Happy Birthday Landon! The great eight!

The evening before his birthday, we headed out on an overnight backpacking outing up Maple Canyon.

Some of the highlights of our evening included a beautiful hike up through the fall colors, a big bull moose walking on the trail next to our campsite, a delicious butternut dal bhat curry dinner, hot chocolate, Twix bars, and of course, playing with the fire.

In the morning, we got up at dawn, packed up, and headed back down the trail, almost tasting the German pancakes that we knew would be waiting for us at home.

A joyous birthday welcome home!

There it is!

The stair picture with the birthday boy.

The presents, one of which was a scavenger hunt that led Landon downstairs to discover…

…rats! Three of them. The girls were busy while we were gone camping, picking up the rats and getting everything set up.

Then we had some friends over for a party at Jaker’s, but we got rained out, so we had an impromptu party at our house.

One of the great things about being 8 is getting lots of Nerf guns.

Check out the haul!

On Sunday, we visited the Salt Lake Temple for Landon’s baptism pictures. It was so great to be able to walk around Temple Square again. They did such a great job with the grounds, and the temple looks great. Plus, look at this sharp-looking young man!

Happy Birthday Landon! We love you!

I hiked Lone Peak again, this time from the Cherry Canyon Logging Trail side. I got a nice and early start and enjoyed the Salt Lake Valley lights leading up to sunrise.

Outlaw Cabin

I love this section of the hike.

It leads up to this epic view of Lone Peak right through the window.

At the peak looking south into Utah Valley.

Looking north, dreaming of hiking Twin Peaks, and imagining how cool it would be to tackle the Cottonwood Traverse section of the WURL, from Twin Peaks to Mount Superior…

Well, a couple of weeks later, I decided to tackle Twin Peaks. It was another early start hiking in the dark. Here I am, looking up at the final push to the saddle.

Oh yeah, made it! Grabbing a selfie with Lone Peak in the background.

Such a great panoramic view of Salt Lake Valley and the canyons.

Looking to the south on the other side of Little Cottonwood Canyon, remembering hiking a good bit of that ridge two years ago on the Beat Out hike.

While at the top on the East Twin, I met Jake. He started at a different spot than me, but he was hiking the Cottonwood Traverse. I had aspirations to do it, but it wasn’t in the plans for the day. While he popped over to the West Twin, I continued back down to the saddle. But then I just kept imagining how cool it would be to do the Cottonwood Traverse. So, I chilled at the saddle for a while waiting for him to catch up, inventorying my supplies and mustering the courage to ask to join him. When he arrived, I asked him more about the rest of the hike and asked if I could join along in the adventure. His hiking buddy for the day had bailed out due to missing his alarm, so he was actually glad for the company on this difficult ridge scramble. So, I made a new friend and we set off on the expanded adventure.

It was slow going, and both mentally and physically demanding.

About 3/4 of the way, looking back where we’ve come. The Twin Peaks are the tallest and furthest mountains in this picture.

YES! We made it to the top of Mount Superior!

The final stretch was a long descent into Albion Basin, ending at the Alta Ski Resort.

What a day. Almost 13 hours, somewhere around 11 or 12 miles, and 7000+ feet of ascent. While on the ridge, we were getting about 1.5 hours per mile.

First day of school pictures!

Happy Birthday Eliza! 11 years old!

Kathryn arranged quite the epic birthday party for this special girl, including hiring a very talented teenager that could have a bright future in the nail salon business.

And making this incredible cake, complete with a very special squishy dumpling that required an early morning trip to 5 Below to acquire.

We love you Eliza. Happy Birthday!