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| Salt Lake Valley at sunrise from the Mt. Olympus Trail head |
Doug and I really wanted to make a memorial for my dad ever since he died. June 19, 2011 was the one year anniversary of his death. I knew it was going to be an extremely emotional day I was not looking forward to very much. Thankfully I have Doug to push me both physically and emotionally.
One of the hikers that tried to save my dad was so thoughtful and took the GPS coordinates of where he died. He left them for our family on the online guestbook for his obituary. I am SO very grateful for him! We put the coordinates in our GPS and we started hiking at about 6:00 A.M.
After about 10 minutes into the hike I thinking to myself there is NO WAY I am going to be able to do this, I was already winded and tired.
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| Tolcats Canyon |
The hike was quite strenuous and we took a few rests along the way. As we were getting closer to the location I started to get butterflies in my stomach. I guess I had imagined what had happened so many times in my mind, for some reason I was half-way expecting to see an area or scene where everything unfolded. However, the trail just continued to go on as normal and there was nothing out of the ordinary. We took his temporary grave-marker with us to place on the mountain. We found a spot that was just a little off the trail to place it. I wanted it to be visible but I wanted to keep it a little distant from the trail so nobody would mess with it. We found a nice location underneath a large tree and placed some rocks at the base to support it.
I was surprised that I was able to keep my emotions in check the whole time, I actually felt quite calm.
After we had set up the memorial I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders and I was excited to finish the rest of the hike.
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| Doug and I at the Saddle. |
We stopped and took a break and some pictures at the Saddle of the mountain. It was so beautiful and peaceful up there. From the saddle you have to ascend the last 500 feet in about 0.1 mile. You have to scramble up to the summit climbing with both hands and feet.
WE MADE IT TO THE TOP!
There was snow at the summit, but it was expected at 9,026 feet. The view was INCREDIBLE!
There was a log book to sign and journal in.
The 6.4 mile hike took us about 6 hours round trip.
~We want to make this an annual tradition~
5 comments:
Oh, Liz. This is beautiful. There are tears in my eyes. I really loved your dad. I have the best memories of him. I'm so glad you were able to do this.
This post is amazing Liz. I have tears as well. I am so happy you were able to do that and have Doug by your side.
You are so awesome Liz. I think that was such a great thing for you guys to be able to do. I am with the others tears in my eyes as I read this you truly are amazing girl!
Such a beautiful thing to do. So happy that you were able to do this. All I could do while reading this post was smile as tears formed in my eyes. You're amazing.
What an awesome experiance. Way to go on that hike, it's a rough one.
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