A Hike almost to 9990!

A long, long time ago, while vacationing in Park City,

 we hiked Holly's trail (which is listed on the trail map as "a more difficult" hike)

 then caught the Mid Mountain trail (also "a more difficult" hike), 

followed it to the top of the gondola and arrived at Red Pine Lodge.

 After successfully accomplishing this "more difficult" feat and feeling pretty good about myself, 

I made a flipant comment about how someday we should climb all the way to 9990, 

which is the highest peak at Canyons. 

 Dad perked up immediately and said, "Let's do it when you turn 50!"

 At the time that seemed SO far away. I mean I thought I'd never be that old!  

I agreed because I figured that by the time I turned that old,

 Dad would be losing his memory and forget about our conversation about hiking to 9990. 

 But no!  Dad has been talked of nothing else when my BIG birthday came along!  

So I tried to talked all the kids into joining us.  But alas, everyone had a good excuse. 

 Ashley was in CA babysitting the cousins. Brooke had to run 9 miles that day so I didn't blame her.

  Allie and Justin were both going to join us, but then Allie got called into work that morning. 

 So it was Dad and Justin and me that headed up the mountain that day. 

Justin and Dad on the trail at the beginning of our hike.

I made it to the top of Red Pine Road ski run.

The view from on top of a ridge with Dreamcatcher and Daybreak runs in the background.

We made it to the top of Tombstone chairlift.

From here on up the hike is described on Canyons trail map as their most difficult hike.

It says that "when you get to the top of the ridge, some technical climbing is required over talus rock."

We aren't really technical climbers.  We aren't even climbers at all.  Nor are we hikers.  

We probably fall into the category of beginner recreational hikers at best.

So we knew that we probably wouldn't make it to the top of 9990 but we weren't going to get discouraged.

We decided to just hike as far as we could, until it got too technical for this amateur hiking crew.

Now the incline gets more steep as we continue the hike up Fantasy Ridge.

Like I said, it got much steeper.

Then we passed this warning but it didn't intimidate us and we pressed forward.

We passed this gorgeous meadow which was filled with wildflowers.

These two were determined even though there were a few fallen trees on the trail.

At last, we made it to the ridge and 9990 peak is in sight.

The view of Lookout Cabin from the top of the ridge.

Dad standing on the edge of the ridge.  The view on one side...

and the view on the other side of the ridge.

My view of Fantasy Ridge.  All the sudden, it didn't look like any fantasy at all!

The talus rock that we hiked up was gorgeous

 but proved to challenging since the rock wasn't super stable.

But it did make for some fabulous pictures.

Another fantastic shot with the talus rocks.

And yes, it is that steep!

More views of the ridge we were hiking on.

The map describes it as "knife edge" and after hiking it,

I think that is a pretty good description.

I took this picture to show how steep it is.

Then Mark was like, "Hey, get down there and I'll get a great shot of you sitting on the edge of the ridge."

  I don't know what I was thinking because I sat right down, 

held on to a rock to stablize myself, while Mark took the picture. 

 Remember, I'm afraid of heights!

Apparently, my desire to get a good picture overrides my fear of heights.

Anything for a great photo!

We hiked until we finally got to the technical part of the hike, which basically meant that you would need a rope to hoist yourself over the narrowest and steepest part of the ridge.  

It was at that point, that we turned back.

I was relieved that the boys knew their limits and didn't push it,

because I was trying to stay calm but inside, I was a little freaked out by the "knife edge ridge" that we were on.

Standing on the edge of one of the many cliffs.

Dad stopped and picked a couple wildflowers for Brooke.

Brooke joined us for lunch back at the outdoor grill at Red Pine lodge.

They brought her a free pizza and sundae for her birthday.