The Muhlestein Family

The Muhlestein Family Timp Hike

July 29th, 2007

This week sometime, I got the idea to take Scott and Dallin on a hike up the mountain. There aren’t many Saturdays left before school starts or we have something planned, so we decided yesterday was the day.

As with most activities involving young boys, it’s rather hard to leave one out. Tim started saying about Thursday that he wanted to hike up the big mountain too. I figured I could carry him all the way if it came to that, so I might as well bring him along.

It turned out that Gayla decided to come at the last moment too so we made it a whole family affair. We arrived at the base of the Timpanogos trail a little before 10 am and started our trek up the hill.

I was surprised how well my little boys were hiking. Even Tim didn’t want a ride. He kept right up with the other boys. Up and up we went. The only problem was Matthew would not wear his hat. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it. We tried to keep it on him and distract him but he’d just throw it back off. Well, somewhere about a mile or so up the trail, he gave it a toss and we didn’t notice. Then he fell asleep and when we took a rest, we still didn’t notice. We noticed it was gone another mile or so up the trail.

Then we got to this pretty waterfall:

Sorry you can’t see Matthew in that picture. He was hiding on Gayla’s back.

We kept on hiking until about 12:30. At this point, we were at the last cliff before you get to the big meadow with all the wild flowers below the saddle. I thought we might actually make it there but all of a sudden Scott and Dallin started walking pretty slow and said they were ready to turn around. I was surprised to find that Tim was disappointed. He wanted to climb to the top of the mountain. We begrudgingly turned around and started back down the hill. Scott took this picture of us.

We walked a bit further and Tim started getting real cranky. I knew he was going to get tired sometime. He didn’t want to walk but didn’t want carried either. I convinced him to ride on my back and away we went.

Unfortunately, it was only another 1/4 mile or so that Dallin sat down suddenly and started yelling OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW! He said something was stinging him. Well, I looked down there and found out that he hadn’t decided to follow earlier in the morning when we told him he had to have socks. I had told him. Gayla had told him. He ignored. He had a great big blister on the back of his right foot. It was right on the heal where the back of his shoe rubs. Well, that pretty much ruined his walking ability so I grabbed him up and away we went. Dallin was on my back, Tim was on my shoulders, and Scott was complaining that he’d rather have a ride too. Meanwhile, Gayla had to take my pack since I couldn’t wear it with too boys. It wasn’t as heavy because we had eaten most of food.

Down and down we went. We were hiking faster with me carrying the boys. We got to a place where the trail crosses the steam and I stepped on a rock that turned right over. Me, Tim and Dallin all ended up in the mud. We were lucky nobody banged there head on a rock or something. We picked ourselves back up and headed on down the trail.

Matthew kept pulling Gayla’s hair so we turned him backwards in the pack. He really didn’t like that. Pretty soon he got tired though so we turned him back around and he took another nap. We found his hat right where he through it. Someone was nice enough to hang it in the tree for us so it was easy to see. The damage was already done though and he had a nice red face for church today.

I was pretty impressed with my little hikers. We hiked for 4 hours. That was pretty good for the boys, all of whom hiked all the way up until we turned around. I’m pretty sure Dallin would have hiked all the way back had he worn socks. Sometime, I’ll take Scott back up there and we’ll hike all the way to the top.

Entry Filed under: Family