Amazing Outdoor Adventures

This is the story of a couple who started a hike too late in the morning(because they had to wait for Sterling to get out of training) and so managed a 16.4 mile hike in the blistering heat of a mid-July Utah summer.

This is the trail. It was so incredibly beautiful. Pictures do NOT do it justice. Not at all. It took us six hours to do the first 8.2 miles. Granted, it was uphill, but I think our pace was fast, I think it took us a long time because we stopped an hour for lunch and we stopped often for pictures. The return trip took three hours. And that was with tired muscles!

This is Sterling demonstrating the extreme beauty of our little packs that we invested it. Eleven bucks each. Not quite a camelback quality, but very, very useful and comfortable. We love them.

This is our first little peak that I am standing on. It was amazing. You could see all of Eden valley.

This was a very happy, very shady part of the trail. The best part of this hike, besides the incredible mountains, was how green everything was. We couldn't decide if it was because it is so high up or because its been such a wet year.

This was my favorite part of the trail. It was just great glens forever and ever and ever. I suggested hermitizing ourselves several times, and just staying there forever. We'd have to do something about all the bugs.

We have no idea what kind of flowers these incredible flowers were, but we LOVED them!

There were amazing wildflowers the ENTIRE hike. Never just plain green, always LOTS of color across the entire hillside. Amazing. You just have to see it. The colors were so rich and bright.

Ummm...this was parked as we hiked there and as we hiked back. Didn't really fit the scenery. But pretty sweet nonetheless.

This is a moose and a calf!!!! You can't really tell because I was REALLY zoomed in on my camera but we watched them move around for quite awhile, it was amazing!!!!!
this is snow. We saw quite a bit of it at the top.
The following are lots of pictures of the herd of mountain goats that we saw. All of them looked like they owned the world. We walked within twenty feet of four of them and they didn't even blink an eye. It was AMAZING!

Do you see that mountain goat on the tip of that peak? He's overlooking the entire SLC valley!
This is our exhausted faces, very happily at the 8.2 mile halfway point. Elevation 9750. Tallest peak on the Wasatch Front. Ben Lomond. We ran out of water shortly thereafter. 4 liters doesn't last 16.4 miles apparently. We had thought it seemed like a lot. Sterling rationed us celery the rest of the way. And cherries. He grew quite concerned about me the last two miles of the trip. He offered to carry me. I walked the entire way though. It was an adventure. Next time, we'll bring more water, but it was still the best hike EVER!

This is our faces at the midway point of the hike. Its my favorite face Sterling can make. Maybe it was the elevation. Haahaa I meant to take pictures of us at the very end, but I felt a little more need to get water out of our trunk than take pictures.