Summiting Timpanogos

I finally summited Timp! I've wanted to do this hike for the past several years but I would only ever think of it during the Winter which is a bad time to hike mountains; luckily my friend Tallia orchestrated everything as part of her birthday so it finally happened.

"Mount Timpanogos, UT" by Brian Smith - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

I guess this is a pretty popular hike in Utah, one of my friends summited it three times this summer, so we had to show up early. We arrived in the parking lot at 6 AM to be greeted by a completely full parking lot. We didn't want to give up but also didn't know what to do since there were no-parkng signs everywhere. Eventually we decided to park illegally figuring the parking ticket, divided by all of us, would be worth the hike.

It was dark when we started which made for lovely light. I only took one photo which turned out really grainy. I teased my companions for taking panoramas but I probably should have took at least one.

me, abby, natalie, tallia, ben

The hike was grueling, especially since it is the only hike I did all summer but we pushed on amongst Tallia's panic attacks each time someone slipped a little. We reached the saddle and almost turned around but Ben gave a rousing speech on how we were the rising generation and destined for greatness so we pushed on.

The wind howled in our ears as we forced our legs and feet to carry on through the loosely defined trail among the rubble. All of us rolled our ankles more than a few time but we persevered and made it to the top at 11:15am, a little under five hours from the start.

sitting at the summit shack

We all ate our various lunches and used our cell phones since we happily had full service and then started back down. We made it back to the car at 3:30pm and didn't have a parking ticket. 

We celebrated by eating at the Cannon Center on BYU campus.

just a bro on a mountain. so many people on the trail commented on the hat. IT WAS FREE

MEGA POST

Hey ya'll! I forgot about this blog and then when I remembered I decided to push off updating until I had my new domain up and running (www.otti.ng). BUT ITS THE WORST THING AND I HATE IT.

Anyway.

I'm sure a lot has been going on in the land of Christian--I just did the dishes and cleared out the fridge for example. It's hard to summerise my entire spring and summer, especially since my journal joined the silence, but I can attempt to make up narratives with some pictures on my phone.

We got chickens! They were the cutest thing but then the police made us get rid of them. It was a whole ordeal which you can read in detail on my sister's blog here. Of the six: two live with my mother, another two with our co-owner's parents, one ran away, and the other turned out to be a rooster and had to leave down.

They were so great though, they deserve another photo.

A boy and his [friend's] chicken.

Then my land lady died which was really sad. She was a terrific woman and had the energy of a 65 year old even though she was 91. Read her obituary here. Following her death I offered to buy the house from them to continue living in it but the deal ultimately went nowhere and its now run by a property management group---lameeeooo.

To help cope with her death--or maybe just because I thought it would be fun--I went up to my Grandma's cabin with some friends. It was only for a long weekend but we had a lot of fun. Most of the photos are on my friends' blogs linked above.

Lifestyle shot by Mirielle

THEN THE FAMILY REUNION. Every few years my mother's side gets together somewhere for a week-long retreat. In the past we have typically gone up to a lake in Minnesota but the distance has become too great for many so this year we relocated to a ranch up past Vernal.

Lots of us, too many to name. Sorry to my descendants doing family history.

Like all fun things though, its only fun until someone gets hurt so my brother Seth decided to ruin the fun by falling 25' off a rock wall and breaking his back--ugh. It definitely made the trip memorable, especially watching him fly off in a helicopter, but next time we'll skip the attention hogging. My grandma was pissed since she was barely able to move and had to spend most of the time in the hospital but everyone was paying attention to Seth instead.

To my descendents--this is all tounge-in-cheek and both my Grandmother and Seth made a full recovery--Seth's surgeries were crazy but they worked great!

Fourth of July happened too but somehow I didn't get any photos of it? This is not completely atypical though since I am usually having too much fun to bother taking my phone out. Here is a photo Mirielle took of me at the Ballon Festival on the 3rd though.

yay for having photographer friends

Here are some other photos.

Our (mostly) annual trip to 7-11 on 7-11 continued with June and Esther Sanford. We didn't get to go see Ringo Starr afterwards though which made it not quite as amazing as 2012.

I won TWO nests in TWO SEPARATE CONTESTS by the SAME COMPANY--Provo Power. I don't think they are going to give anymore away though since I won the second one by default as no one else entered.

Visited a few Mormon heritage spots in Salt Lake with some friends. Pictured here is on the "train" at This is the Place Park. The driver was a really friendly bearded man and after taking this photo he showed us all the picture--twice--for our approval. Let the record also state that Jon purposefully matched my outfit.

And that mostly catches us up to today! Today I fixed a chair, hated my haircut, and cleaned my room.

THE BLOG IS BACK, BABY!