Timp Mountain - One Snowy Hike

At 4:30am on Saturday morning me a few leaders and a bunch of scouts heading up to try and hike Timpanogos Mountain. We were on the trail just before 6am. It turned out to be more of a challenge then I ever thought it would. I have hiked Timp many times in my life, but none were quit like this hike. We made good time as we hiked in the wee hours of the morning. A few miles into the hike we started to come across patches of snow. Something I had never seen so low on the trail.

It was a bit of a challenge for many of the scouts. Most of them were wearing tennis or skate shoes. Not the most ideal shoe for hiking accross snow.

Many of them slipped and slided their way across the snow as we scurried to try to find the trail in many areas.

Here is a picture of our Bishop Tom as he climbs up the side of a snow field. When we reached the meadow I saw something I had never seen before. Snow, snow and more snow. It was everywhere.

In the background is the top of Timp Mountain. Our final goal.

Usually there is a trail that leads up to the saddle, which is the low point on the mountain ridge. But this day, there was nothing but snow leading up to there. Four of us decided to take a leap of faith and try and reach the top.

Just to the right of Cody's (the kid on the right) elbow, you can see the rest of our group waiting on a small section of rocks.

We literally had to climb straight up the snow to get to the saddle. There were a few times that if we slipped we would of slid a long way and could have been seriously hurt. We were blessed to be able to climb well and safely.

Behind me in the picture is the second snowfield we had to traverse to reach the saddle.

After the saddle we had a straight up mile climb. You can see the trail in the picture and a few people coming up it. You can also see the steepness of the snow we had to climb.

It was great to get to the top! Something I really didn't think we would be able to do with all of the snow. Congrats also to Dave, Kevin and Cody, the other 3 that joined me on top. They way down was extremely dangerous and fun. Dave blazed trail with his icepick until it was safe to slide down a bit.

At one point, behind Cody in the picture, he slipped and shoved his pole into the snow to stop him from flying down and crashing into rocks, and actually bent and snapped his pole. It was pretty great. We all climbed down quickly as there were so many spots that we could slide hundreds of feet as apposed to hiking down the trail.

Here is one of the places we slid down. You can see our slide marks in the picture. All and all, we all made it down safely and had such a wonderful time. I have a funny desire to hike the trail again next year in the snow. Well see how crazy I am feeling then!!!