It has been a great summer. Not only was I able to hike 15 times this year, I also got a new job and we moved from Tooele to Riverton. Titan is a year older and so much more fun now that he can move around and communicate. It was great to be able to take Annie and Titan on some of my hiking adventures this year, and I have to thank them both for letting me get out of the house and hike all over the place. I tried to plan the hikes at times when I wouldn't be missed, but I'm sure I still missed out on some time that I could have been with them.
I've compiled a list of all my hikes along with links to the blog post about each one. There are two hikes that Annie blogged for us, and one that was blogged by the HAM radio group I hiked with. I also added how many miles I hiked on each trip. If you're a very quick adder, you'll notice that I hiked a total of 98.34 miles this summer. That's an average of 6.56 miles per hike. Not too bad, really. There's a really good chance I'll sneak in another hike this year just to get over 100 miles. (If I was ten miles short I wouldn't bother, but 1 1/2 miles? Come on.)
My friend Tyler got me going this year, and I really appreciate his enthusiasm and knowledge. Hopefully next year we'll be able to hike together more often. We climbed Frary Peak together in March while we were still waiting for the snow to melt off the higher peaks.
After Frary, I wanted to hike somewhere flattish, but long, and somewhere that had already lost its snow. Dude Hill was everything I wanted, except it wasn't nearly as flat as I wanted.
In May I found myself in Davis county a couple times with time to kill, so I did a couple short hikes up the canyons up there, hiking the Baer Creek and Adams Canyon trails.
For Memorial Day we, and everyone else in the valley, hiked up Bell's Canyon. It was great to have Annie and Titan with me on such a beautiful hike.
In June Tyler and I got together again to hike up Ben Lomond. I freaked out a little at the snow near the peak and turned back, but still hiked nearly 15 miles without a single blister (or one blister; I don't remember).
In July I went hiking with a group of HAM radio operators who go out hiking every Wednesday night. It was a very different experience than my usual solo-hiking. They were great guys, though, and I hope to be able to hike with them a bit next year.
As the snow melted off the higher peaks, I started into my high elevation hikes, starting with Desolation Peak.
Annie and Titan joined me again for an exploratory evening hike to Cecret Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon. We'll definitely be heading back there.
Back to Big Cottonwood Canyon, I hiked to the top of Sunset Peak above lakes Mary, Martha, and Catherine...
..and followed it up with a hike to lakes Blanche, Florence, and Lillian.
In September I ventured up the Aspen Grove trail to Emerald Lake.
I thought that Emerald Lake would be my last opportunity to get out hiking with fall coming on and the days getting so short, but I was able to sneak in two after-work hikes in October, hiking back down in the dark.
To finish up the year, I took Annie and Titan to the top of Hidden Peak. Okay, so we didn't hike to the top; we took the tram during Snowbird's customer appreciation days (food donation = tram ticket). But we still hiked 4.5 miles down from the top, which still counts. In fact, I'm more sore from our Hidden Peak hike than I was from the 14+ mile Ben Lomond hike, or the 10+ mile Emerald Lake hike. The 30 extra pounds probably had something to do with that.
Hidden Peak - 4.5mi
All in all, it's been a great year: nearly 100 miles hiked in 15 trips, 3 of those with my whole family, and others with good friends. Not only did I get physically stronger and gain more knowledge of the outdoors, I learned a lot about myself and what I expect life to be.
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