Mt. Ellinor summit!

I’ve had a lot of changes in my life in the last 6 months. At the beginning of the year I decided that I wanted to focus my actions on building the life that I really wanted.

It’s too easy to get caught up in the daily “to do” list and forget to make time for the things that really matter.

I lived in Utah for almost 4 years and never stepped foot in one of the national parks.

I know…it was such a waste!

BUT…There is always a “but” :)

I have promised myself that I will not repeat that mistake again and have made the goal of reaching two summits a year to ensure that I get out and see as much of the gorgeous landscape as possible.
Luckily, I have awesome, active friends that don’t take convincing to go traipsing around the countryside even when they are 5.5 months pregnant.

I didn’t want to waste my long weekend by staying at home and just working on my “to do” list, not when there was supposed to be sunshine!

All it took was one text to Chrissy and she was on board.

We decided to hike Mt. Ellinor since it was less challenging than my first suggestion of Mt. Stone. (A big reason I enlist Chrissy and Josh in my adventures, is because I almost negative knowledge on what I’m doing when I’m selecting the adventure.) We thought "baby's first summit" might be more likely to happen on Mt. Ellinor.

It was GORGEOUS! And I didn’t even have to wake up at 6am! This is probably due to the fact that Josh opted to enjoy the weather via Mt. Bike and go for a ride. He is one of those freakish people that just naturally wake up early every day. So gross.

Another upside to Mt. Ellinor is that dogs are allowed, so I was able to take grace with us. She was a trooper…she lost some of her enthusiasm about ¾ of the way up and started to try to turn around, but with just a bit of encouragement she made it all the way up. The random strangers petting her and feeding her treats at every rest stop didn’t hurt.

At one rest stop there were birds called Camp Robbers. (Before this trip I had no idea what people meant when they referenced them. I just nodded and looked knowledgeable.) Camp Robbers are birds that will literally swoop down and take food (or whatever) straight out of your hand! Whether or not you meant to share.

Even with Grace at my feet one of the birds flew down to take food out of my palm. I was excited to try this touristy activity until I was actually doing it and remembered that I have a bird at home and I know EXACTLY how vicious they for no reason and how hard they can bite. It’s something you can’t forget on a cellular level.

I was fine.

The bird just took the food and flew off:) All that worry for my fingers for nothing.

While it has made for not awful biking and running weather this winter has been warm (relatively speaking) and dry. This means that ski season has sucked but more importantly it means that the snow pack is pretty much nonexistent, and that there is a real threat of water shortages this summer. This was obvious as we got closer to the summit and there was almost no snow.

The approach to the summit only had about 50 feet of a thin carpet of the crappy icy snow you see if the late spring.

On the bright side this made it easier for the guy hauling the 2 year old on his back to make it up…as well as the two 6 year olds who hiked up shortly before we headed back down.

Just when you start getting a bit big headed, there is always a kid ready to knock you down a peg or two. :)

They were a cute family though and it always makes me smile to see people bringing their kids out and teaching them the fun in outdoor activities.

We took a bit longer to complete the trip than we thought, but since my objective was to enjoy the sunshine and great weather, it was a rousing success! We rewarded ourselves with IHOP. Chrissy and I split two of the stuff waffle special things. I highly recommend themJ