mt. thielsen

Saturday morning we woke up at 5am, packed the car and headed east with the family to conquer the infamous Mt. Thielsen. My dad, being the avid hunter/hiker/anything outdoorsmen type of guy he is, warned us of what was to come, but we didn't really listen. It was a 10 mile hike round trip. And we had no idea of what we were getting ourselves into...

Bright eyed and bushy tailed @ approx. 5:30 in the am.

It was a B-e-a-utiful hike! (and we took lots of pics!)

Tippy-top = 9200 feet and yes, that is where we were headed

                                                                                     

Our Perfect water advertisement... ;]

It was 4.9 miles to the top. Drew, Molly and I decided to stop at about 8600 feet... We dubbed it Common Sense Point. ;) It was insanely scary up there! Like holding-onto-rocks-in-order-not-to-fall-off-the-mountain scary! But the rest of the crew went to the TOP! And almost all of them said it was the first and last time they would be doing that... just a tad bit sketchy up there. 

See?!?! 

Hi dad! Aye yi yi... 

Those are people up there, and these pictures do not even do it justice.

Hmm, let's see, I said about 19 prayers while I watched the unexperienced mountain climbers that are my family grasp rocks for their dear life. Started feeling a little better about the situation... and then enter two insane hikers (the real deal, with hiking sticks and all) who decided to tell us that this mountain is dangerous, especially with the amount of people we had in our group. Well, thanks lady... back to praying I go...

We waited for about an hour for the rest of them to climb the last 600 feet to the top. Then back down the mountain we all went... mainly sliding down on our behinds. Going downhill was surprisingly worse than going uphill, and it took so much longer. We look like we know what we are doing in this pic, but about every 2 minutes someone was either on their behind or grabbing the person in the front or back of them and trying to catch their balance. It was hilarious, and I have no idea how I am related to my father.

Me = 23 year old, uncoordinated, fell 3 times on my bum kind of hiker...
Dad = 46 year old, conquer anything, help my daughter down the side of the mountain kind of hiker...

It took us almost 8 hours round trip and we finished off the with some pizza at Diamond Lake.

Minus the yucky blisters, scratches (on our bums & hands from falling!) and horrible sunburns it was a great time with the family! For our next "hike", we are shooting for something a little less traumatizing ;)