Liking Mucho Hiking! A blog about our mucho hikes.

❆❆❆❆❆ Lake Blanch. 6.9 miles. 2706 feet elevation gain. Date hiked: Jan. 16, 2021 This year, for the first time in hiking history, the hiking history of Leti and Stacey that is, we went on a winter hike, compliments of microspikes! Leti's Christmas present for the win! I gave this hike 5 out of 5 snowflakes. It was fantastic to go on a hike in January in the Wasatch Mountatins! The trail was great. The weather was perfect. The snow was really beautiful.  First, microspikes. What a great invention. Here is what they look like on bottom and the top:  What a great invention! They worked swimmingly well on snow and ice. In slush, they did stick just a bit, but I thought they still worked well.  Second, the hike. As we hiked up the trail, Leti was her usual athletic self with her less-athletic friend in tow. Luckily for the less-athletic, slightly out-of-shape friend, this hike was a little easier in snow. The trail was not rocky at all. Just snowy. There were a few points on ...

 🌇🌇🌇🌇 Sunset Peak. 4.1 miles. Elevation gain of 1358 ft. Date hiked: Oct. 24, 2020 Leti always has these hiking dreams that involve elevation gain and distance. Lots of elevation gain and distance. Sometimes these hikes can be a bit sketchy, so we bring someone else along to keep us mentally in the game. Which is how Rob ended up on this hike. We originally were supposed to do loop hike that included Mt. Baldy, Sugarloaf peak, etc. Well, we started on this trail and we got to a part that was quite sketchy. Letizia asked if we wanted to go on. We rated our desires on a scale of 1-10. Leti and I were at a 4. Rob was at a 5. So, we turned around and headed back down the mountain. This loop trail shares a trail with Sunset Peak, which is how we ended up at Sunset Peak. Four sunsets out of five here. It was so dead that I just couldn't give it five sunsets.  So, Sunset Peak is a friendly little trail. To get there, you walk through this meadow type stretch. Generally it is rath...

 ⛰⛰⛰⛰ Picture from the top of Mt. Olympus. 8 miles. 4,192 feet of elevation gain. Date hiked: Oct. 31, 2020 Mount Olympus is an easily seen mountain peak on the Wasatch Front. I have no idea why I have lived in Utah so long an never hiked it. It was Letizia's first hike when she moved here. But, yesterday was my first adventure with Mount Olympus. I give it four out of five mountains. The trail was super rocky, which I did not love. And there were so many people on the trail, which I did not love. But, overall, it was a good end of year hike as my lungs knew they were alive, it was a new hike to me, and the view was pretty spectacular.  Even though we hiked this on Halloween, there wasn't anything too scary about this hike. There wasn't a time where I was looking over edges with steep drop offs. The foliage, for the most part, however, was dead so that was very Halloween like. But, it was Oct. 31st, so dead is to be expected. This trail was fairly steep. It started out less...

 🗻🗻🗻 Mt. Nebo. 9.3 miles. 3,589 elevation gain. Hiked October 17, 2020. Zoom on the picture for a better view of the spine between the two peaks. There are some hikes in the world that you should only do once. And then, there are some hikes I can do over and over again and be quite content. This. Is. Not. One. Of. Them. Leti and I tried to summit Nebo last year, but by the time we got to the first peak, Mt. Nebo was in a cloud. As the weather wasn't great, we pulled off. When we hiked it this year, the weather was great, minus the wind. It was a beautiful day for this hike, but wowza! It was a real test of faith!  We started up the trail and made great time. We did the first 3.5 miles in under 2 hours. The last 1.5 miles was a learning experience. :)  To ascend the North Peak, the trail is quite steep. It is .4 miles, but gains 800 ft. of elevation. We took our time and made it up that, no problem. As people came down, we asked them about the trail. Some summited. Some...

 🌲🌲🌲🌲 Mileage: Between 12.5 and 14.5. Elevation Gain: 3,369 ft. Date hiked: Oct. 15, 2020 Last week, Leti and I decided to hike in the Tushar Mountains, which is near Beaver, Utah. As luck would have it, there is a ski resort not far from the trail heads. So, we packed our bags and prepared for another hiking vacation in nice accommodations at Eagle Point Resort. We stayed in two places at the resort because of a Wi-Fi mix up. Nice place to visit if you so desire. And, not a lot of people around. For the win!   Our first hike started out on a low. The terrain was blah. The trail was ridiculously windy (I felt like I was walking in circles), and it was the last day of the hunt! A majority of the people we saw were hunters. We did not get shot, which is important. Nor did we see any deer. Because it started out in kind of a low spot, I gave this four trees out of five. After the first 3 or so miles, things got better.  You will note that there are no pictures of th...

  Rating: 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳 Date Hiked: Oct. 2, 2020. Distance: 4ish miles. Elevation Gain: 1,066 feet I usually don't like to shirk my duties at work, but on this particular Friday, I couldn't take it anymore. The hills were calling, and I must go. So, I left work five minutes early without telling anyone. Except it is now on this blog for the universe to see. And, I have to say, I think it was a really good decision. Leti and I wanted to sneak in a hike before General Conference. Since we loose daylight pretty early these days, Friday after work worked perfectly.  We hit the trail and passed a bunch of people on the way up to the Twin Lakes. For the record, I was in serious need of 15 liters of O2. Leti, not so much. When we got to the lake, we had to put on our warm clothes. And then, we decided to walk around the lake, which proved a lot more eventful than we imagined. If we were planning on camping, we decided this would be a great spot. As there isn't a bathroom, we didn...

 Rating: 🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄 Through the trees is Desolation Lake. 4.3 miles. 2,188 ft. elevation gain. Not a great pic. Dates hiked: Sept. 26, 2020 and Sept. 26, 2015. Many, many years ago, Letizia, Rich Ramage, and I were searching for a hike to go on. The Alltrails App didn't exist. But, the internet did. So, we searched, and happened upon a website that talked about this hike starting at a "lonely, green gate". Ha! So, today I know this hike as the Lonely Green Gate hike, but truthfully it is the Beartrap Fork Trail. I gave it five stars or mountains with a sunset because I made it to the top again. This hike is short, but it is very steep.  We didn't plan to do this hike, but our original planned hike was blocked off. The fire in Neff's Canyon means that some hikes in Big Cottonwood Canyon are closed. The Green Gate was open, so we went for it. As we started up this hike, I tried to keep a level head. I didn't want to think I was doing so great on the hike and the...