Emerald Lake

I have been wanting to hike Mt. Timpanogos for over a month now, and we finally go to do it yesterday. It was perfect timing, because we are supposed to get snow at the end of this week, and if we had waited any longer, the whole mountain would have been covered in snow.

Yesterday started out fantastically. We had a breakfast date, and made scones with Sam, Shayla, Sam's sister Sarah, and Dallin. Afterwards Mike and I drove to Alpine Grove to hike "the timp". When we started out, we didn't have the intention to make it all the way to Emerald Lake. We just wanted a good hike. Mike was such a trooper, because he wanted to hike for 2 hours and it turned into 5+. He said he had a great time tho, and was glad we went as far as we did.

When we started the hike, we had no idea where exactly we were going. So we just started walking and following the trail. We had no idea that we would be going up and over the mountain that was in front of us.  The trail was really pretty, and there were many people out hiking it. The first 4 miles had hardly any snow, but the last 2.5 to get the top had so much snow! I was in awe at how beautiful it was! Snow and christmas pine trees everywhere. It took us 2 hr and 45 minutes to get to Emerald Lake. (6.5 miles there)

On the hike, I brought 2 water bottles, 3 granola bars and some halloween candy. Like I said, Mike was thinking it was going to be a 2 hour hike, so we didn't eat lunch before. We ended up being on the mountain from 11:45- 5:20 ish. By the time we finished, we had gone 13 miles, climbed almost 4,000 feet in elevation, and hiked for over 5 hours. Our knees were killing us from the descent, and our feet felt like they had suffered a beating. We went to Cafe Rio on the way home to feast on sweet pork burritos, and then went to the movies with Rob and Bailee.  It was a long day! Lucky for us, day light savings was on our side, and we got an extra hour of sleep last night.

(the mountain in the back left/center, is what we hiked up and over)