Craziest Hike of My Life

Twin Peaks Wilderness (Salt Lake City, Utah)

I woke up Saturday morning to meet a boy @ 8:30am for a hiking date.  We'll now call this boy "Hiking Boy", who was previously known as "Reception Boy".  And just so you all know ahead of time, this isn't a post about a date or a boy.  This post is about the most difficult hike I've ever been on, and Hiking Boy was a part of it.  So he will appear in this post a few times simply because he earned his right and was present in the 9 hour adventure. 

Neither of us had hiked to Twin Peaks before, and neither of us really knew how to get there.  But we randomly turned into a parking lot with other cars and after talking to a few other hikers, we found out it was the trail head.  Nice!

Right from the beginning, the trail was steep and intimidating, and had I been with close family or friends, I would've stomped my feet and said, "No way man, I'm not doing this" and turned right around.  But since this was Hiking Boy I had to suck it up.  Try hiking up ridiculous steep trails while trying to maintain steady conversation and not sounding totally out of breath.  I resisted wearing the bandanna in the beginning, so my hair was plastered to my face as sweat dripped from every direction and my recently applied sunscreen melted all over me.  Gross.  But I tried my best to play it cool and act like this kind of strenuous activity didn't phase me in the least.  

I really wasn't sure what the plan was or how far we would hike, or if he was really serious about hiking to the top of the twin peaks.  I'd never hiked a mountain before-- not even Timp-- so any idea of hiking up an entire mountain sounded impossible to me.  Here are a few pics along the beginning of our hike:

You can see the slightly sweaty hair on the side...

Cheesy pose.  I know.

Deep in the wilderness of Twin Peaks

Aspen Trees are my absolute FAVORITE part of nature.  Part of the trail went through this THICK Aspen grove and I was literally in Heaven.  I could sit there all day and be totally content.  I love them. 

Hiking Boy took this nice pic.

Me embracing my friends.

He tried hard to get the right lighting, but there were lots of shadows.

I loved the light shining through these leaves!

So after hiking for 2 hours, we came to this amazing "valley" set between a number of peaks.  There were a few little pond/lake things and the scene was absolutely beautiful!  This is when I figured it was a good excuse to take a picture with Hiking Boy:

At this point, he asked how I was feeling and if I wanted to keep going.  I was really enjoying the adventure and figured we might as well go for it.  But before continuing on, Hiking Boy spent a while with his fancy camera taking pictures and exploring.  I took advantage of that opportunity to venture off in the other direction to do my business.  Yep, that's right:  poop in the wilderness.  It was great and adventurous.  And he was still off yonder when I got back so at least it wasn't awkward for me.  :)

When I think back on this day and that moment of deciding to climb to the top... I have no idea what came over me.  Where was my "STOP AND THINK ABOUT THIS!" button?  But I was just kind of like, "la la la la la" this is fun, and we were off on the trail once again.  Only, our clearly marked "trail" became less and less obvious and we found ourselves on "the trail less traveled."  Luckily we had a few clues along the way:

If you know anything about hiking, you know that a pile of rocks stacked up like this is a GOOD thing.  It's a sign that you're on the right path and can keep going.  Consider them like an arrow to point you in the right direction, or a little pile of comfort to encourage you to continue.  So we found ourselves zig-zagging up this very rocky mountain-side, seeking rock pile after rock pile.  But as we went further and further, the rock piles kind of disappeared.  The terrain was rugged and really kind of scary.  Rocks of all sizes made up the ground foundation and there was no set trail-- just a steep mountainside and we were heading for the top. It seemed like every other step caused a rock slide and it was hard to feel stable. After awhile, I found this in the rocks and was kind of excited-- a sign of human life!

A rusty, old pocket knife.  I joked that even though our rock piles had disappeared, this was proof that other humans had made it this far and we were still on the right trail.  I tossed the knife to the side, but Hiking Boy retrieved it and told me I needed to keep it.  I said, "Of course!  If we get stranded at the top of this mountain, this will be our weapon to kill off animals for food."  Yes.  I kept the dirty knife in my pocket the whole rest of the hike.

As if the steep rock-sliding trail wasn't difficult enough, it was covered in these unfriendly plants:

So in any moment of losing your balance or sliding involuntarily... the worst part was trying to avoid landing in one of these little devils.  They were EVERYWHERE. 

Sometimes the hike was so difficult and steep, I was in "bear crawl" position and climbing up that way.  It was easier not to look up because it was intimidating and reminded me of how much distance we still had to cover.  Hiking Boy said it reminded him of scenes from "Lord of the Rings" when they're wandering around mountain sides and scrambling over boulders and bushes and what not.  Yep.  That was us.  I volunteered to be Sam, and he got to be Frodo.

At the beginning of the hike, we talked about mountain lions and we decided what we would do if we saw one.  Scream and try to fight it off?  Stay calm and quiet?  I chose the second option.  So when we were hiking and we suddenly heard this huge rock slide up ahead and saw a big animal walking along a cliff, I immediately thought, "Mountain Lion!!!"  But Hiking Boy said, "Mountain Goat!"... and he was right.  Phew. We saw several mountain goats and those animals are crazy! I have no idea how they maneuver around those rocky slopes on 4 hooves.  

As we were getting closer to the top of the Peak and started wondering how we could possibly make it up there, I suggested maybe the mountain goat was secretly trying to show us the way?  Wouldn't that have been precious.  I guess those kinds of things only happen in movies.  We didn't follow it.

