Granite Flats - 2011

Helped Dra waterproof her new tent.

I admitted later to my uncles that I felt like a giant nerd walking around her tent spraying it with a water bottle. They laughed really hard when I muttered how pointless spraying the tent down was because it poured about two hours later.

I needed a break from the stress that is involved in helping my dad set up our family tent. So I came to the river to fill up a water gun, almost stepped on a snake, yelled to Dra, she couldn't hear me over the river, then watched it slither into this bush. We never told Eric we saw a snake right by his tent.

My Uncle Scott takes us up Mt. Timp every summer. He'd heard from the rangers that we probably wouldn't be able to make it to the top because of all of the snow, so he decided to head up on Tuesday for a test run to see how far he could get and he invited me and my dad. So Tuesday morning, my Uncle Scott, my cousin Brandon, my dad, and I headed up the trail. I was so excited that my dad was coming with us on the hike.

My hiking buddies.

My Uncle Scott is in front of my dad.

My cousin Brandon and I chatted a good deal as we hiked, but at one point we were just minding our own business, keeping quiet, then all of a sudden my Uncle Scott was yell-whispering at us, "Get back here! How the heck did you miss that?" We walked right by a moose. I thought he was big, my Uncle said he was a baby. Shrug.

We had already crossed some snow ... then came this.

We made it across just fine.

I was super scared as we crossed, I slid a lot, but it wasn't until way after the hike when my dad and I were headed back to the valley to shower that he admitted how scared he was. It was pretty sketchy in parts but the debris helped a lot.

The great thing about all of the snow is the waterfalls. Amazing! We kept saying, "Hey! We've never seen that one before!"

We slid down this whole thing. There's actually a chute at the top on the right. We were sliding down, then my Uncle Scott crossed over halfway down the chute, sat on his butt and yeehawed the rest of the way down the chute. Brandon and I were above him, so we crossed over to the chute and laughed really hard as we slid down. It's not fun to have wet-jeans-butt, but it was worth it, and it was hot enough that I was pretty much dry by the end of the hike.

As we were hiking down, we took a different trail that led to Scout Falls. The trail was super steep and went through a tree's roots. My Uncle Scott said he didn't want to climb it, but the roots were huge and it looked fun to monkey up. I told him I wanted to check it out. I loved climbing through the sturdy roots. My Uncle Scott and Brandon were right behind me, and we all laughed at how beautiful the falls were. My Uncle Scott went underneath the waterfall and pretended to wash his armpits. Too bad I was super lazy at taking pictures.

That night my sisters came up to Granite Flats. Andrea and Eric were excited to hike Timp, but not happy when we told them that you could only get about halfway without crampons and ice axes. The next morning, we sat around debating which hike to hike or whether to hike at all. I really wanted to hike as opposed to sitting around camp and playing games. I talked them into going up Timp again, promising them beautiful waterfalls, and off we went. I loved it. I hardly took any pictures, but above is a gem. Andrea needed a potty break.

My cousin Jessica, Emily, and I all crossed the snowfield. It was so much easier than the day before. We started hiking about an hour and a half later than we had the day before, so the snow was super slushy by the time we got there. Andrea and Eric hiked back down to my Uncle Scott and waited for us. We crossed to the top of the chute, Jessica loaned us garbage bags, I offered to go first even though I was crazy scared, and off I went. I regret not telling Em to wait a bit before going, I wish I had her descent on video. She was screaming the entire way and it looked like she came out of the chute. The video's of my cousin Jessica.