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.

Toby Mister

My mom had the brilliant idea of letting Toby play with a paintbrush and water. He and I played with letters, but it was hard to paint and video at the same time.

My mom came out later and helped out. Isn't Toby the cutest?

Bell Canyon Hike with Zach

(Go ahead, shake your head in boredom, I realize this is around the 3rd or 4th time I've posted about this very hike.)

The 2nd falls is amazing; there's so much water! As Zach and I compared the differences between last year's trip and this year's, I reminded him how last year we had been riddled by mosquitos. I looked down to adjust my jacket ... and squished a mosquito. The spray from the waterfall made us so so cold.

We found a bridge! We're not sure if it was there last year, but crossing it led to a trail leading left of the waterfall. We were hoping for a better view of the falls, but the trail was super overgrown.

I loved this tree standing its ground in the middle of the waterfall.

Salt Lake Bees

vs.

Sacramento Rivercats

Win: 5-3

What kind of name is the Rivercats? Bothered me.

Loves:

• Churro
• #32 who I named "Little Kid". He looked kind of like the redhead chubster on Sandlot. He was fantastic, and I loved calling out to him.
• Watching awkward gross men try to hit on a skinny girl with fake boobs. Loved making my friends laugh by calling things out like, "No chance, you're old!" but making it look like I was commenting on the game.
• Helping the old people in front of us read their tickets so they knew which seats to sit in.
• Big rain drops
• Listening to the guy next to us tell us everything baseball and faking like I knew/cared what he was talking about.
• Embarrassing my friends by faking like I was super scared of foul balls and loudly complaining that I should have brought my mitt. (I really am scared of foul balls, just not super scared.)
• Watching the guy with a broken arm in a sling three seats down from me get nailed in the stomach by a foul ball, listening to him yell at the kid in front of him for not catching it, watching him lift up his shirt to show us the imprint of the stitches on the baseball, and me not being able to stop laughing for way too long once I knew he was okay.

First Multi-Pitch Climb ... kind of

(No Pic Post)

Early Monday morning, I went climbing up Little Cottonwood Canyon with three of my friends. We scrambled over rocks to get at the base of a climb, I got sweaty as always, we saw what was either a rogue lizard or a baby rattlesnake, we were filled in that this would be a multi-pitch climb (I was terrified, it showed, I've sworn in the past I would never do a multi-pitch climb), and we had a super scary climb down to our eventual starting point.

I tried to keep our little group of three laughing while out of the corner of my eye I saw our friend who was leading trad struggle with the climb. Gulp. This did not bode well since he's an excellent climber and I still put myself in the beginner's category. I went second, pre-apologized for being slow because I always am, and had sweaty hands before I even started.

Right at the beginning, the climb was rough, and I wasn't used to the weight of the second rope tied to the back of my harness. I did love being belayed from the top; I felt super secure the entire time. I've cried on past climbs in scary spots, but even though this was extremely scary and hard, no tears: a small success.

I've never climbed this type of route, and I don't know quite how to describe it. Basically you followed a crack the entire time, so I was turned to one side for the majority of the climb rather than full on facing the rock. There was one spot where I literally had no footing, my feet slid every time. So I jammed my hands around a slabby rock, bear hugged it, kept telling myself out loud that I was doing a fantastic job, and somehow shimmied up like a guy climbing a banana tree but with extremely limited footing ... I'm sure I looked ridiculous. However, I made it! I was so proud of myself. The view was fantastic! Unfortunately, we couldn't do the second pitch because our friend had to get back to his wife. We self-rappelled, another first (I guess not counting when I rappelled into the auditorium at school during an assembly), and again, I was scared. However, it was super easy and pretty fun actually.

Bateman Backyard Fun

Abe "taking a bath".

Get ready to get dizzy. I let the boys play with my waterproof camera.

Cabin Camping - Strawberry Reservoir

Are you kidding?

I went to my friends' cabin Friday night and we stayed until Saturday night. It was so incredible. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the cabin, but I'm sure I would have looked like a big dork.

Uh oh, I knew little Emily would not like this at all.

Yep, the very goat that we spent hours watching through binoculars in Montana.

In one of the upstairs bedrooms there's an exploded picture of my friends' uncle decked out in his hunting gear holding this guy's head in his hands. It was a little sad at first, but then I couldn't help but laugh to myself every time I looked at this mountain goat. Why did I laugh? I don't know, it just seemed funny to me after awhile. His face looks like a skinny santa.

The short trip was fantastic minus being riddled with mosquito bites. We played horseshoes, rode dirt bikes, played a new game I love called golf, laughed at each other's hilarious stories, went boating, tubing, cliff jumping, and played with their dog named Bear.

One of my favorite stories that came out:

Bear is my friend Nate's dog, and apparently a few years ago Nate and Bear were in a parade together. Nate would throw a frisbee and Bear would catch it. The crowd loved it; however, towards the end, Bear did not love it. Nate said poor Bear was so tired by the end that Bear pooped on the frisbee.

Kaysville 4th of July Parade

Jackie's sister Jessica's girls: Margot and Addie, and Eli and Abe

Margot and Addie were wearing bead necklaces that they kept from last year's parade. However, they put on sunscreen before putting on the necklaces and their necks turned blue.

Later during the parade, there was a float throwing out stuffed animals. Eli and I were desperate to catch one. We got a pink hippopotamus. Eli looked at it with pure loathing, looked at me in disgust, then threw it at me like it was going to nerd him up. I gave it to Margot who loved it.

