to the peak of the mountain and thought, "That is waaayy too far away and I will never make it!!!"The second week I hiked a little farther: I went about 4-5 miles (not sure, since there are no mile markers).
Amy Perkins and I enjoyed some summer snow while practicing.The third week, the youth hiked a smaller trail (Cathedral Rock) that was 1.5 miles up.
Gabriel enjoyed looking out over the edge, but I kept my distance (scares the bajeebies out of me). 
However, Gabe started feeling light-headed, so Perkins and Alexander helped him off the mountain.The fourth week, I jogged 3 miles near my neighborhood...not too helpful, I'm sure.
Wellll......
9 July 2011
The BIG DAY quickly came and I felt very unprepared. I was not very confident that I could complete this requirement with my girls. It seemed very daunting!
My mom and dad were in town, so I invited them to go and to hike as much as they could. Also, Michelle wanted to come along. I was happy to share this experience with all of them.
This is our group of girls from our ward who participated. We had two leaders, two moms, and seven girls. We began at 6:30 in the morning...and our instructions were to hike until 1:00 pm, and wherever we were at that time, turn around and start heading back down. This way we were to ensure that noone would get caught on the mountain hiking down in the dark. Well, that gave us 6 1/2 hours to make it to the peak. Hmmmm...
This is Michelle happy to have completed the first two miles with the 1500 feet ascent (big incline). It is very exhausting!
Ashley and I stuck together, determined that we were going to make it to the top.
Michelle decided to stick with us too. :) (so glad!)
Our first official pit stop (2 miles). Some of these girls here went out ahead of us, because we wanted to stick around a little longer to see if Papa and Nanny could catch up with us. It started to take too long waiting on them, so we left and went on ahead too, a little bit behind the others.
We've come a long way...look way in the distance!
I think this was about 4 miles into it. We were already feeling tired, but knew we had to suck it up since we had a long way to go!
It got a little chilly when we took small potty breaks, because when we stopped moving, the sweat from our body made us cold.
I thought this tree looked so cute. It was a short, stubby little thing.
Ahhhhh.....our lunch break! Michelle's PB&J sandwich was extremely smooshed, but she said it was delicious! We were so hungry and fatigued that it didn't matter. Any nutrients in our body was a relief!
You can see part of our trail in the distance in this pic. We came from this part probably a few hours before. It was weird to look down and see it so far away.
We ended up gaining another girl in our group (probably around the 6 mile mark), because her dad said he was slowing her down and felt she could go a little faster with us. Her name was Riley (from a different ward). We were glad to have another person join us.
I think at this point we had been hiking for 4.5 hours. Who knew I could that?
Look at this beautiful view from where we had come from thus far. Ashley was very exhausted and made comments about turning around several times. I had to keep encouraging her to press forward. I, too, was extremely fatigued, but I wanted to make sure that she got to the top. I tried to motivate her the best I could. I kept telling her we could do it and we would regret it if we turned around after already going so far. Honestly, I'm glad I felt responsible for her, because I'm not so sure I would have kept going if I didn't want her to accomplish the task so badly. If I were on my own, I would have stopped a long time ago. ;) LOL. She definitely needed me, but I also needed her too.
We were getting down to crunch time. We only had until 1:00 pm and it was beginning to look like we weren't going to make it. I had to keep pushing the girls. The peak still looked so far away and the time was closing in quickly. Even when we got to the base of the mountain peak, we had some "switch backs" that we had to ascend. At one point we had 10 minutes remaining and the girls sat down. I had to give them a pep talk to get them back up. I told them to give me 10 more minutes, don't give up, don't stop so close and not finish, etc.........
I'm proud to say they got up and moved forward....and we made it!!!!! As soon Ashley made it to the end point, she layed in the snow to relax. We got to the spot at 12:59!!!! One minute to spare. The priesthood leader who was waiting on us said we had five minutes to sit and then we would have to start our descent. Ughhhh! Are you kidding me? The girls were not too stoked about that! They wanted to just lay and relax for a while...Unfortunately, we had to make sure we could get down before dark. We had already hiked for 6.5 hours to make it to the top, but we had much more to do!
We felt like beasts anyway!
True winners! Actually, this is not the tip top of the mountain. There were five more switch backs (a little less than 1/2 mile) still ahead, but the snow was stopping the trail, so everyone had to turn around at this spot. I was disappointed, because there is a book at the top that you can sign, proving that you did the hike. Ughhh....we did this whole thing and got stopped just short of leaving our name...bummer!
We've come a long way...look way in the distance!
I think this was about 4 miles into it. We were already feeling tired, but knew we had to suck it up since we had a long way to go!
It got a little chilly when we took small potty breaks, because when we stopped moving, the sweat from our body made us cold.
I thought this tree looked so cute. It was a short, stubby little thing.
Ahhhhh.....our lunch break! Michelle's PB&J sandwich was extremely smooshed, but she said it was delicious! We were so hungry and fatigued that it didn't matter. Any nutrients in our body was a relief!
You can see part of our trail in the distance in this pic. We came from this part probably a few hours before. It was weird to look down and see it so far away.
