Hiking Timp

When Jared has time off work it seems like we always try to work in a hike or two, especially when it's fall. A couple days before his first day off he asked me, "Do you want to hike Timp or Mount Nebo with me next week?" I wasn't sure I was up for either of them, but I chose Timp.

Jared used to hike Timp at least once (usually more) a year when he was single and I've heard him tell people lots of times that it's his favorite mountain. I hiked Timp once in the summer before my seventh grade year with Aunt Mayva and my cousin Kristen and a bunch of her other kids and their friends, and Doug was there too. Seventh grade was a long time ago.

So we made arrangements for mom to pick up Meg from school and we were on our way as soon as we got all the kids off to school (and took about 45 minutes to talk landscaping stuff with some of the guys who are doing some work on our yard).

I was kind of excited. Shortly into the hike, I realized this was going to be similar to lots of our hikes. Jared is just a faster and better hiker than I am and it must pain him greatly to go slow. So I snapped this picture and posted it on facebook with this caption:

He said, "Let's go hiking together. It will be fun."

What he should have said: "Let's drive up the canyon together,

then when we get there we can have fun hiking by ourselves."

I'm pretty proud of that one. It still makes me laugh every time I think of it. I know it's not good form to laugh at my own jokes, but so much for that.

We missed most of the color on the trees, but there was still lots of yellow. The stunning, bright, yellow-gold aspens seemed to almost pop off the mountain. They were breathtaking.

It was a hard climb. In fact, it was a really hard and intense climb. I guess it's easy to forget those things after 30+ years. I was grateful to be sucked in by the beauty of our surroundings so I could forget about my heavy breathing and tired legs for a few seconds here and there.

Hiking Timp was an adventure with Jared. He has all these names for certain places on the hike. The "Hanging Gardens" and "Moose Meadow" were my favorites. Each time we'd reach a destination, he'd tell me what was coming next. He kept telling me how cold it was at the saddle and he wasn't kidding. But in addition to the cold, just before the saddle we were thrilled to find a most amazing surprise.

This "little fella" as Jared called him just started sauntering towards us on the narrow trail.

We stepped aside and wondered if he was going to be nice to us. Turns out, he was quite polite. He decided to give us the trail about the time he got close enough to me that I could have touched him if I had tried. But I didn't want to risk getting in a tussle with a mountain goat so I kept my hands to myself.

Jared and I were both satisfied with the hike at that point.

Since it was getting late and I was too scared to climb up the last section of narrow trail, we turned back and went home.

I'm glad I climbed to the top in that summer before seventh grade because I don't know if I'll ever get the courage to climb that last section again. My palms get all sweaty just thinking about it. But all I know is that our climb to "the saddle" was a great way to spend a day.