Awesomeness(ly Hard)

Ben:  This weekend we did backbreaking work.  We hiked all the way to Emerald Lake, which is 6 miles, very steep, the longest hike I've ever done.  And as I'm writing this, I'm still sore, and it's one day later.

The best part was bedtime.  And the freeze dried ice cream sandwiches.  They were very good.  Bedtime was good because we read a lot of chapters in a book and I saw three shooting stars.  We did not sleep in a tent.  We were going to sleep in a shelter but it was full.  It was pretty cold.  I was snug in my bag, though.

We saw 11 mountain goats.  One we saw 10 feet away or so.

I liked backpacking, but it is not on my to do list again for another year or so.  That was enough!

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And here are our photos, as described by Sam:

In the beginning, we started hiking.  The packs were fairly heavy but not too bad.

This is a photo of Ben and Mom, which we tried to get looking down the canyon but we didn't have enough room.

Here we see a photo that is looking down the canyon.  We're looking at how far we've gone.  We have Crocs for lounging shoes.

This is a photo of us going up.  Up at the top of that saddle we still have another quarter of the hike to go, or 1.5 miles.

This is where we're at the top of the saddle

This is a photo of several mountain goats that were looking at us.  We saw a total of 11 during the trip.

This is a photo of another goat.  Chorney wanted to eat him.

That's a photo of me at the top of the saddle.  I was fairly tired by then.

This is a photo of me eating lasagna.  It was a little bit on the soupy side.  It was hiker lasagna and it tasted good.

This is a photo of the sunrise

This is a photo of me in the morning.  Ben's hidden in the red part of the sleeping bag because it's cold.

This is a view from a fair distance away of our campsite with Timpanogos mountain in the background.  It was cool sleeping under the stars.

This is a photo of another goat that was within 10 feet of us.

This is me in front of the goat.  I was taking photos of it.

If you see that small dot on the hill, that's me in front of the snow.  Ben's the one walking back on the rocks. We were at the lake 'cause it's near where we camped and we also filtered some water.

This is a photo of us going back

This is Chorney's pack.  She carried her food and a bowl.  She got fairly tired.

This is Ben in front of a waterfall about 3/4 of the way down.

This is Chorney sitting in the water.  She was sitting in the water because she's hot.

The hike was amazing.  We got to see so much.  And my hips are sore from holding the pack.