We ended up gaining another girl in our group (probably around the 6 mile mark), because her dad said he was slowing her down and felt she could go a little faster with us. Her name was Riley (from a different ward). We were glad to have another person join us.I think at this point we had been hiking for 4.5 hours. Who knew I could that?
Look at this beautiful view from where we had come from thus far. Ashley was very exhausted and made comments about turning around several times. I had to keep encouraging her to press forward. I, too, was extremely fatigued, but I wanted to make sure that she got to the top. I tried to motivate her the best I could. I kept telling her we could do it and we would regret it if we turned around after already going so far. Honestly, I'm glad I felt responsible for her, because I'm not so sure I would have kept going if I didn't want her to accomplish the task so badly. If I were on my own, I would have stopped a long time ago. ;) LOL. She definitely needed me, but I also needed her too. We were getting down to crunch time. We only had until 1:00 pm and it was beginning to look like we weren't going to make it. I had to keep pushing the girls. The peak still looked so far away and the time was closing in quickly. Even when we got to the base of the mountain peak, we had some "switch backs" that we had to ascend. At one point we had 10 minutes remaining and the girls sat down. I had to give them a pep talk to get them back up. I told them to give me 10 more minutes, don't give up, don't stop so close and not finish, etc.........
I'm proud to say they got up and moved forward....and we made it!!!!! As soon Ashley made it to the end point, she layed in the snow to relax. We got to the spot at 12:59!!!! One minute to spare. The priesthood leader who was waiting on us said we had five minutes to sit and then we would have to start our descent. Ughhhh! Are you kidding me? The girls were not too stoked about that! They wanted to just lay and relax for a while...Unfortunately, we had to make sure we could get down before dark. We had already hiked for 6.5 hours to make it to the top, but we had much more to do!
We felt like beasts anyway!
True winners! Actually, this is not the tip top of the mountain. There were five more switch backs (a little less than 1/2 mile) still ahead, but the snow was stopping the trail, so everyone had to turn around at this spot. I was disappointed, because there is a book at the top that you can sign, proving that you did the hike. Ughhh....we did this whole thing and got stopped just short of leaving our name...bummer!On our way down, I thought I was going to DIE!!!! I was exhausted, completely spent, running off of 3 hrs of sleep, in pain, and ready to be done! However, the worst part was not over. The climb down was extremely painful!!! More painful the climb up!!! My knees felt like they were going to rip out of my legs! The pounding was almost too much that I could bare. The only thing that got me off of the mountain and motivated to move forward was the fact that storm clouds started to come up from behind us. It began to sprinkle with a mixture of hail, and I determined that I was not going to get stuck in the cold and die. I really feel like Heavenly Father sent that weather to help me off the mountain. I can't think of anything else that would have helped me to keep moving my feet at that point. There's nothing I hate worse than the cold. I had to literally waddle down, step by step. I looked like a crippled old woman! And, that is no joke or the slightest exaggeration. My pain was so excruciating that each step was a torturous endeavor. It took me another 4 hours of walking to get down!
Ashley decided to skip part of the trail and just slide down. Hahaha!
When I made it to the end, I found my parents sitting back chillin'. They had returned at noon, only hiking 3 miles of the trail. That meant they had to wait on me for FIVE hours! hahaha! I didn't return until 5 pm! Poor peeps!
However, I couldn't feel sorry for them for too long, because I was dying myself...in a different way, of course! I hopped on the cot and just tried to forget about the sharp pains in my knees. I couldn't even drive home. I had to get Pop to do it. There was no way my legs could push a stick shift. BUT. I'm proud to say we made it! It's such an awesome feeling to have accomplished what we did, especially being so out of shape! Next time I will have to make it to the top quicker so I can actually enjoy the view for a while (which I didn't even take a pic of...regret!!!!) 
Fruit! Yum! Satisfying treat after a LONG day!!!!! Whoot! Whoot! We did it! Michelle was determined to get a massage from Frankie when she got back.
Ashley decided to skip part of the trail and just slide down. Hahaha!
When I made it to the end, I found my parents sitting back chillin'. They had returned at noon, only hiking 3 miles of the trail. That meant they had to wait on me for FIVE hours! hahaha! I didn't return until 5 pm! Poor peeps! However, I couldn't feel sorry for them for too long, because I was dying myself...in a different way, of course! I hopped on the cot and just tried to forget about the sharp pains in my knees. I couldn't even drive home. I had to get Pop to do it. There was no way my legs could push a stick shift. BUT. I'm proud to say we made it! It's such an awesome feeling to have accomplished what we did, especially being so out of shape! Next time I will have to make it to the top quicker so I can actually enjoy the view for a while (which I didn't even take a pic of...regret!!!!) Fruit! Yum! Satisfying treat after a LONG day!!!!! Whoot! Whoot! We did it! Michelle was determined to get a massage from Frankie when she got back.Here are some pics from my parents and their experience:
2 comments:
Congratulations! That is awesome that you made it to the top. Way to go!
That is a huge accomplishment! Way to push yourself!
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