Mt. Olympus

So, a week in to living here, Tuesday was hankering for an epic hike. So she came home from work with 3 different trail guides. The Wasatch Mountains are literally in our backyard, so it’d be a crime not to explore them. She chose Mt. Olympus for our first Utah hike, being that it was the one we could see from our deck. She sold it to me by saying “We’re gonna go to the peak! It’s ONLY 9,026 ft.” “Oh...” I thought “that doesn’t seem too bad...”

We headed out early to try and beat the heat. The first thing we learned about this particular hike was that there was nothing gradual about it. You see, I’m used to long approaches and long steady hikes. Not here folks. You literally walk to the base of the mountain and basically look straight up. It’s a lot like the Canadian Rockies in BC that jet straight out of the ocean. The first few steps were monsters each about 3 feet high. From there on the mountain was basically a stair stepping machine the entire way up. It wasn’t until later that we found out that the Wasatch Moutains is the steepest mountain range in the world. Nice.

I won’t bore you with the sweaty details of the hike, but near the top it turned into about 600 ft of pretty technical scrambling. We turned a corner and spotted a woman stuck on a large rock. I shouted to her “Are you headed to the top?” There was no answer. When we got closer, we found that she was pretty shaken up and had bitten off more than she could chew. “I was headed to the top, but I don’t know how...” she said. Her name was Lea, turns out she’s an ultramarathoner that went out for a leisurely hike. She basically sprinted up the mountain not expecting such a technical climb at the end. We told her that we were headed to the top and that we’d love to help her to the top as well. We warned her that sometimes it’s easier to go up than down, but she didn’t want to be alone and didn’t want to quit.

“I must warn you...” she said “I will probably cry and will definitely swear.”

“Whatever it takes” I responded.

Finding Lea is actually just what I needed. Right before we found her, I was spent. I wasn’t even sure I had the energy to finish. Tuesday had the energy of mountain goat this day and was basically dragging me up. But now I had to ignore my own fatigue and turn my concentration to Lea. There were several times I didn’t think she was gonna make it, but she gritted her teeth and made it to the top with us. When we reached the top, there was a mailbox with a notebook you could sign to record your summit day and time. We spent about 30 minutes on top while Lea told her life story to Tuesday. Turns out that Lea is a “recovering LDS trying to start he life over...”

Funny how God will put people in your life right when you need them... both mine and hers. She needed someone to help her to the top, and I needed someone to help to the top.

We headed down and found that going down turned out to be the most strenuous part of the hike. Lea didn’t want to go at our slow pace so she took off in a near run. As we got back to our Jeep, there was a note on our windshield “Thanks for the help! Got down at 3:45 pm. -Lea”

It was 5:00 pm.