Being up so high was such a deceiving experience!  It really felt like we were almost there, so I excitedly told Hiking Boy I needed to take his picture. "Look!  We're so close!"  And he burst my bubble and said, "Uhh... we still have a ways to go."  And I told him he was totally smashing my optimism. :)

I mean... doesn't it look like we're almost there?  

Wrong.  We were on the rocky mountainside for 2 1/2 hours and STILL had so far to go.  Only from where we were, we couldn't see which way was the safest and most reasonable.  There were huge cliffs and boulders above us and either way around it seemed to require more time and effort than we had left.  Here's a picture (I took afterward) that shows our location:

 In the upper left corner you see a big group of boulders and cliff-like structures the sun is hitting.  We were standing right below them and had no idea what to do.  We could go far off to the right (more sliding on rocks and more time)... or go off to the left but we couldn't see what was around the other side of the boulders.  That's the direction the mountain goat went, but either option presented so many obstacles.

This is when we just stopped.  We had no idea what to do and had to discuss the time factor and how long it would take to hike back down.  We had been hiking for 4 1/2 hours and I had a concert to go to that night so I needed to be back in less than 6 hours.  *sigh*  How could we quit there when we were soooo close to the top?  Or were we even that close?  We had no idea.

Hiking Boy thought we were high enough to get cell phone coverage, which was great because I needed to call my sister to give her a heads up on my status and make plans for the concert.  I have AT&T. Hiking Boy has Verizon.  Guess whose phone got coverage at the top of a mountain??

VERIZON WINS. 

I decided to just be realistic, safe, and cautious and admitted that we should probably start back.  Ahhh, what a let-down after trying so hard to make it to the top!  So it's true.  We had to quit before ever making it.  But here are a few pics I took while we were up there, and I felt a little defeated:

This was looking over the top of the mountains to Salt Lake Valley.  Awesome.

See those 2 little lakes?  And that yellowish area in the middle?  That is where Hiking Boy and I took that picture together that appeared earlier in the blog.  Yes.  We had traveled a long way up the mountain.

I finally put the bandanna on before starting the miserable trek down.

Seriously!  So close to the top!  Or at least it looked that way.

Frustrated that the distance was so deceiving.

It took another 2 1/2 hours just to get down to where the little valley area was.  It was horrible and miserable and I really hated that part of the hike.  It was scary.  The majority of the time I was in "snowboarding" position and literally sliding down the mountain on rocks.  My quads and back were burning, and my feet were aching.  I don't own any hiking boots and was only wearing a pair of old running shoes.  Not ideal for rocky mountains.  I also lost my balance at one point and landed right on one of the unfriendly pokey bushes.  Remember this guy?

Yeah, it was terrible.  I looked at my hand and there were at least 20 little blond colored sliver-like things sticking out of my hand.  And I'm pretty sure I had some in my pants too because I frequently felt the discomfort poking in my bum the rest of the way down.  

Hiking Boy was super patient.  He had good hiking boots on and was confident in taking large strides and trekking down the rocky slope at a faster speed than I was comfortable doing.  We stayed near each other but our chitter chatter conversation wasn't as chitter chattery anymore. I think we were both so anxious to get back down to the little valley and didn't even want to pretend like we were enjoying this part of the hike.

A nice shot of the rocky terrain and unfriendly pokey plants.

Hiking Boy wanted to take this to show the steep angle of the slope.

His face says it all.  We were so DONE with this hike!  

I'm kind of awkward because I was rushing over to him to beat the self-timer and lost my balance.

 Just one more look at the slope we had just spent 5 hours climbing up... and then down.  Remember those cliff-like boulders in the upper left corner?

My feet were burning so I did some make-shift First-Aid to prevent potential blisters.

We encountered another hiker on our way out who had made it to the top of the peak.  They had camped in this valley the night before, and from THIS point up, it's a 9 hour hike to the top.  What?!  We were so off.  And then we didn't feel so bad turning back after 2 1/2 hours up the rocky slope.  Turns out, the real trail is to the left along those pine trees and up and over near were the shady line goes across.  We had tried going off to the far right that doesn't even show in the picture.  So... even though we'd followed rock piles, pocket knives, and mountain goats... we were no where near where we should have been.  And I was totally okay with that.  

This was the most insane and vigorous hike I had ever been on.  It had lasted 6 hours already and we still had another 2 hours back to the car.  Holy CRAP!  I asked the hiker if he had hiked Timp, and how it compared to this.  He was quick to say Timp was easier, and that made me feel good.  Now I feel a little more prepared to hike Timp one day!  :)  But not any time soon.  I need a few days, weeks, or months to recover.  

So to put a final ending on a long and super adventurous day, the hike back to the parking lot was actually enjoyable and went by fast.  We got to go back through the beautiful Aspen Grove, and once we were back on a real dirt trail that didn't involve rock slides, it felt good and much easier to move along quickly.  By the time we were back to the bottom and I was visiting the bathroom, my watched showed that we had been gone for *8 hours and 59 minutes*.  Seriously.  Not only was it a 9+ hour date, but that was a 9 hour HIKE.  And I was still alive. :)

Currently, my quads are stiff and sore.  My left hand has at least 5 invisible pokey things still hiding and they're driving my crazy because they hurt.  And it turns out, Hiking Boy is only 23.  8 year age difference?  Hmm.  But he was interesting to talk to and so smart and such a good guy.  It would be nice to see him again.  And if I don't, I will always remember our crazy attempt to hike to the top of Twin Peaks.

The End.