"We're here mountains...."

Now on to more exciting things (thanks for humoring my knitting obsession whether you wanted to or your google reader forced you to)...

Two fridays ago, we warned the mountains that we're back. That's how Mike likes to tell the story....we just wanted to tell nature that it had better be ready for us this summer. Mostly, we came home a little earlier than anticipated because of an unexpected encounter. The plan was to hike past the Y (neither of us had been before, apparently we have no school patriotism) and into the canyon where we would camp for the night. Check. 

We made it most of the way up and decided to set up camp before dark fell or the rain got any worse. As we were scoping out a spot however, we noticed fresh bear tracks and quite a number of them. Regardless, we stuck to the plan and pitched our tent. After cooking dinner and being on-edge for an hour, we decided that a night of restless sleep and the unpredictability of newly emerged bears was not worth it. 

So, in record time (15 min) we took down camp, repacked our backpacks, and started the trek down the canyon. The snow was much more pleasant going down and we entertained ourselves noisily to discourage cougars and bears from joining our little entourage. 

At about 10pm, we got back to the top of the Y and finished our freeze-dried dinner that we had made back at the campsite. Dinner on the mountain...romantic with the moon above and sparkly city lights below...I bet a number of BYU co-eds have become engaged to be wed in similar situations....minus the sweaty feet, sore back/knees, faint worry about wild animals, and bear pepper spray at the ready. 

Now starting back at the beginning with the pictures, what you people "pay" to see...

It's a miracle my husband can go a night without electricity and needed appliances.

 

Just kidding, but he does have anal feet habits that demand dry socks (preferably seamless which are impossible to find) and clean feet at all times. He had a little run in with a kitchen puddle and had to dry his feet and only pair of hiking socks.

With dry feet and plenty of gear, we hit the trail happy despite the steep incline.

Our first encounter with the Y.  Kind of like marshmellows gone bad and huge. 

The view of campus and Provo.

Views from the Canyon above the Y. I think it's called Dry Canyon.

Resting.

Climbing. (my Mountain Goat)

Ghost Trees.

Then some of these.....

(not my pictures, mostly because these are both polar bear prints, but you get the idea)

Then mostly lots of this.....

(Black black sky on the hike down.)

And finally safe and sound in our warm, comfy bed. 

Well mostly, just missing Mike's cell phone.  After hypothesizing that the bear had stolen it and running experiments about how it could fall out of Mike's shorts, we planned to hike back up to the Y again. But after a week of pure email correspondence  and getting packed up again to go to the Y, we found it in the car under the driver's seat.