When the Missionary Mall float passed us and threw out ties, I didn't catch one. (Head down in shame.) James caught two. I really was super sad.

Abe

Paddy Wagon

The boys thought this was hilarious. "Look at the dog!"

Eli, James, and Abe

They're coming...

End of the parade firetrucks.

Necessary Armament

Lots of water was used while we waited not so patiently.

Unsuspecting

Glacier National Park - Day Six

We spent the night at our last Super 8 in Bozeman, Montana. Zach and Em and Toby stayed in Whitefish with their friend Erik and his family. Little Emily had been staying with them, so she was out of luck when it came to a room. When my dad called my grandma to ask her where she'd like to put Em, she originally was going to be staying with my grandma. We convinced my grandma that Em could stay with me and Eric and Dra. Emily and I had been laughing non-stop this entire trip. I think my main goal was to get her to laugh at anything and everything I said. She made me laugh way hard too. So ... I think Eric wasn't too excited that we were going to be staying in the same room as him. He barely said a word the entire night. All in all though, I really enjoyed our room arrangements.

(Example of the lame extremes I went to make Em laugh:

We passed a sign with the name Charlie Wong on it. I pointed it out to Em then said, "Too bad he's never right, he's always wong." She asthma laughed so hard my dad insisted she repeat the joke. Too bad when she finally calmed down to tell it she told it wong.)

Why is it called Quake Lake? Ezra will tell you.

Me and Eli

In 1959, that entire slice of the mountain came roaring down during the earthquake, it crushed cars, buried people, dammed the river, and slid up on to the side we're standing on. Scary. My dad and his family had been vacationing up here at the time and left the day before the earthquake.

Eli and the boulder that never rolled; it just slid to the other side.

Ezra and another massive boulder.

Quake Lake

We watched a movie in the visitor's center. It told how 29 people died, there were 100 + mph winds created because of the rock slide, cabins were washed away, the nearby Hebgen Lake's sloshing threatened the dam, roads cracked and dropped, boulders crushed cars and tents ... It must have been absolutely horrifying.

On our way home we stopped in Idaho Falls again to see my Grandma Carver. She was out driving ... we all thought she was told not to drive again. We went over to my Aunt Pat's house to see her and her family, and my Grandma C slowly drove past us. We shouted and did jumping jacks, and she took no notice. It was fun to see Trent, Val, and Kim and their cute little families.

Glacier National Park - Day Five

I ran a measly two miles and it was rough. Probably had a hard time cause I've been eating such delicious food the entire time. (My favorite was the slab of strawberry rhubarb pie, warmed, with a scoop of ice cream.) I ran by a bridge Em and I had discussed jumping off of. It wouldn't have worked, the water was shallow, and there was a big pipe right where we would have landed.

Yummy banana, strawberry, and nutella crepe from the Farmer's/Art Market downtown. I also bought a big picture of Avalanche Lake. (My only souvenir purchase of the entire trip.)

We got to go for a helicopter ride!

Me and Ezra ready to go.

It took three separate trips to get our entire family's turn in. I got to go with James and Jackie and the boys. Jackie sat next to me with Abe on her lap, and James got to sit up front with Eli on his lap.

Right as we were taking off, Ezra told me he was getting dizzy. Uh oh. He did just fine. I don't think he looked out the window much, but I still kept trying to point things out to him. He laid his sweet little head on my shoulder a few times. I was hoping he wasn't feeling sick. He told Emily later that he had two voices in his head. One was telling him to open the door, and the other was telling him not to open the door. He was glad he listened to the one telling him not to open the door. Em said she was speechless.

Poor Ezra cried as we descended because it hurt his ears so bad.

My pictures weren't turning out so good, so I just stopped taking pictures and took it all in. I'm shaking my head trying to describe how ridiculously amazing the ride was. We went to the peaks of mountains, we saw glaciers, we saw lakes filled with ice, we saw waterfalls ... I think my mouth was open in awe the majority of the ride.

Toby cried and cried when we took off without him. So when it was his family's turn, they decided to try to let him go. Can you tell he's in the front on Zach's lap? Can you tell he's screaming? We took him out before they took off. At least he got to sit in a helicopter.

This took up most of our afternoon. While we waited for everyone to get their helicopter turn in, James played baseball with the boys. Ezra ran to the craziest far away spots for the bases. Sure did make me laugh. Zach's Emily and I walked to a little store, and I'm still regretting not buying this really cute cowboy hat they had.

The rest of the day was spent driving to Bozeman. It seemed like we drove past Flathead Lake forever. It's such a big lake.

Glacier National Park - Day Four

We decided to drive to the other side of the park, but the Going to the Sun Road is still closed because of 30+ ft of snow drifts. So what could have been a 30 mile drive turned into a 300 mile drive. I slept a lot.

Back to Goat Lick

The ironic part is the fact that we drove past this on our way back home later this day. Tons of cars were pulled over, there were way more goats, but it was raining and we all had plenty of pictures of goats. We really didn't feel like we needed to make a third trip to Goat Lick. Later we found out from our grandma there was a momma bear and her cubs. Nuts.

James and Jackie and the Boys

James and Abe

We walked around a bit and took a lot of pictures. We stared at this mountain face for a long time with cameras zoomed and binoculars out. There were mountain goats and bighorn sheep on the face. The bighorn sheep were butting heads, and I got to see a pair butt heads while I was looking through the binoculars! We had to cross a stream on this trail, and right as we turned the corner and saw the stream, two bighorn sheep crossed right in front of us.