Sunrise

Someone once said "We can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness."

Surely we appreciated the sunrise on Saturday morning more than we would have had we not wandered for hours in the darkness before the light began to fill the morning sky.
The alarm went off at 12:30am. Joseph, Angelina and I had a quick breakfast of pancakes and sausage before running out the door to meet Spencer, Ashley and Davey. We arrived at the base of Mt. Timpanogos and started our hike at about 3:20am.

It was dark and chilly, but also incredibly beautiful and peaceful. We hiked for what seemed like forever, with headlamps and flashlights to light the trail. About half way up the mountain we hit ice and snow. Still, we hiked. Finally the sky began to light up around 7am. We tried to make it to the saddle of the mountain before the sunrise to watch it from there, but we didn't quite make it. Still, we were very high on the mountain, and this is what we saw.

It was probably the most incredible sunrise I've seen in my 5 years in UT. Then, we reached the saddle and looked out over Utah Valley. (The 2 pictures below are supposed to be next to each other to give you the panoramic view of the valley, but it's not working, so just pretend they're side by side.)












I felt like Rocky. That was quite the hike... but is was so worth it. We ate "lunch" at the top and then hiked back down. What a wonderful day!

PS - This is my brother at the top of Timp. You can't see it in this picture, but he's wearing shorts. He wore them the whole hike. I think he's crazy.