Great Basin trip 2.0

Last fall we made an amazing discovery - Great Basin National Park in Nevada. Just a three hour drive from Provo was this amazing mountain paradise in the middle of the desert, and we liked it a LOT. For Memorial Day weekend, we decided to go back and take some friends. If you look at the post from our first trip there, you see that the weather looked a little something like this:

But luckily this weekend was a little more like this: 

Much more conducive to hiking! 

We hiked; ate hot dogs, Mountain House beef stroganoff (the. best.), smores with peanut butter (something I had never tried before. OHMYGOSH so good.), and pancakes; toured Lehman Caves; saw the brightest, clearest stars thanks to the famed darkest skies in the lower 48; played games (I'm now addicted to Bananagrams); and enjoyed every minute of sunshine & no work or school.

Via All Over the Map. The cave was too dark for non-tripod shots.

Our faithful Don Carlos.

Overall a Memorial Weekend success. Thank you to every man and woman who has served 

to protect our America the Beautiful.

Snowy hike Saturday

As I see it, any day that involves these two things is alright in my book.

 Mountains & Samwise Gamgee. (That's my daypack. Don't ask I'm just cool okay?}

 Ryan and I have decided to start a new tradition to add a new dimension to our exercise regimen. As it stands now we've got strength training and cardio going every day, with Sunday as our rest day. Now that it's getting warmer outside, though, we're going to start high-altitude cardio i.e. HIKING. Every Saturday starting now!

 I did some researching for a few days and found a collection of 6 to 8-mile dayhikes near us. The first one, which we did yesterday, was the beautiful Lake Blanche in the Twin Peaks Wilderness of Big Cottonwood Canyon.

This thing was a GRUNT and we loved it. Being the hiking snob that I am I immediately got annoyed at all the people near the trailhead, but we found within a mile or so that the incline (2,650 feet in 3 miles) and general roughness of the trail deterred many, and it was blissful, beautiful solitude for most of the time.

Around the second mile we found another thing that probably deterred others - snow! It was beautiful!

 We slipped and slid our way up the last third of the trail {that part kinda stunk, but what else can you expect at 7,000 feet in May}, which led us up a gorgeous glacial valley toward Sundial Peak.

Awesome glacial features. ^^^ I was so stoked.

WE MADE IT. And it was stunning!

FYI we ate lunch while sitting on hundred-thousand-year-old glacial striations. 

My excitement induced by that fact weirded Ryan out hardcore.

Ryan wouldn't take a selfie with me so I had to fly solo.

"Stoooop ittttt." -Ryan

Followed by Chipotle and frozen yogurt. Purty good day if you ask me.