Mountain climbing

Yesterday I climbed a mountain just for the hell of it. Emily Ricks and Megumi and I were tired of waiting for the Brmrg boys (they got lost trying to find Sugar Hollow for some land nav training, how ironic), so we went for a little hike.

"Where should we go?" -me
"How about there?"- Emily, pointing to a peak to our left.

Two hours and 1600 vertical feet later, we reached our destination. Not the peak itself, but a relatively flat area from which we could not see the peak. Also, we didn't have a map, but I knew that if we continued uphill, we would hit Skyline Drive, which would be an anti-climatic ending to the uphill trek. The hike to the top was fairly rigorous, with Emily and Megumi frequently waiting for me to catch up.
Again, we didn't have a map, but thanks to a later trip to topozone.com, I discovered that we had hiked 1600 ft. uphill from the reservoir along Sawlog Ridge. The view of the lake and the Mormon river valley from 2200 ft. was spectacular with no leaves on the trees. The weather was perfect- clear skies with a temperature near freezing, and hiking along the creek we kept finding amazing icicle formations.

We hiked back down to the lake in an hour along the ridgeline, then came back to my house for some homemade minestrone. Perfect ending to a perfect outdoor adventure.

"Don't shake the tree if the fruit ain't ripe..."