The first week of September came around and I got a call from my Mom telling me that peaches and pears were in and ready to be canned.  The last time I canned pears by myself, I managed to ruin them by not buying brand new lids.  (they didn't seal properly and I ended up with a whole lot of fermented pears.  Yuck!)  Mom promised to walk me through it when the time came.  So when she called, We packed up the kids and drove up to Payson.  

Luckily our visit fell on a three day weekend, so instead of canning on Saturday, we decided that we really needed to hike to the top of Mount Timpanogos.  Now, I have never hiked this mountain, and it is Mom's favorite hike.  It isn't a nice, easy day hike.  It is a full 12 hour, 15 mile round trip, steep, hard hike.  We went prepared with food/snacks and water.  We went early to avoid some of the heat.  We dressed in layers.  Nothing, however, could prepare for just how tough of a hike it was.  

Sunrise.

The hike itself is a beast, but we didn't think that would be enough for us, so we brought along a couple of our own little monsters.  Ethan and Austin.  :)  Ethan started feeling sick almost immediately.  Robert patiently urged him on for the first hour.  After he threw up the first time, I told Rob he could just go home with him and come back to pick us up.   Instead, Robert had Ethan rest when he needed it, but slowly encouraged him on with games and distractions until they eventually caught up with us.  By then, Ethan was feeling quite a bit better and was enjoying the hike.  

Here is our whole group.  Robert, my cousin Don James, Jim, Mom, Austin, Ethan, Yve and Laina.  I'm there too.  :)

Unfortunately, as soon as Ethan felt better, Austin was on the verge of giving up.  He was having a hard hike and had fallen a couple of times.  The mountain was 'against him.'  His body was 'bretraying' him.  Shoot, he even told us that his hair was betraying him.  By that time I was getting pretty fed up myself  (my patience was betraying me.)  Robert switched gears and started working on moving Austin up the mountain.  Not an easy task.  Austin need a lot of encouragement, and I had used up most of my good will towards him during the first portion of the hike.  Robert saved the day and talked him through it all.

On and on we trudged along.  Besides Austin, the rest of the group was in good spirits and it was so beautiful on that mountain.  The girls had quite the collection of flowers in their hair before we even got through the first half of the hike.  

Near the top of the tree line, we decided to take a snack break.  It had been really warm up until then, but when we got out of the trees, the wind picked up and we were getting some pretty cold drizzle coming down.

Jimmy stealing kisses.

Finally we made it up to the Emerald Lake.  (about 6 miles up)  We had lunch there to get off our feet.   This is as far as the boys were willing to go and we decided split up.  Robert's knees started to give him a little trouble at that point so he offered to take them down.  The rest of us started back up.

The next part of the hike was right along this long, crumbly, little-bit-scary ledge.  This was followed by the most insane ankle-breaking rock field.  Mom needed to take it slower and so we split up on the rocks.  Don was so wonderful and stayed with Mom, making sure she didn't slip or lose her balance.   

That rock field was my least favorite part and it seemed to go on forever.  Once we got up to the saddle (about 1 mile from the top) we looked down and saw them trudging through those awful rocks. 

We had to practically crawl up the last part of the mountain up to 'the saddle'.  Once we got there, the wind was absolutely freezing and blowing so hard that Jimmy refused to stand up.  From there it was about a mile hike up the side of the mountain.  Literally, the side of the mountain.  The girls were too frightened to hike up that last trail and did I mention the wind and freezing rain?  The rain was starting to make the stones slick and we didn't know if it was going to get worse.  The view was fantastic from where we were huddling, and so we decided that we had gone as far was we were going to.  

Our last triumph picture.  Laina is amazing!

Here we are riding our bums down this hill.  Way at the bottom you can see Mom and Don waiting for us to get there.

We made it.  :)

And back along the ridge.  

Yve got to be carried 20 whole steps.  It took her 5 to fall asleep.

Jim, Yve and Alaina taking the road less travelled by.

Gorgeous!

It was evening when we stumbled back to the cars.  We were exhausted.  My knees killed (getting older, I guess.)  and we were more than ready for it to be over.  What we didn't know was that a couple miles after Robert and the boys left us to go back down, both of his knees went completely out on him.  He had to do the whole rest of the hike with shooting pain and taking as many rests as he could.  He got back to the car only a little bit before we did.  Poor Robert.  It wasn't his favorite hike, but he still had a good attitude about it.  For me, it was one that I'm glad I did.  I have a little tinge of regret not making the final push, but probably not enough of one to make the hike back up any time soon.  I just can't believe that my Mom was still making it up there.  74 going on 25.  I can only hope that she sent some of that DNA my way.