Fish Lake Hightop

7-2-2013

We decided to hike to the highest point in Sevier County, Fish Lake Hightop.

Elevation: 11,633 Ft.

 Dean's friend Nathan Cox decided to come with us on our little hike.....which turned out to be not so little!

10 miles, but worth every mile.  The scenery up there was amazing!

 Nathan kept checking his GPS and letting us know we were constantly going the wrong direction!  He would also let us know how much elevation we had gained, and how much we still had to go.

 These cairns were a comfort all the way up the mountain.  

 The moths, or butterflies, whatever these are, were so cool looking.

  That is the Hightop behind me in this photo.  Once you get up there, you have to figure out which boulder is really the highest.

 This is Dean on what we thought might be the highest point.  He got on top, and no marker, so we had go continue to guess which one was the highest point.  Finally found it, and someone has built a wooden marker so you can see it from the ground.  It took climbing on a few boulders before we found the real one with the marker!

  That little bottle at the bottom of the stack of rocks is the register.  If you make it to the summit you get to put your name and date on the list.

 Please appreciate this picture with all three of us at the top.  As you can see from the picture below, I had to set my camera on timer, and then hop from one boulder to another to get into the picture....in 10 seconds!

 

This was a pretty steep hike in places!  It took us 5 1/2 hours. 

Said our good-byes to Nathan, and headed home, just in time to go to dinner with our friends the Muirs.

   We met the Muirs on our trip to Australia.  We had fun at dinner, and then they stayed the night at our house before they flew out the next morning.  Crazy busy week, but so fun to spend time friends and family.

Fun weekend with the Kanab Jenson's

Julie, Dean and I all ran the Top of Zion Relay (previous post), and finished running on Saturday evening.  We headed to Kanab for Brandon's mission farewell which was on Sunday morning at 9 a.m.

Yes, we all made it to church, and yes, we were all on time!

Brandon gave a great talk.  He is going to be an awesome missionary in the Mexico City East mission!

Later that evening was Brandon's Court of Honor.  He received his Eagle Scout award.

Mount Nebo 7-5-2013

We have been home for almost 48 hours, so I guess it's about time we hike another mountain!

Today's destination is Mount Nebo, highest spot in Utah County.

Elevation 11,928 ft.

Sorry, I on my little screen I couldn't see if Dean was pointing in the right spot, but close enough.

 It's a 2 hour drive from our house to the trailhead, so yes, we got up at 4:30 a.m. so we wouldn't be hiking in the heat of the day.

 It was kind of steep in places!  (understatement!!!)

 Since we left our car, we haven't been able to see Mt Nebo, there was another mountain in the way.  Here the peak comes into view.  It's awesome!  I took a ton of pictures so nobody else would have to make this hike, and yet you could see all the cool sites we saw.  (you can thank me later)

 It got pretty scary.  In the book High in Utah it says "This is probably the most difficult hike of Utah's county high points.  The hike averages nearly 1,000 feet of elevation gained per mile for more than 5 miles, and there's some nasty scrambling across the knife-edge ridge to the north peak.  If you're uncomfortable with his precarious scramble, you might want to turn around after reaching the south summit."   YEAH!!!

 Made it to the summit!  It was cold up there.   Really windy, and lots of bugs.  Not at all what I expected.

At the top there was a box with the register in it.  Once again, if you make it all the way, you sign your name and the date you hiked it. 

Here is Dean's signature and date from last year.

 From the summit looking towards the north-east.

 Looking out at Utah Lake

 The town of Mona is to the west of the peak.

 

 I'm sitting behind this little shelf trying to get a little protection from the wind.  It was a great temperature if you could get out of the wind. 

 Not only is this the highest point in Utah County, it is also the highest peak in all of the Wasatch Mountains.

FYI, when you are on the tallest mountain, you get to see some pretty awesome views!

 Headed back now.

 There were some pretty scary parts.

 Looking out to the east

 Can't believe we hiked that,....and lived!

 You can kind of see the trail going up through the green meadow.  Yeah, just a little steep!

 The wild flowers along the way were amazing.  This is looking back at what we just hiked.  It's the peak in the center of this photo, kind of back behind the greener mountain.

Yep, ya see that peak way back in the background?  I've been there!

Fremont with Nathan and Calla

After spending the weekend in Kanab with the Jenson's (see previous post), we got up Monday morning and  drove to Fremont, Utah.  Our good friends Nathan and Calla Cox own a beautiful home there.  What a cool place to visit!  We took a drive with them and a hike so we could "bag" (climb to) the highest point in Wayne County.  At 11,322 ft, Bluebell Knoll is the high point.

This marker designates the high point.  Right next to the marker was this log, so then we were even higher than the highest spot....and for some reason, that meant we needed to do yoga, trying to balance on this really wobbly log!  (I think it's from lack of oxygen!)

  What an amazing spot!  The views up there were so beautiful!

 

 This critter was enjoying sunning himself on the rocks.

After our hike, it was back to Nathan and Calla's house.  There was a crazy wind storm, that knocked the power out.  Not a problem for us, we went and played on the 4-wheelers and Razor!  By the time we got back, the power was back on.

 Thanks Nathan and Calla for a great time!  Your place is awesome.

We got up early the next morning to hike Fish Lake Hightop, which is the highest point in Sevier County.