Sunday, June 3, 2007

Grandeur Peak.


My oldest brother is an avid hiker. He goes on two or three hikes every week. He told me earlier this year that he is going to summit the "6 Peaks of the Wasatch". Those peaks would be in order of North to South; Grandeur, Olympus, Twin, Lone, Box Elder and Timpanogos. This sounded like a great idea to me. I drive the Wasatch front day in and day out and look at these peaks. It would be awesome to say that I have stood atop of the lot of them.

On Saturday June 2nd I was having a day that I am sure we are all familiar with. The "what do you want to do? 'I don't know what do you want to do?" type of day. I figured that if I went alone and huffed it I could summit Grandeur reasonably quick. I headed out and in a 2 1/2 hour round trip I was up and down. I have been getting in better shape and was able to keep a good pace the entire time.

I did have a quick run in with nature. As I rounded one of the many corners I ran nose to snout with a nice sized rattler positioned on the trail. We caught each other of guard and he let me know it. He hissed rattled and posed in a striking position. A couple of rock throws and he moved out of the way. All in all it was some great scenery, good tunes (thanks to iPod) and a decent sense of accomplishment stepping towards accomplishing a goal of mine.