Jan 30, 2011

Climbing Timpanogos Mountain with Loren

I have been on a lot of hikes with the scouts over the years and have climbed, what we refer to in Mapleton as Maple Mountain, several times. I have also been up in the High Uintahs and the mountains above Price. In all of those climbs I have wondered what it would be like to climb the tallest mountains in Utah, King’s Peak and Timpanogos. I almost got to climb King’s peak when I took my scouts around it base to Farmer’s Lake and Milk lake but never had a day to actually climb to the peak. I often wish that I had planned that trip better so we could have but at the same time have been glad I didn’t due to the ages of the boys I had with me. I did however finally get the chance to Climb Timpanogos with Loren and his scout troop as an adult supervisor several years after being released from being scoutmaster. I remember thinking that it would be so much harder than Maple Mountain (Spanish Fork Peak or Sierra Bonita) because it was nearly 3 hundred feet taller. I didn’t ever stop to think that it was actually easier as far as height because you travel in cars up to the trailhead several hundred feet before even starting the hike. I enjoyed the hike and even though it did have a lot of switchbacks it was finally completing that part of my life that I hadn’t yet accomplished. That was the first that I learned about a cabin below the peak where you can stay if caught in sudden bad weather which thankfully we didn’t have happen to us that day. It was still a long hike to the top to where we could see over into the valley but when we got there if was well worth it. I only made it to that point since I had climbed with the slower boys and was met by the others coming back from the very top as we arrived and were running out of daylight to return to the cars. Even though I didn’t go to the shack on the very top I felt satisfied to have finally made it to that point. It was a lot of fun being there with Loren also since all of my earlier scouting had been done with the three older brothers before he was old enough to become a scout. I was glad that later we would have excellent scouting experiences together at Timberline and would be able to make memories in scouting from those experiences.