Michelle's Adventures: I came, I saw, I conquered.

This summer has been good for me. I start work at Head Start again tomorrow and class starts again a week later. I made a roommate slide show this past week and it was then that I realized how many great things I've done and how much I have grown this summer. I will never forget this summer and the things I learned. Even my accident in June doesn't diminish the good feelings I have. I feel refreshed and ready to begin a new school year and welcome in all the new people into my ward.

Yesterday I ended my summer with a BANG! I hiked Mt. Timpanogoes! It was HARD and LONG, but worth it. Mt. Timp is maybe the second hardest hike in the valley (Lone Peak being the first), but it is still a major accomplishment for anyone. As you know, I've been hiking and running all summer long and this still tested my limits. Steep cliffs, steep trail, very rocky valley make for a very exhausting experience. It really was an experience, not just a hike. It took my group (6 of us) 6 hours to get to the summit. We started at 5:40 AM and got there at 11:36 AM. We started up the trail at too fast of a pace, so we were really feeling the exhaustion early on. Some of the group only went to the lake and turned back. Two in the group went down from the summit 2 hours faster than me and the bishopric member I was hiking with. I am a slow hiker normally, but I was even slower on this one. Lucky for me, Br. Scott is a slow hiker, too, and not just to pity me. I reached the bottom at 5:40 PM. Yep, that's 12 hours! Normally it takes people 8-11 hours. You're crazy fast if you do it in 8 hours and you probably have to be super fit to do that. We saw many people who camped out so they wouldn't be doing it all in one day, which is super smart. We also saw people who hiked it over night to see the sunrise or just because. They are CRAZY! This trail is really scary at some points even in the daylight! I don't know how people do it at night. Besides, they miss all the beautiful views we saw the whole way.

If you want to have an idea of how exhausting it is, let me tell you. Basically I was running on instinct. Time and technology were foreign to me on the trail. So, when my phone starting ringing when I was at the lake, it was really weird. We had cell reception the whole time. I think that's a great thing because there are so many spots that if someone got hurt, that would be handy. Back to my point, I was so exhausted that I couldn't remember stuff that I had done only minutes or hours ago. We dropped water along the trail so we could have water coming down without carrying it all the way to the top and we had a hard time remember where some of the drops were even though they were clear when we dropped them. Also, when I was at the top, I seriously don't remember taking my retainer (for my fake tooth) out to eat some snacks (which I ended up not being able to do), but I did and I LOST IT! I didn't realize it until I had already left the top and there was no way I was going to walk back up the trail to find it. Besides, it probably fell down the cliff when I stood up so it wouldn't have been there anyway. So, now I have to buy another retainer. It should be alright, though. I am just grateful that I survived this hike without serious injury! It was a really awesome way to end my summer adventures. Below are the pictures of the Mt. Timp hike.

The little white speck on the hill is where the summit is. We had to hike around the back of that mountain to get there.

The Lake

This picture doesn't do justice for how hard this section of the trail way. It is a valley of rocks with a steep cliff entrance and a very long steep trail exit. The whole way through is painful when you're already exhausted.