Last Fourth of July, I went with Katie, Amy, and Kessia on a camping trip. Katie and Amy had done the same trip on their own the last year, so they already knew some good things about the spot. Basically, we camped on the summit of Mahogany Mountain, which is one of the foot mountains to Mount Timapanogos. Getting there was a bit of an adventure to start with. After travelling through American Fork Canyon, you have to go a number of miles on a really bad dirt road to get to the trailhead we were looking for. Luckily, Katie's Jeep made pretty simple work of it. That road would have completely killed a sedan like mine! Though the road was bad, the views were quite nice. We passed a decent-sized bank of snow left from the winter and saw where an avalanche had flattened a bunch of trees that year too. We also passed by several pretty wildflower fields.
At the trailhead, we all got our backpacks on and set out. The trail was pretty steep and challenging, in sections, but it was only two miles from where we started, so it wasn't too bad. There was a profusion of wildflowers in the area, more than I personally have ever seen in such concentration. It was a lot of fun getting to wander through so many different kinds. We saw quite a few sego lilies, some wild columbine in the wooded area, and plenty of lupine and various cornflowers in the fields among other flowers. It was quite fantastic.
Eventually, our marked trail petered out and Katie and Amy led us on to some bushwhacking. I had not expected that, and it was certainly out of my comfort zone, but I tentatively trusted them enough to follow. Eventually, we carefully made our way up to the rocky crown at the top of the mountain. I don't care for rock scrambles, but fortunately, we were able to find a pretty straightforward path through it before long. We got to the top only an hour or so before dusk, so we had to pitch camp pretty quickly and collect everything needed for dinner.
We'd pitched down the mountainside in an area more protected from the wind and elements, but we wanted to be at the very top where we could look at the valley while we ate dinner. Everyone had decided that we should read a patriotic story while we were up there, so I'd brought "Rip Van Winkle" along and read that aloud to everyone while Katie and Amy finished dinner prep. It was reasonably dark by the time we were all eating, so private firework displays were started up pretty well which we got to watch. A little later, the public displays got started. It was fun getting to admire the Thanksgiving Point fireworks as well as at least one in the Salt Lake Valley from afar. The best one from our perspective was definitely the PG fireworks simply because they were much closer to us. Private fireworks kept going up through it all too. It was pretty cool watching two different valleys lighting up in celebration.
Amy and Katie had been all secretive about a surprise for us after dinner, but we were too engrossed in watching the fireworks to notice too much what they were doing behind us, since Kessia and I were sitting a little farther down the mountain from the other two. So I was quite shocked when a little after dinner, Amy handed me a cold cup which ended up being filled with vanilla ice cream topped with strawberries and blueberries. Apparently, Amy had managed to get a decent-sized cooler with the ice cream in it into her backpack. It was fun to enjoy a surprising dessert at the top of a mountain!
While we watched the fireworks, we all sang a handful of patriotic songs, then talked about why we're grateful to live in this country. Toward the end of the night, we noticed that a private firework had managed to set a lower part of the shelf maybe five miles to our right on fire. Brush fires had been causing problems in the area around that time and helicopters had been dropping fire retardant on swaths of the mountains earlier in the season, so we were all somewhat worried that if they didn't get the fire under control quickly, we might have had poison rained down on our heads. Fortunately, the fire crews made pretty quick work of it.
That pretty much sums up the excitement of the first day. In the morning, we had breakfast, then broke camp. The hike down was quite a bit easier than the hike up overall, though we did have one ridge to climb on our way back. Kessia had brought her dog, Evie, along on the trip and so Evie was always running free along the sides of the trail near us on the way. At the top of the ridge, Kessia was behind me with Evie sniffing around the pretty bare crown. Suddenly, we could all hear rattling start up behind us. It turned out that Evie had managed to get much too close to a rattler that had been basking on the sunny crown of the hill. It had been probably about 10 feet off the trail itself, so it hadn't been disturbed by the first three of us passing, but Evie had gotten too close behind us. Kessia called Evie away and everything was fine, but afterwards Amy told us that she and Katie had seen a rattler in the same area the year before, so Amy had been praying all along the way that we'd all be protected from such dangers. As it turned out, we were protected, but it was still somewhat nerve-wracking in the moment!
I had a really great time enjoying the company of good friends and a beautiful area I'd never visited before. Though there were a few little scares along the way, it was a very memorable and worthwhile trip! I often think of it even now since you can easily see Mahogany Mountain from my school. In fact, from the top of the mountain, it was very easy for me to find my school. Every time I look up there, it brings back good memories.
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